An ode to our HERO!

My maternal grandpa 

We have a hero, we call him Thatha! I mean just look at that picture - so handsome, poised, rugged, dashing, suave, dapper.. Gosh I could go on and on! Point is he was such a good looking man! 
But more importantly, a very nice person. There are people in this world who make it a better place, by merely being in it. One such person was my maternal grandfather. This blog is just an ode, a small tribute to him for being the wonderful human being that he was! And excuse the number of photos : I did that on purpose, because you see my grandfather loved pictures and never missed a photo op :-) Enjoy viewing! 

My dear Thatha, 
It is exactly a week since you left us but honestly we feel your presence every time we are at Nest. Especially when I stand in the balcony amidst all the greenery - your most favorite place at home! 

And when I used to ask why you like to sit outside so much, you would say you wanted your daily dose of Vitamin D! Aah. Yes. You were such a health freak - right from taking daily walks for an hour, to eating healthy(soups n salads being your absolute favorites!), making sure you had your daily intake of green veggies, vitamins etc and so it angers me that somebody like you, who was so systematic, had to battle cancer. But what amazed me was your spirit and your strength to keep going on with life - you were such a fighter until the very end. I still remember speaking to you on the first day of your radiation treatment.. you said you were all dressed up to head to the clinic and you were very certain that you would over come the cancer. Now if that is not resilience, then what is, right? 

You were such a positive person - all of us have come to you with problems galore and you would just laugh it off. You always believed in us and kept us going. 

Because to you family meant everything. You loved it all : the get togethers, the food, the compulsory group photo sessions(much to others' annoyance!), the sibling bonding etc. 

New Years eve gang

Moorthy Mama's party, 2012

Of course, none of these would have been possible without Thathi's unending support. You were an amazing couple. She used to cook for tons of people although you guys would have a World War around whom to invite, what to make etc. But right until the very end, you were there for each other and were perfect! Glad you two are reunited in heaven now :) 

Wedding photo

Taken at my wedding, May 2011

Thathi's 75th birthday, June 2013

Family photo Take 1: Nov 2012

I must say that you got lucky because you have 4 daughters who absolutely doted on you both and got even luckier because you had 4 sons in law who took the best care of you right until the very end! Not everybody gets this lucky. And I'm sure they all did it because of the values you've instilled in them and the fact that you and Thathi set an example for them to follow. 

4 darlings! 

Mala

Anu

Bhuns and Maxie

Awesome foursome

SILS

For us grandkids though, our days with you and Thathi at Achala Vihar were easily the BEST! We always looked forward to visits there - you would patiently cut fruits for us(most of which Sneha used to hog!), and Thathi would make yummy food which we'd just gorge on. You'd spoil us silly by giving out money and then secretly call me to go buy potato chips from that Kerala Chips place in Annanagar! Haha, fun times those were! 
If I'm able to drive a car in any country today, its all because of you and I'll forever be grateful to you! You'd pick me up at 6 am every single day without fail in your white Maruti Omni and take me for a spin. And of course in return I would have to help you with bank work(draw cash, update passbook etc.). I also had to help you with sending emails to Moorthy Chitappa and RR Mama in the US- it was a pretty tough job, given the Shakespeare that you were, I had to ensure my emails were error free!

Vivek/Archna

Aishu 

Ashwin/Mittu

Snuggy

Ronnie

Sanju

Twins! 

 It was not just the immediate family that you cared about. You took a genuine interest in the well being of the extended family too, especially your siblings. You were a wonderful brother in every sense! You would call them almost everyday to inquire about their well being and to generally stay in touch. I will agree that all of us used to make so much fun of you for perennially talking on the phone; however today as I look back, I realize how much it meant to each one of them. All the emails, phone calls from across the world, the touching condolence messages.. they all proved what a popular and loved man you were! 

Bala mama

With Thanga Paati

Thiruvanmiyur Beach, Dec 2014

The youngest sibling :)

Birthday celebs

The siblings at Calicut

It was not just the siblings, you adored your nephews/nieces too :)

87th birthday party at Nest

Your interests were varied - right from reading up on World Wars to vegetable cutting, to Carnatic music and of course your love for playing the Mridangam! To perform an Arangetram at the "young" age of 75 was no mean feat and it was such a proud moment for all of us!! 

Best friends

His most fave. Umayalpuram and Anuradha Sriram

I would fail if I don't mention your generosity and helping tendencies especially when it came to the needy - the poor watchman, maids, the iron fellow, the ladies who clean the building.. they all literally adored you simply because you tipped them randomly, gave so generously during festivals and never failed to smile or greet them on your daily walks. No surprise then that so many of them came to pay their last respects to you. 

I always dreaded the day that would bring the news of your death; strangely though, on the 1st Nov 2016 when I heard, I felt peaceful and happy. Happy that you passed away peacefully without any struggle.  

My dear Thatha, you will live on in our hearts and minds and you will continue to be a HUGE part of my life, wherever I am, because a part of you resides deep inside my heart. You’ve left us with your footprints to follow and your legacy to live up to. Rest in peace, Thatha! We love you! 

PS : I will admit to have stolen some photos from different sources, you know who you are - thank you for the memories :-) 

Family Photo Take 2: July 2015

Busy bee

I've missed this space so much. But life has been keeping me way too busy this past month and a half. To start with, in the end of July I interviewed with a company for an HR position and to my absolute delight, I got the job. It is a start up so the company culture is still evolving. But I've finished more than a month now. I'm slowly settling in. Work is very exciting no doubt but very very demanding as well. Since most employees come only in the night shift, I tend to get pulled into lots of last minute meetings. But as a rule, I leave work by 7 pm. Which means I get home by 7:45 pm. Which means I need to semi cook dinner in the morning. Which means lots of planning. Which means grocery and vegetable shopping over the weekends. Which means no breathing space. Sigh. This is the busiest I've been in a long long time. Its too early to tell but so far all well. The people at work are nice. Lots of youngsters. And oh I have a boy to assist me with recruitment and interviews. Very cool stuff! :) Wish me luck and send some good wishes my way.

Before I started work, the end of July, K's friends and the families took a small road trip to Yelagiri, a nearby hill station which has absolutely nothing to do :) It's that sort of place where you just drive and drive and just chill. K of course took some lovely pictures and freaked out! It was good fun to watch each other getting drunk, chatting, eating junk and just catching up on each other's lives. Good times!

August was chugging along nicely until she threw me a nasty surprise. I lost my dear grandmother,Thathi. It was a rude shock and one that I've barely come to terms with. It all happened all too suddenly. That's another reason why I've not been able to blog. Weekends have been busy with rituals and planning for the upcoming week.

Sneha and Deepak celebrated their 1st wedding anniversary on the 27th! They were holidaying in Goa and a few of us decided to surprise them. So we sent them flowers with a small note. There were overjoyed. Little pleasures of life :) I wish them many more years of togetherness, laughter and everlasting love! Congratulations both of you :)

Ok I wish I could keep writing. It keeps me so relaxed. But I gtg now! Need to get my beauty sleep. Off I go. Until my next post.. Stay well dearies.

To the bestest paal paysam maker ever! RIP Thathi =(

My dearest Thathi,

I've opened this page a 100 times and I'm unable to write anything sensible. Too many emotions running through me. All I want to say is that you've left behind such a big void, its going to be very very difficult for someone to fill in your shoes. I'm so relieved you had such a peaceful end.. no hospital visits, no doctors.. nothing. A person like you deserved an end like that. You made so many people happy.. you were so generous with money, you fed a zillion hungry people(including me!) and you were so full of life. No wonder then so many people mourned along with the rest of us. It was very painful to watch Thatha crying the day you left us. He was, like the rest of us, in a state of extreme shock. He doubts he will ever be able to cope with your loss. And I agree. Because you spent all your life looking after him and feeding him all his favorite delicacies. Apart from running the house, taking care of your 4 precious daughters, and of course being a loving grandmother to all of us brats! We have the bestest of memories at Achala Vihar!! Growing up with you & Thatha was so amazing. You gave us so much freedom. I remember we hated leaving you guys and going home with our respective parents. I am happy that we recently celebrated your 76th birthday with a grand dinner with all your favorite people around. Just how you like it!

I'll remember that smiling face of yours forever. But visits to the Nest won't ever be the same again. We miss you tons. That's an understatement. Wherever you are, I hope you are in safe hands. And yes I more than hope you keep that smile alive :-) Thanks Thathi. For your unending help and support through the years. Rest in peace. Love, Aishu

PS I really tried writing more. Too many clouded thoughts. Sorry. 

A great weekend and a restaurant review!

Hi guys,
I do know it has been a while since I posted anything nice, cheery and fun in here. What to do? Life's kinda been that way :( Oh well. No more brooding. This past weekend was a good and fun one! What did we do?
Friday night K called from work and said he was going to bring back dinner from one of our most favorite joints in Besant Nagar. Its not the kinda place you sit down and eat. Its a seedy, shady joint that serves yummylicious food. So naturally I was only too happy to oblige because it meant no cooking and it also meant eating great food in the luxury of your own house. Saturday was another good day - well for the most part we just stayed home. Woke up late, did a lazy breakfast and cooked lunch, cleaned etc. And then met Krish & Sethu for dinner at Chap Chay(one of the main reasons for the post). Well what can I say? It's a pleasure to review the restaurant.
Chap Chay is a new restaurant at Raintree, St. Mary's Road. The cuisine is Pan Asian - notice I didn't say Chinese. That is because its got flavors from China, Japan, Thailand etc. And I must say we all came out very impressed. The decor was nice, simple. Thank God there was no Buddha, at least I didn't see one! The place reminded me of a restaurant in St. Louis that I used to frequent - Stir Crazy (Remember I wrote about it here?). Basically, you choose your own veggies/meat, they have about 16 different types of sauces, choice of noodles or rice and the food gets cooked right in front of you. It was such a lovely sight to see the different colored fresh vegetables - broccoli, carrot, snow peas, red/yellow/green peppers, corn, lotus stem, water chestnuts.. I could go on & on. Some of the sauces were black pepper, chilli garlic(what I picked), Thai Basil(all hot ones) and some not so spicy ones such as Kung Pao, Hunan etc. My recommendation would be to take small portions of veggies and mix up one or two sauces and keep trying various combinations because it is unlimited. The mistake we did was to fill our bowls with all sorts of veggies and took just one sauce and by the time I finished my bowl I was completely stuffed and had no room for more. So be smart and have fun experimenting. Also, don't bother with starters of any sort - they just fill you up. We tried Dimsums(give it a miss) & Honey Glazed Vegetables(which was very nice). For dessert, the 4 of us dug into one plate of yummy fried ice cream!! The flavor was darn delicious. Service was very good. Priced at 650INR per person for the main course alone. Will we go back? Of course we will. But will be smarter next time around :-) We enjoyed and relaxed with drinks, good food & laughter. Overall an ideal way to spend Saturday night. Do give Chap Chay a try, I assure you won't be disappointed.
Sunday was another super busy day. We were spending the day with K's colleagues at Shilpa's house. Her folks had gone out of town and had invited a few of us over for drinks and lunch. She was a lovely hostess - her cook had made yummy egg pakodas, paneer pakodas, grilled chicken, masala peanuts, we had taken along some chips, juice, chocolate milk shake.. Sigh. As you can see, I was feasting! The afternoon was great fun. Mathangi & Michael are expecting a baby in May and were obviously the centre of attention - We discussed baby names, their maternity classes, heard all their work stories and kept laughing till our stomachs hurt! A great afternoon indeed. Post lunch, I was heading to see Ammai and my parents. Played carrom, cards and badminton with Vishal, Ammai and my mom. Very relaxing :-) I got home around 7:30 in the evening and was going to clean up and prep for Monday morning when Mathangi called to say she and Michael were going to Velacity for dinner and if we wanted to join them. K and I said ok and we got picked up, went to Tadka Talk in Velacity. To Michael's biggest disappointment, the place was vegetarian. Haha. Mathangi and I enjoyed the paneer tikka and mushroom soup. But we couldn't bear to see Mike's sad face. So we told him we will go to another place just for the main course. At 9:30 pm in the restaurant we were discussing where to go. Haha. That's how funny it was. Finally, we didn't have too much choice but to head over to Snow's Park in Velachery(an old haunt of mine and K's). Decent food, saaaddd ambience but fast service! Lol. So we went there, had garlic naans, dal tadka and of course Micheal ordered some Chicken Tikka and was happy :) By the time we reached home it was around 11:30! Needless to say, K and I crashed. Longgg day. But awesome weekend after a longgg time. Sooo worth every minute of it. K and I are heading to Pune this Thursday, so more updates on this space next week. Keep up with it, I promise some lovely pictures from Pune city :) Tata! 

Dear Thatha...

My paternal grandfather

When I heard the news on the 2nd January that you have been taken to the hospital due to chest pain, I wasn't majorly worried. Deep in my heart I knew that you would somehow make it back home like you always have in the past. Little did I know you were tired of fighting...
On the last day(19th of January) when I saw you at the hospital, you couldn't speak, you had absolutely no energy... yet you were smiling, you solved complex math problems and watched cricket. A funny incident comes to my mind as I think back to that day at the hospital..I remember there was a door mat outside the bathroom which wasn't kept properly. You called me, kept pointing that way and I could not for the life of me understand what you were trying to convey. Ammai came to my rescue and said "He wants us to put it in its proper place". And you know,that did not surprise me. You were always a very very systematic and organized person. You kept cleaning up after folks at home, you arranged and rearranged book shelves, you ate your meals at the correct times, you rarely ate out, you never missed your evening walks at the beach.. Gosh I could go on and on. You probably inherited this from your mother(Paati).. you were such a good son to her.

The evergreen couple

You were also a very caring husband... The day of your funeral, the 21st of January also happened to be your wedding anniversary. I am most worried about Ammai. You were so protective of her, you literally held her hand through all these years and she looks so lost without you. I'm afraid she will never be the same person in your absence. But I am glad that she has sons and daughters in law to look after her. They all looked up to you so much and are all hurting inside because you were a very loving father. Proud of all 4 of them too. I'm glad they have inherited good qualities from you.

Brothers! 

Daughters in law! 

As for me, I knew you best as a fun loving grandfather. I couldn't have asked for someone better. I've lived with you as a baby, I've lived with you as a school going kid and I lived with you again while I worked 2 years ago. Things were the same.. You would knock on the door, wake me up, scold me(very gently!) about waking up late, ask me to bathe and pray and get on with my day... I loved all the pampering even as a 25 year old ;-) You had unbelievable patience Thatha.. Nobody could have taught me math/accounts problems as patiently as you did! You were so active till the end.. You wanted to learn how to email, you wanted a Facebook account, you kept wanting to learn and that is so amazing!! Kudos to you.

Happy Days

 I'm happy for you in a lot of ways...thanks to your children, you could visit other countries.. I shall cherish all the lovely memories of our US trip, you had a grand 80th birthday, you took an active part at my wedding(I will always remember how you fished out a suit at the last minute to wear at my reception since it was part of our dress code, such a sport you were!), you witnessed Vishal's poonal function so proudly and most importantly did not suffer too much in your last days. It felt very strange being in your room last night. I could sense your presence all around.. your cell phone, your glasses, everything reminded me of you.. I know you're always going to be around in spirit to guide us. I know you were tired of fighting to live and that's perfectly ok. I'm happy you're in a much happier place. Sleep well dearest Thatha. Love you very much and thanks for all that you've done for us.
Aishu
PS Leaving you with a few family pictures :) 

My going away party, August 2006

He loved family get togethers as is evident from his big smile - 2007 

With a very goofy Thatha at the Niagara :) - May 2008

At the temple in our hometown in Palakkad, Kerala. A trip which I missed out on - Aug 2010

A big gang at Vishal's Poonal function - June 2011