Remembering 2011

As all the TV channels are showing of what all happened in India & rest of the world last year, I also got tempted to jot down what all happening happened with Singampallis :) I am listing them down and everybody is welcome to add to the list. I feel the last year had been very good for all of us, and I thank god for every thing!

So here we go...

-Lavi topping her 3rd year(actually this is not even a news this happens every year :) )

-Raghav's arrival

-Sarda attah's retirement

-Arjun's arrival

-Madhu's baby news

-Sumi's Job placement

-Laavi's job placement

-Kanth's promotion

-Sarda attah's Kavali home coming

-Kavali home AGAIN completely ours :)

-Visham babai bought house

-Krupa's promotion and job shift to E-bay

-Poonam & Krups shifting to their new house

-Sarda attahs new house purchase

-Vishnalayam work got over

-Ma completed 60 years!

-Mriduls MS completion

-Adi's successful culture trip

And last but not the least William & Kate got married! :)

Great Barrier Reef

Back in US, recovering from Jet Lag. I will post the whole trip details in a couple of days, but wanted to share my experience at the GBR, which merits its own lengthy post. There are NO PHOTOS. We were so focused on the incredible scenes around us that we did not stop to take pictures, the thought simply did not enter our mind. I will try to share similar photos / videos by others to give you a sense of what we had experienced.
Our trip to the GBR started from Cairns where we boarded a catamaran by Reef Magic Cruises. On board, the people from the cruise company shared the possibilities to explore the reef including Snorkeling and Scuba Diving. I signed up for both immediately.
http://www.reefmagiccruises.com/

For the uninitiated, Snorkeling is where you wear flippers, a face mask with goggles and a breathing tube, so that you can float over the water's surface and look into the water while breathing through your mouth.

For scuba diving, you wear an oxygen tank on your back and you are completely submerged under water, breathing through your mouth.

Now that the technicalities are explained, let us dive in (pardon the pun!!!!)

I cannot really find words to justify the experience. Amazing, incredible, awesome....somehow they fall short at describing the magnitude and magnificence of the coral reef and its marine life. A natural reef that can be seen from the outer space, the GBR is home to millions of different species. I was fortunate enough to get a glimpse of this living, breathing and growing organism filled with all possible colors one can imagine.

The catamaran took us about 60km into the ocean, to the outer reef. Here we changed into our wetsuits to get protection from the jelly fish, which could give you a nasty sting. Then we all donned our face masks, and Aditya and Srinivas joined the instructor for a guided snorkel tour( I will let Aditya share his experience in his own words). I took a detour to the scuba diving station to get fitted with my inflatable vest, oxygen tank and flippers. The instructor took a group of 4 of us to an underwater chamber to practice breathing through our mouth from the tank. After overcoming the initial panic of not being able to breath through my nose, I got used to the scuba tank. One of our party did not feel comfortable and left. After 10 minutes, the guide took the 3 of us into the ocean, where the rest started panicking....In 5 minutes, the guide pushed us back to the platform and said we were not ready for scuba diving :-( But even those 5-minutes were so thrilling that I have decided I will come back some time in my life and try it again. Here is a video of what the scuba dive would have looked like.

So anyways, I gave up on the scuba dive and went for the snorkel instead. The first trip was the guided snorkel in the protected lagoon area, where the water is about 30 feet deep. Here, an instructor will guide you around while you hang on to a life preserver. The scenery below the water was exquisite, with corals in the shapes of brains, balls, stag horns and many other shapes which I cannot name. I saw the large Wrasse (the big blue fish pictured above) and a big green sea turtle (crush), caught a moon jelly fish in my hand, saw an anemone with Clown fish inside, and countless types of fish such as parrot fish, blue tang, orange tang, banana fish to name a few. The corals were all sorts of colors, orange, green, purple.......It was a feast for the eyes.

This video is very close to our experience, as this was filmed in the enclosed area of reef magic.

Being a bit more adventurous ,I signed up for the adventure snorkel, that takes us out of the sheltered lagoon, into the open ocean for a 45-minute snorkel near the edge of the reef, where the huge drop-offs are and where giant schools of fish and sharks swim. A snorkel boat took us from the pontoon where our catamaran was moored and dropped us off in the middle of the ocean, from where it took us about 45 minutes to swim back to the pontoon.

This was even more incredible than the first one, where I got to experience those vistas one sees only on National Geographic or Animal Planet. There was a huge school of banana fish swimming in a long column, surrounded by larger tuna fish attempting to break the formation, and a shark swimming on the outer fringes. There were even more coral polyps in all different colors of the rainbow, large crevasses and deep gullies with giant mollusks that snap shut when touched, giant parrotfish staying absolutely still trying to lure prays, colonies of sea anemones with white and red clown fish darting in and out, a ray that was swimming lazily by....It was watching Finding Nemo in real life.....

Here are a couple of galleries of professional photographs that represent fairly accurately the pictures we might have taken, had we had an underwater camera and the time to think :-)

http://www.reefmagiccruises.com/gallery/?show=slide

http://www.habadive.com.au/reef-snorkelling.872.0.html

Finally, I am sooooooooooooooooooo glad amma and nanna sent me all the way to Vizag to get me swim lessons and Babai and pinni took time to take us to classes.............I would never have had this incredible opportunity if not for them!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SRMs diary

entries not added

11.14-8-1960 male child(svn)

12. stillborn male child(dont remember date)

Made Brandon's day

We were on a bus, going to Bondi beach. There was this kid sitting next to us. He is on vacation in Sydney. Was asking us where we were from. I told SFO. He was quite excited at meeting someone from US. Had lot of questions about McDonald's and Hollywood celebrities. Just before we were getting off, I gave him a few US coins.......his face lit up like a Christmas tree :-) I am sure I made his day.

Tirups trip

After many false starts, we made it to Tirups this Monday &Tuesday. Amma joined us from Hyd on Sunday. We drove down (round trip : 600 KM in 2 days). Raghav and I got our gundus done and he cried a lot. The barber could have handled it better. We also had some trouble with accommodation,  but Vijaya Pinni had asked Mr Ravi to help out and he found us a reasonable place to stay. The darsanam was good.

2 gundus

On the way back, we visited our old Tirups home...required a bit of hunting to find the place, but Amma persisted with gusto and tracked the place down. The lane looks so small now! The view of the mountain is gone (an apartment house is visible instead). Many of the trees were also gone. But it was still nice to see the old place.

More pics at: https://plus.google.com/photos/106282958929086778800/albums/5691580075011148561

Last day in Sydney

Spent time walking around Darling Harbor, doing some souvenir shopping. Bought a Opera House construction kit for Amma for bommala koluvu. Needs to be assembled and painted( no pain no gain)
http://woodcraftconstructionkit.com/wck-sydney-opera-house.html

PENDLI MUCHATLU-2

SRM’S MARRIAGE

The date and place of marriage is not known, but Grihapravesam at Kavali was on 5-9-1942.

Here are some details.

15 people traveled from Kavali to Nellore by train and then by bus to Tirupati.

Think marriage was held at Tiruchanoor, as was the custom.

Gold articles given to the bride:

Murugulu (bangles) 11varahas

Chamanthi billa 4 1/2 varahas

Ungaram 1varaha 9ginjalu

Vaddannam 44 varahas8ginjas

Chillara (miscellaneous) 2 ¼ varaha1ginja

Total 63 varahas 9ginjas

I think this comes to about 30 sovereigns (240 Gms)

The cost of 8grams of gold was Rs 33 8annas. i.e. each gram costed about Rs 4.

Silver articles given to the bridegroom: thulas (12 Gms)

Kancham (meals plate) 92-7-0

Chembu (vessel)(still used for varalakshmi vratam) 102-11-0

Ginne 18-7-0

Chutlu pillallu to be worn by the bride in legs 2-8-0

Total 218-1-0

Cost of each tulam was 0-14-0 ie each gram costed about 7 paisa.

List of some clothes purchased at Nellore

Pattu pachalu for the boy

Panchalu for fil

White sari

Big sari

Pattu pancha for dholipalla sundara ramiah

Small pattu pancha for bil ramiah

Silk blouse

Ordinary blouse

Jumper

Peddapuram silk pi pancha

Ordinary sari for grand mother

3Cotton panchala chapulu for fil

Cloth for coat

There is also a list of other cloths purchased at Kavali

Whole account was maintained by Dhoolipalla Bhramaramba paternal aunt of SRM

Platypus, Echidnas, Wallabies, Kangaroos, Sharks and Rays

Sydney aquarium and zoo. Off to Blue Mountains tomorrow and back in SF on 30th.

Going to philharmonic in the opera house tonight

Had to twist a couple of hands, viz that of Aditya and Srinivas.

Thank you Amma, nanna, gopal Babai and vijaya pinni

Why?
In Sydney today. Will post more later.

Good time with Kanthanna!!!!

All of us went to nellore to s2 multiplex and enjoyed watching 3D movie Don2.

We went to mamidi tota and BPS and had good fun. Here are some pics:

Me in the garden

Hi! I am Raghav and I like gardening. Here you can see my father and I are busy doing that.

I like gardening because there are pretty flowers. But mostly because I can pluck leaves, dig dirt and touch insects.

My mother is happy because she plucked some grass which she called dhaniya

But when I pluck grass, everyone starts saying NO NO

That is the problem with grownups! Always interfering with fun!

Congrats Mrudula Singampalli MSCS

Mruduls, congrats on graduation. Saw your call but roaming charges will be astronomical if I pick up the call. In Sydney airport now.
How was Seattle?

Off to Australia tonight!

First stop - Great barrier reef.

We will go to Melbourne from there, reaching on the day of India vs Australia test start.

Sydney from there to see some exotic animals like Platypus, Echidna and Wallaby.

Back to US on 30th.

Higgs Boson: Sci-Fi?

Recent experiments at CERN (if you don't know CERN, time to dust out your Angels and Demons book or DVD) have been positive towards proving that the Higgs Boson exists. All the hubbub made me curious about the Boson and I looked it up. The whole thing reads unbelievably like science fiction:

- The Standard model of particle physics says an invisible energy field pervades the whole of the universe
- The field was created because of the Big Bang
- As particles travel through the field, they experience drag, which manifests as the particle's mass
- So the field is the reason why particles and hence objects have mass
- More drag, more mass for the particle
- Now the problem is to prove the existence of this invisible field
- Wave particle duality means that every particle has wave form and vice versa
-  So for this field to, there must be a particle- find the particle, prove the field exists
- The Higgs Boson is that particle, which the whole physicist community seems to be chasing with great energy for some time
- The CERN accelerator recreate conditions of the Big Bang at a microscopic scale by colliding sub atomic particles at high energies
- They sift through the particle debris of the collision for evidence of the Higgs Boson

The last set of experiments apparently gently strengthen the possibility of the Boson's existence- but they do not prove anything...but everyone seems very happy.

The whole thing sounds like sci-fi to me! An invisible energy field that pervades the universe- doesn't sound like Ether, the favorite of 19th century physicists which was later debunked and replaced with vacuum?

If you dig deeper into the theory, there seem to be some more outlandish claims, which probably make sense in mathematical language, but not in reality.

Do they teach these theories in 11th class nowadays? Does it have any practical applications? Would be interesting to know.

Nanna Kavaali!

Nanna! where are you?

HBD SUMMI!!

Hi Divya! Many happy returns of the day.

Belated Happy Birthday Peddamma!!!!

Successfully completed a 300 piece puzzle in 4 hours

Never give up, never surrender!!!
( if you don't get the reference look up Galaxy quest in YouTube)
Now I just have to figure out how I can upload the picture I took with my iPad to blogger....

our own celebrities

sent by krupakar some time back.

Looks like Krupakar Mama!

I ordered a Wii Topspin game that came in the mail today. Aditya came to me super excitecd, saying "Amma, this guy looks like Krupakar Mama!!!!! For a second I though Krupakar mama is a famous tennis player."

http://www.gamespot.com/pages/image_viewer/boxshot.php?pid=605748

Virtues of berry trees

There are three trees in front of the house in Bangalore:

1. A young Tabebuia (tree that fills up with pink flowers, much like the Jacaranda) just flexing its floral muscles
2. An yet unidentified tree that grows slim and tall in front of the balcony (maybe seesham)
3. An unidentified berry tree, which the study windows  overlook

This AM, sipping tea, I sat at the study window, admiring the Sunday weather. It is my observation that the weather gods are kindest to Bangalore on Sundays. The miasmic air that pervades the city the rest of week is on curfew on Sundays and a bright but benign sunshine sashays forward. This morning was no exception. To quote Bertie misquoting Tennyson:

“In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove.”

A sunny winter Sunday in Bangalore competes well with a Spring morning of London any day. But this morning, some other lines from the same poem seemed to apply as well:

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;

 In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;

in the sense that birds were up and about as if they owned the place.

As I sat with the tea, I heard an unfamiliar bird call and looked up from the Hindu. On the berry tree outside, just two arm lengths away, was sitting a Common Iora, worrying at something, as birds do. This was the first time I saw this beaut in the layout, so an unexpected treat.

But this was just the beginning- I realized that the berry tree is a half way place to many a visiting pilot. So from the control tower I watched the following birds busily land, have a quick breakfast of berry & nectar and take off, all in the next 5 minutes:
The berry tree from the window:

A common Iora (all snaps beyond this are from the web):

A Loten's Sun Bird and mate, shining brilliant purple in the sunlight:

A purple-rumped sun bird & mate:

A Great Tit, with its delicate hues:

A lone Golden Oriole:

A Drongo:

And a Green Bee Eater did a fly past:

I also saw an unidentified Babbler (I think), across the road. Add to that list the fact that I saw a Greater Coucal earlier in the morning on the same tree, one realizes quickly how much life a berry tree supports. No wonder our elders revered the Banyan and Raavi (Peepal) trees- if the tree outside the study was a small town airstrip, these giants are like the International airports of the birding world (not to mention mammalian, reptilian and insect life)!

Kudos to the berry tree, and may more of these be planted than cut in Bangalore.

Book Report time - For Adi or for IS?

Hard at Work

Finished Product

TIGER!!

HALLO (WEENY) TIGER! HOW DO YOU DO?

Raghav

He loves the water

Cowboy getting ready for Texas

Australia Here We Come!!!!

I just booked a vacation for the 3 of us to go to Australia from Dec 20-30th......Now to plan......

Different cokes for different folks

Opinions on drinking coca cola:

Me: "I am addicted, damn it"

Poonam (scowl): "First you crib about getting fat- then you drink coke"

Amma (seeing me with coke): "........." (speechless with anger)

Kerala Govt: "Coca cola the villainous capitalist that is polluting groundwater. Get Out!"

Baba Ramdev: "Coca cola should be used as toilet cleaner"

Colleague: "At McDonalds yesterday, I told my boys that unless they promise to finish their coke, they won't get the happy meal. Usually they only have 30 ml or so.  Anyway, they finished it somehow and I was happy."  

It takes all kinds!

PELLI MUCHATLU 1

SVSR(sr) MARRAIGE

SLN(Sr)performed the upanayanam and marriage of his son Subbarao with Rangamma(think his niece and belongs to navaluri family) and his daughter Bhramarabas marriage with his menalludu ,Dhulipalla Sundara Ramaiah in May 1900 in Kavali in his own residence(The date on he invitation is 09-05-1900).SVSR(sr) was born in 1889. So he was 11 years old and Rangamma was 8 or so.Bhramaramba was his younger sister and must also be around8. she was beatiful, educated and highly intelligent.Sundara ramiah was older. there is an entry in the account book that he was sent to Narsaiah school on 10-3-1888(Sarva Dhari Samvathsara Adhlka Chaithra Sukla Dasami.)The famous incident of him jumping wih joy and saying "where will she go?she is mine."after the marriage was described earlier.

The invitation was addressed to Matukumalli Ramanaiah, don't know who he is.

Stanford Prison Experiment

In my random ramblings across the web, reading about the psychological explanations for ragging, I came across the Stanford Prison Experiment and Milgram Experiment. I was familiar with the Milgram experiment from our MBA leadership class used to help us understand the influence of authority but I learned about the Stanford experiment for the first time.

Here is what Dr.Zimbardo, the professor who ran the Stanford Prison Experiment says about the experiment.
"What happens when you put good people in an evil place? Does humanity win over evil, or does evil triumph? These are some of the questions we posed in this dramatic simulation of prison life conducted in the summer of 1971 at Stanford University.
How we went about testing these questions and what we found may astound you. Our planned two-week investigation into the psychology of prison life had to be ended prematurely after only six days because of what the situation was doing to the college students who participated. In only a few days, our guards became sadistic and our prisoners became depressed and showed signs of extreme stress. "

Here is the website for the program. http://www.prisonexp.org/ It is a fascinating read.

I admit I am no psychologist, however, I question one aspect of the experiment. Are the people truly "good people" or is there a self selection mechanism involved here?Are the volunteers already those predisposed to violence attracted by the word "prison experiment"? Is it the cause for police brutality, Abu Ghriab abuses and police encounters? And are those already depressed that sign up for more abuse?

We are making great strides in understanding human body, but we are woefully behind in understanding the brain and psychology. But how ethical are such experiments, even if performed on a voluteer basis, when the psychological implications are unpredictable? There are control mechanisms for drug trials, where unproven drugs are given when all other treatments fail. What are the control mechansims for these experiments?

Done with my shopping already!!!!

No need to wake up early, stay up late, or stand in line.
I got my luggage set, pea coat, a few winter clothes and a jacket for Adi, all online. They will be ready in the store to be picked up in a couple of days. I decided to pass on the cookwear set, and buy only the 2 pieces I need.

One thing I bought, and I really feel bad buying is a printer. I bought a printer last year for $50, and I have been using it all year. Now it is out of ink. Replacement ink for that printer costs $35, and a new printer costs $25. Imagining the resource wastage pains me....I might just cancel that order and buy the ink for $10 more.....

Past few weeks I have been trying my hand at baking bread at home, without all preservatives that go into store bought foods, with great success. I made yeast bread with milk which is slightly more dense and slightly more sweet that a typical store bread. Now Aditya and Srinivas are hooked on the homemade bread and want me to make it regularly. So I decided to buy the Zojirushi breadmaker, a Japanese brand one. The cost was down about $130 by buying today, to about $140, as this is somewhat an expensive appliance. But it is worth it to inhale that fresh baking bread fragrance and eat warm bread right out of the oven. Apparently it can also make homemade jam, so look forward to some culinary experiment posts from me.

COMING SOON !!!!!

Tales about mother

Tour diaries of Singampallis

Pelli muchatalu starting with SRM,some deails about pelli choopulu ,marriage details of svsr,sln, srn,dsk, sgk,svn

Some rare and interesting documents

Beauty and Beast

Beauty is the oranges, reds and yellows of the fall colors, brick houses and green lawns. Beast is biting cold and chilly rain. Beauty is hats, snow boots, jackets and gloves fashionistas on the street were wearing. Beast is hats, boots, jackets and gloves I had to wear. That is New York - Beauty and Beast.

Even though I stayed just 2-days, I can see why people love New York. Walking down Broadway, I could not help but get excited by the wonderful shops and displays. I bought a very nice pair of shoes from Aldos( open toed. The sales lady tried to cheer me up, saying "you can still use open toes shoes, see that picture, where the lady is wearing them with tights", until I told her I come from California, where I can wear open toed shoes year round, whence it was her turn to feel morose), spent time in Dean & Deluca tasting all the delicacies such as Strawberry Pannacotta and Raspberry Rugalach, walked into the Scholastic store and bought author signed copies of 39 clues for Aditya, forgetting the fact that I had only a small bag with me.... At the same time, I was exhaused from walking in my heels, wearing a heavy trench coat, a scarf, a beanie and a pair of gloves, all of which I had to remove as soon as I walked into a store since the heaters were blasting heat.

I had planned to visit Lower Manhattan on Thursday and go to Liberty Island etc, but being Masses Day of Occupy WallStreet, I had skipped that. So I was able to glimpse Lady Liberty only from a cab window on my way to Newark international airport, while chatting with my stereotypical cabbie from Dhaka who is studying mathematics in Queens college on the weekend, while driving a taxi during weekdays.

All in all a quick and busy trip that definitely whetted my appetite to go back and spend some time in New York....

Stuck in a hotel room in beautiful NY

I am on a one day trip to NY to meet a customer. I flew in from SF, leaving home at 4:30AM and reaching my hotel at 5:30PM. After responding to emails and eating a very late lunch, it's already 8PM and its cold and rainy outside. Being the Bay arean I am, I forgot to bring a hooded jacket, so I am just staying in the hotel room in Chinatown, which at $300 a night is worse than many $75 hotels I stayed at.... Tomorrow, after meeting the customer, I fly back to SF, reaching home at midnight.....grrrrrr Well, one thing I did see, in passing, is Flushing Meadows, the US open venue as well as the filming location for the ending of the movie Men In Black, with the two towers and the globe.

My maiden monochrome mural

I painted this one in mummy papa's room. Appreciate mummy's guts for allowing me to experiment on their nicely painted walls :)

http://psimagine.blogspot.com/2011/11/monochrome-mural.html

Need some fun in life.......

The wintry and rainy weather put an end to our weekend hikes and life has become a bit boring.... Any topics for a hot and steamy discussion??????

My Black Friday Battle Plans

The Day of/After Thanksgiving ( Typically the last week of Nov) kicks off the Christmas Holiday shopping frenzy. These 5 weeks make or break most retailers, so everyone is competing for the consumer dollars. The Friday after Thanksgiving is when most retailer's accounting books turn "black" ( as in profit, instead of "red" for loss, typically the rest of the year), so this day is called "Black Friday".

If you really need some things, this is the time to buy them, as most stores deeply discount certain popular products, some times below cost ( they are called "loss leaders") to bring you into their store.

I use this opportunity to buy certain household necessities and of course,  some unnecessities :-) One good thing is the return policy of most retailers, so if I get buyer's remorse the day after, I just return the products unopened for a full refund.

So, here is my planned list this year.
1) A pair of shoes,a pair of sandals and sleeping socks for Aditya
2) A heavy and a light jacket and  gloves for Aditya
3) A trench coat or pea coat and gloves for me
4) A set of luggage ( Our luggage was bought when airline allowance was 70lb instead of the 50lb now, so I need to buy a lighter set)
5) A cookwear set ( I generally buy inexpensive cookwear every two years to account for Nabeela's rough handling.....)
6) A rotating waffle maker
7) A router
8) A cable modem

On the unnecessities list is a Table Tennis / Pool table........

To give examples of price differences, a luggage set that sells for around $120 most of the year will sell for about $45 and the cookwear set that might normally run around $50 is sold for about $25.

Most stores open at crazy hours like midnight, 1AM, 4AM etc...and have these low cost items in very limited quantity, so I need to perfect my plan of attack and recruit some allies to divide and conquer.Unfortunately, Sudha is going to be in St.Louis, and Srinivas refuses to get in the game, so I am already starting the battle handicapped :-(

Odd Thomas

A book by Dean Koontz, Odd Thomas, was a gripping read after a long time. Odd Thomas is about a young man who can see ghosts and uses the ability to solve crimes and prevent disasters. This is the second book that I read in the last month, and both were in the domain of dark fantasy. The other book was American Gods by Neil Gaiman, which was also good, but too dark for my taste. Both authors have a strong command on the language, use similar styles of juxtaposing anecdotes with the  main plot line to build the main characters in the book and are good at similes & metaphors. It seems that good writers have decided to make a living out of surrealist and dark fantasy type of books, which is a pity. It is difficult to read such books after a time, as they get to be depressing.

Odd Thomas was good enough to for me try Dean Koontz once more...but it is hard to find good fiction nowadays.

Dangers of Too much National Geographic and Telugu TV

I recently started subscribing to more magazines to keep up with Aditya's reading needs. Right now, we get Tinkle, Tinkle Digest, National Geographic, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and Wired.

Of course, I read the artiles first and "sanitize" the magazines, but still enough information slips through for Aditya to make the following comment.

We recently subscribed to Telugu channels on TV in an effort to get Adi more exposure to Telugu. He was watching a movie, where couple of guys don the diguise of a cow. He was laughing when a drunk milkman tried to milk the fake cow etc. Then a bull in heat enters the scene and the fake cow starts running. So Adi asks me why the guys are running. I told him its because they are afraid the bull will chase them. His response, "oh, so the bull will try to mate with the fake cow?"!!!!!!!

Appa Naan - Aditya

Aditya's music teacher taught him a new Tamil song. Anyone who can translate? Nanna? Maadhav?

Lyrics:
Appa naan vendudhal kettarul puridhal vendum
Aaruyirkat-kellam naan anbu seyal vendum

Yeppaarum yeppadhamum yenganum naan sendren
Yendhai nina-dharut-pugazhai iyambidal vendum

Seppadha melnilai mel suttha siva maargam
Thigazhndh-onga arul jodhi seluthidal vendum

Thappedhu naan seiyinum neeye poruthal vendum
Thalaivaa ninai piriyaadha nilamaiyum venduvane

HBD

Happy birthday SRN and Manasa.

I ate all your Halloween Candy!!!

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/halloween-youtube-challenge/17wqbudlj?q=jimmy kimmel&rel=msn&from=en-us_msnhp&form=MSNRLL

Watch the end, it's hilarious!!!!

Fusion

Karthika Deepam inside Halloween pumpkin.

From Bangalore with love!

https://picasaweb.google.com/118410535114405744743/October242011?authkey=Gv1sRgCOyYj_n73-6r_QE#

Happy Birthday pinni!

Wish u many many more happy returns of the day padma pinni! :)

Yellowstone Videos

I finally got around to downloading the videos for the Yellowstone trip. Here they are. The thermal areas and wildlife are especially interesting.

Getting to Yellowstone:

Our Cabin:

Thermal Areas

Wildlife

Link to Original Yellowstone Post

Deepavali 2011@Jarvis Avenue

We had a good celebration with deepalu, poojalu, bhojanalu and tapasulu. Aditya and Arjun had fun. Unfortunately, I mistakenly deleted all videos which are now unrecoverable, so only pictures :-(

More pictures
https://picasaweb.google.com/100439682375564182182/Deepavali2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCKb9pbak9MbrHg&feat=directlink

The case of the inspired judge

When SRM retired he was having roaring practice. Usually doctors and lawyers peak after they are past 50.He said “there is no compulsory retirement for people like me. But I want to retire at 60”.Afterwards; he went away to ashram at ANGALA KUDURU to practice “detachment”, and that is another story.

The problem was to find a suitable man who can take over the practice to the satisfaction of all his cliente.M.V. Narayana caught his attention. He was self made man. A pleaders clerk, who did his B.L .Degree privately, and was working under Y.Janaki ramiah.The practice was handed over to him.SRMs judgment about the capacities of MVN were proved to be correct and all the clients were pleased with his knowledge and capacities.

MVN went on to become a leading lawyer, caught the attention of N.T. Rama Rao, who offered him M.L.A. ticket. He moved to high court and is practicing there. He wanted to repay his debt to his “guruvugaru” and proposed the unveiling of a portrait of SRM at bar of Kavali.Our story begins there.

Justice P.Venkata Rami Reddy garu was a student of J.B.He was the judge of Karnataka high court, A.P. high court, chief justice of Karnataka high court and judge of Supreme Court. He is now chair man, law commission.MVN invited justice PVR for the unveiling of the photo and he kindly agreed.

It was raining heavily that day. The function was held at Radhakrishna Kalalyana Mandapam, opposite Krupa Nursing Home. After the introductions by MVN, speeches by other colleagues and unveiling of SRMs portrait, SLN was asked to talk on behalf of the family.

An out line of the speech by SLN

I will talk about SRM not as a father but as a man. He is very shy and unassuming. He is very sincere in his profession. Treated clients with respect. We are used to see him working late into night when ever there was a case to be argued next day. He hated all sorts of strikes especially by lawyers.

Then justice PVR spoke. Important part of his speech

It gives me great pleasure to unveil the portrait Sri SRM. One thing most of you do not know is that he was our lawyer. When I finished my inter and waiting to join degree, there was a panchayat election related case of our family and SRM was our lawyer. I used to attend every adjournment.and was inspired by SRMs way of preparing, arguing. In a way he was the reason for me to choose this profession. His portrait here is a symbol of great values and it should inspire many generations.