My Musings

Appa's Sraththam - 2010 Appa's Thithi is Aavani, Sukla, Dwadasi. This year (2010) appa's thithi came on Saturday, 21 August. This is the second sraththam we performed at Besantnagar house. Sraththam followed Varalakshmi Poojai, on the very next day. Hectic work, naturally. Vijaya and I purchased all the items  like grocery, vegetables, fruits, Vetrilai, pushpam, Vennai, and particularly Vazhai Ilai  from around Besantnagar. This time we could get the long variety of pudalangkaai from KPN. For Amma's sraththam, we couldn't get. I had ordered Vazhai Ilai from the beach-front cartwala who promptly delivered on the morning of sraththam. The Ilais were large sized and cheap. I and Vijaya cut all the vegetables by 8PM the previous day. We were all set. On 21st, we got up by 4-45 in the morning and Vijaya started work. Jayaraman, Kalyani, Purnima came by 6-30. Then Gayathri and later Sugavanam. Sruti was already in the house. This sraththam was "notable...

July 31st was the Varalakshmi Vratham and we celebrated it grandly. So did our other family members at their houses. At Delhi, Vasu and others celebrated it at Srikanth's place. Manni had been earlier admitted to hospital on 21 July, but she was improving and was, in fact, brought to the recovery room on Aug 1. On July 31, we didn't know what was to happen the next day. At 8-15PM on 1 Aug we got the first news that Manni was again taken to ICU because she developed some complications. Everyone rushed to the hospital to be near Manni. However, her multiple organs started collapsing, her end was near. I was in continuous telephone contact with the grief-stricken family. At 12-10 midnight, Srikanth phoned us the shocking news that Manni has passed away. He and others were inconsolable. They had lost their mother, their guide, beacon of their lives. We at Karpagam Avenue didn't sleep that night, Arvind-Krithika were very busy in booking our flight tickets and Vijaya, I, and...