Tai...

Today is 29th Dec and Tai (my grandmother) is in my thoughts as it was this day that she passed away. It has been a long time but some days you do not tend to forget irrespective of the passage of time. Every one called her "Tai" and my grandfather "Dada". The so called best days of life which usually are the childhood days were spent in their presence. My brother and I were lucky to have them live with us during those days. They nurtured a pretty big family I must say with 5 girls and a boy, which I still wonder how they managed to do during those days. I have a very hard time with just one.

But today I want to write about her. She was the go to person for me when both mom and dad were angry at my wrong doing. She would be the protective shield. She liked entertaining people all the time, no matter how big the crowd or how small the place. And for that, one has to be a very good cook which she was. She was also a cleanliness freak and also very detail oriented. She always had answers to our naive questions. She liked paan and ice cream quite a bit. She was always excited to take us out for ice cream once our final results were out. That was kind of a ritual for us. She used to be there with me when going to school, waiting for the school bus and was never afraid to give a piece of her mind to the driver if he was running a little late. She always said what was in her mind. She had a very good dressing sense with special nav-wari sarees for special occasions. She was like every other grandmother in the world, and then some more. That extra special quality that every grandmother has, to make her your grandmom :).

Winter has set in!

Winter has set in! It really seems like a whole season has gone by since I have written anything on my blog. I guess there is always a phase when you just don't feel like writing anything if you are a blogger. Well actually a season has really passed since I blogged last around Dassara. Diwali has come and gone, and along with it the taste of the faral and the sweets that were made during that festival. Our first Diwali, in our home, so it was special in a way. We did put up some lights and celebrated with fire crackers, played teen patti and managed not to lose a lot of money, was involved in organizing a Diwali event for the Utah Marathi Mandal which surprisingly turned out very well for the first time. Then we celebrated our birthdays, threw a party in a very nice banquet room which we managed to get due to one of our friends living there. Someday we plan to throw a party where the kids will get to enjoy more than us, that would have to mean, no alcohol and at a place like bouncing off the walls or the jungle jim's playland. The next day, my cousin and her husband visited us from India. It was really good to have them over for a few days, always feels nice when the house is filled up. We went to Moab for a couple of days as that was the warmest place within our reach. Moab is always fun, the downtown reminds me of Matheran and Mahabaleshwar for some reason, I don't know why.

I got myself the Canon Speedlite 430 EXII external flash as a birthday gift. I first used it during the birthday party and boy was it worth it. The external flash along with its powerful light, and bounce and tilt features make the photographs look so much better, got some really good captures. Then as I had promised my self a few years earlier that I would never go in the early morning to a thanksgiving sale, I somehow landed there at 4 in the morning, this after a party earlier which went pretty late into the night too. After that I have renewed my promise once again with the exception of online shopping. I always think that Cyber Monday and Pink Thursday after the Black Friday is kind of a lame concept. Why don't they make the black friday deals even better so that they don't have to deal with left overs?

Yesterday was a feel good day, why?, just because I watched Sehwag bat for 6 hrs and beat the s**t out of the so called lions. I do not remember seeing a more demoralized team than SL. It was sad that he could not reach 300, but I am pretty sure there are more of these special innings to come. He really does not get the praise and the attention he deserves and finally when Sambit Bal wrote on CricInfo, comparing him to Viv Richards, one of not so ardent fans of Richards commented from across the border saying "This is rubbish, only Hindu mentality can think like this.", to this I would like to say, thank god for the Hindu mentality and thank god for it was SL else you would have already killed the coach and called off the test. For now though, I am eagerly waiting for the team to be the #1 test team after tomorrow's result.