Past few days have been heart-crunching for me, to say the least. Especially, as you might know, passing away of Anna. Though he was suffering a lot for the past few months and could not respond even a tiny bit, I was glad he was alive lying on the bed with his eyes staring at me while I used to work from Mysore.

Anyway, to get to some details. He died on July 21st at about 12.45 pm just when the Thithi Oota of his mom's was getting over at my uncle's house (Madhu Kaka) which is on the same street. What a coincidence! In fact, Amma returned from Madhu Kaka's house at about 12.20 pm after doing Namaskara and getting Mantrakshate. She even placed some on Anna's head. She had the presence of mind to call 3 doctors as soon as she noticed him having difficulty in breathing. Of couse, it was all over by the time the first doctor arrived.

Well, Suma and kids reached US on July 20th at about 10 pm (7.30 am IST). We got the news July 21st at 4.30 am US time a few hours after their arrival. I immediately booked the flight and reached Mysore on 23rd afternoon by which time 12-day rituals had already begun. I joined on the 4th day. During these harrowing days, these so called great Acharyas discuss - or should I say argue - a lot about which ritual is correct and which is not. It is really fun to watch how deep they go and argue about small things.

Today Viji Mava, Nagendra and Tata's never-seen, only-known-to-Subodh-or-Vedu cousin came from Bangalore for Dharmodaka, a ritual performed on the 10th day.

Well, what do you know? This blog is NOT being used, actually :( Anyways, been off the blog for some time now, owing to work-related pressures. But, last month was fun in the sense that we had a wedding to attend. Normally, weddings in the family (however distant) happen in Bangalore so frequently that we hardly ever have to cook our own meals. But, this one was special, right? It was Guruprakash's (aka Prakash) wedding with Naganandini (aka Nandini, aka Nanz). We had been to the Var Pooja which was the day before the wedding in the evening. It was great to see all (or most of them) the cousins, nephews and nieces all dressed up. On the day of the wedding (which I took off from work), it wasn't as crowded as the day before, because it was a working day. Shammi and family (who had gone on a trip to Mangalore till then) made their first appearance at the wedding. Meeting Raghu (Shammi's cousin) and family was a pleasant surprise. Anu/Ramesh, Divya/Arvind, Prashant/Vani, Vedu/Pushpa, Vadiraj (no Anjana), Shubha (of course)/Prasanna, Neelima, Papu, Vidya, Nalini/Prakash, Vijayasimha/Malathi, the not-so-terrible twins, Sukruth, Shashank were the stars on stage. I'm, of course, modestly leaving out moi and family, Subodh & family and Sachin & family. You can view pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/swaroop.rao/Guruprakash_Wedding?authkey=su1JvZOiG1M