Jayaraman is born

 This is a letter written by my maternal grandfather to my paternal grandfather. The letter is dated 2nd March 1948 and is translated as under:
"Namaskar. Yesterday evening at 7.05 P.M Sow Visalam (my mom) delivered a male child. The delivery was normal. However Sow.Visalam had a lot of pain and hence a midwife stayed for the night. A doctor from Tirukkattupalli had visited her the previous day. Mother and son are fine. The nakshatram is Swathi.
Soni and Appulingam are doing well (my sister and brother). Hope children are fine over there and studying well.
P.S I will be coming over to Chennai on 6th March, but will be spending the whole day with Swamigal and leave on 7th March"
Points to be noted:
1. The letter is written on a 1/2 anna postcard. (1/2 anna = 6 paise)
2. The letter reached my grandfather on 4th and he posted a letter to my dad who was in Hyderabad. The system those days demanded that communication is only between elders.
3. While my birthsatr is mentioned as Swathi, it got changed by pundits to Anusham later

THESE DAYS THE HUSBAND IS INVARIABLY WITH THE WIFE DURING DELIVERY

Ashwin thatha's flashbacks

It is now more than two years since I blogged. The last was after our European holiday. My daughter tells me that I need to blog to give the grandchildren an opportunity to know me better.
I am starting these blogs, which will all be a flashback on my childhood, school/ college life, right up to my grandpa days. I will keep boring, in no particulate order.
This photo is a shot taken in Yelagiri to give Ash and Div a better view of the pongal celebration by the locals.
Looking forward to more sharing of flashbacks

SACHIN's Century of Centuries

Sachin now has 99 centuries in ODIs and Tests put together. The nearest second is less than 75.

Let us all join hands and wish the great man to achieve his century of centuries against the world's best team Australia at Ahmedabad on 23rd.

சச்சின்

No quarter-final role for umpire Asoka de Silva

No quarter-final role for umpire Asoka de Silva

In the match between Canada and Pakistan, there were 5 decisions made by Daryl Harper, which were referred to the third umpire by both Canada and Pakistan.
Astonishingly there were 5 reversals. This did not get blown up in the media. Nor has he been penalised like Asoka de Silva.

Wonder why

Day 12 pictures

Day 12- London

We had requested Vivek, to come at his leisure and take us to any convenient sight seeing locations. Vivek came around 1030 AM. Manav was with him. We decided to go to Windsor Castle.
The drive to Windsor castle took around an hour. We had a good look at the country side on the way. There is a lake close to the car park, where ducks were in abundance. It was a great view on the Windsor lake.
The walk to the castle was just about 5 minutes. The castle was breathtaking. The surrounding areas were exceptionally clean. We paid around 15 pounds per head to enter the castle. The arrangements for ticket issues, etc., were well taken care of, in the sense that there were personnel to ask you what you wanted to see and direct you to the appropriate counters.
As in all big palaces and castles, the sight of the living rooms, drawing rooms, bedrooms etc were exceptionally huge with extremely rich looking furniture's.
There was a group of school children, being taken around, presumably with their teachers. The questions they were asking the personnel manning the castle viz How often does the queen visit the palace, when did she come last, which was the chair occupied by Prince Charles in the dining table etc., made one proudly look at the kids generation.
There is a doll room attached. where clothes worn by the royal family during various ages, with the name and address of the manufacturers were on display. Proud advertising for the manufacturers. Photographs of the royal family at various ages and occasions were very well displayed. This included the young days of Prince Charles, his school and college days, days spent with Late Princess Diana, marriage with the new princess, the children of the Prince etc., It was a splendid display.
We had a good tour outside. Here also, we saw the typical British guards. The way they move around every 20 minutes, catches the attention of one and all. We filled up a questionnaire and got 3 free passes for the next visit, which we gave to Vivek.
We exchanged our Euro for Pounds at a local bank. Had lunch at Mac, courtesy Vivek. Had a wonderful half an hour at the lake, feeding the ducks and enjoying Manav's reactions whenever he had ducks jumping at him for the feed.
We returned to the hotel at 1730. We decided to have dinner on our own, and requested Vivek not to pick us up for dinner, Saw a Euro cup soccer match on TV and went to sleep.