Let’s see… what have I been upto?

There was an eye checkup camp in school and it was fun… the kids would not allow the doctor to peer into their eyes. As soon as the doctor comes near shining that light into their eyes, they either try to grab that light or they go close enough to bang him on his head. The doc kept muttering they are not focussing.

We celebrated Onam in school. The kids were asked to bring whatever flowers they could find near home and we all made a flower rangoli. We made payasam too and everybody drank a lot. There was this bottle filling competition, where a group of four teachers stand in a line and there is a bucket at one end and a bottle at the other end. The one near the bucket, scoops up water and passes it to the person near him and so on… the last person has to pour the water into the bottle. The group that fills the bottle first wins. That competition had everybody in splits… There were shouts all around like ‘Hold your water!’ ‘What is wrong with your hands, where did the water go!!!’

Went to this exhibiton/fair near Hindu College… and it brought back a horde of memories. Been to this fair with a lot of different people at different times. Been there with the girls anju and shil and bought keychains with our names and the huge spicy pappadam,went on the rides and screamed while being plummeted to the ground. Been there with the cousins from Coimbatore, Suno and Vino. It was funny, cause suno was badly shaken by his ride on the giant wheel, he was close to tears, poor thing. Been there with another cousin Preethi and there was this TV crew filming the fair, we tried avoiding them and dodging the lights and the cameras… but they caught up with us when we were strapped down in our rides. This time went with the girls nearby, Vidhya, Cheryl and Priyanka and seemed like somebody else in me was looking at everything… looking at everythin from a distance.

Been receiving nice surprises from friends. Zayeem rang up after a long long time… t’was nice to hear from him. Vasudha messages after nearly 3 months. And most surprising was abid’s offliner tellin me to post somethin on my contemplations page, it’s been long since he read something. Got Michelle to join Orkut and had a few interesting conversations with her brother Ryan bout Bratislava and Osama. Sudhir rang up too and it was fun reminiscing ’bout our days in Pune. Caught up with Vibha and Nitin too, on Orkut. The only thing both of them kept asking me was when I was coming there…. Oh yeah, and went to Shantama’s place, going that side always brings back memories… anyway, shil had sent my books back and she sent this one tattered book too, Crescent by Laurie Devine. It felt good to hold a book like that, one that has been enjoyed by God knows how many people and the places it must have travelled… and a past owner spilt some liquid on it, a few pages are darker coloured than the rest. Books like these are like relics … I have another book, The Magician by Raymond E Feist. Found it in some old trunk among a lot of junk. The cover looked interesting and the story at the back had all these fascinating words like alien invaders, rift in the fabric of space and time, orphan boy pug apprenticed to a master magician… anyway read the book and fell in love with it. Have read it many more times in the past and I carry it to places I dread going. Gave it to shil and she loved it too. I think the words of Gollum would describe it right ‘My Precious….’