Priceless Moment...

As I have grown into a toddler with an ever-growing tail, it is becoming increasingly difficult to write to all my lifetime fans. My reader base has increased by 100% over the past week. It was 1 last week and now it is 2J.

After a lot of thought, I have decided to write for a friend whom I hardly remember nowadays. Bang! You are right, am talking about Mr. Vivek, my father. Let me start with a revelation. . For all those who think that he did not have time for me, well the reality is that I was too busy in my wonderful world of eating, sleeping and of course playing that I hardly miss him. So, please don't feel guilty dad. ;)

Well for today, I just thought of diving into my father's mind to figure out what special feelings he has towards me. While am famous for lot of cute stunts, I wanted to check out what this enigmatic man thinks about me. I was especially interested in finding out what was that one moment that he treasured the most.

Going through the labyrinth of many worthless and few wonderful memories, I found one not so special incident has indeed left an indelible mark in his mind. For a moment, I was proud of my father and thought of sharing this with all my readers.

It was one of those rare Saturday afternoons when my father was at home. Bhuvana akka had come the same day and hence I was engrossed playing (should I tell fighting) with her.  In spite of not being a great fan of toys, am not too keen in sharing my toys with Bhuvana akka. However, that Saturday was drastically different. Unlike the usual routine where I wouldn't let her touch my toys, I was happy to share them with her. I indeed gave her my favorite building blocks and watched her construct a wonderful house. Totally delighted, my father hugged and kissed me. 

Am sure many would agree with me that this is not an extraordinary event to be tagged as a treasured moment. What puzzled me more was that, even now, the vivid memories of this incident brings an unusual sense of joy on my father’s face. Only after deeper inspection did I realized that my rare exhibition of joyously sharing my things with others has made him tag that moment as a treasured one.

Two things are quite certain.  One, this priceless moment as tagged by my father is going to have a profound impact in my outlook towards life. Two, my father can be rest assured that "Giving & helping" is my innate nature and there are many more such incidents waiting in store for him....

Good lord, I have written too much for today.  Before I sign off, it would like to admit for a change, am indeed missing you. Looking forward to meet you!

Height of overconfidence ...

It was a wonderful weekend which culminated with stroll in the Anna Tower Park on Sunday evening. My schedule does not change much between a week day and weekend except that I get to spend more time with my lovely mother….

What made the weekend even more special is that I was thrilled to see my Chittapa taking baby steps towards starting his own academy for dental students. Given that he is sharp and smart (unlike my father) am sure he's going places. Congrats Chittapa and all the best for your endeavors.

To what was an already near perfect weekend, my father's overconfident blunder only served as an icing on the cake. I could not resist sharing it with everyone. After spending a wonderful day at my girlfriend’s place (wondering who??? of course I meant Achu. I'm already unhappy that my father gets to spends more time with her than me. ), he decided to leave. His plan was to go to office, finish of unending list of tasks and then go home.

So, my highly respected Mani mama, my all-time favorite Rajee Athai and he started from Gants Hill and got into the tube. Once into the tube, my father informed Mani mama of his plan to get down to get down at Stratford and catch the jubilee line to Victoria. With a queer face, Mani mama told that he is doubtful if jubilee line would not go to Victoria. My father without a trace of doubt gave a silly look to Mani mama and was wondering as how Mani mama managed to be there in London without knowing this.

On reaching Stratford, the lovely couple and my father parted ways. My father got into the Jubilee Line with the hope that he is all set to go to Victoria. In spite of sitting comfortably right in front of the tub map, his over confident mind blinded him looking into the mistake he is about to commit. It was only after reaching waterloo did he realize that the tube does not go to the Victoria. Cursing his over confidence, he evaluated his options and decided to get down  at Westminster to catch the district line to Victoria. In spite of the blunder, he was momentarily proud of his ability to recast his plan quickly only to realize that the district line was closed for planned tube upgrade.


Given the very limited options he had, he walked from Westminster to Victoria pondering as whether he would improve at all.   Given my father's track record, I'm not too optimistic of him changing overnight. I only hope that my father proves me wrong. While the whole incident is innocuous, what I want to highlight is how overconfident he is on many an occasion.  Signing off,

PS : By the by, dad, just in case you did not realize, my lovely fans have named you "A.K" just for this....

 

Miles to go before I sleep….

Rajee Athai,

This is your favorite Surya scribbling my first letter to you. It has been more than a year ever since I announced my grand arrival as a wonderful son to my intellectual mother and my lazy father. Since then, I have been thinking about penning a letter to you. However, my busy schedule of eating, sleeping, dreaming and above all playing did not allow me to do so. Today, as I was showing off the beautiful dress you got me, I realized that there cannot be a better occasion to write this letter.

Let me start by revealing a small secret about Appa. Whenever I address you as Athai, he is not quite comfortable about that. It took me a while to find out the reason. By calling you Athai, am implying that you are his sister and he does not like that at all. Poor AppaJ.

Am sure you are wondering as why I am writing this letter to you. Isn’t it? Well let me start it this way. There have been multiple occasions where Appa has been very lucky. The best example is that of him getting married to Mom.  I can’t imagine the disaster if he had married anyone else. Can you?

Another instance where he has been quiet lucky is his friendship with you. And this letter is not to discuss about how much he treasures that. It is more about the profound impact you have upon me. Ever since I was born, hardly has a day passed without my parents thinking about you. I even started wondering if I need to compete with you to gain their attentionJ.

My father to a very great extent had the privilege of having a very inspiring person as his friend, I had the pleasure of hearing about your mental strength and your amazing attitude towards life every day. Thanks Athai to be my father’s friend. We truly enjoy and relish your company.

While I wish to write a novel about your accomplishments and how you have inspire me, my busy schedule of eat, play and sleep would not let me do that. So, I decided to put it simple. What Jessica Ennis is for Great Britain, Rajee Athai is for us. We love you for what you are, what you have accomplished and all the great things you are going to do in the future.

Few things are etched too deep in one’s mind .I have scribbled down one such verse. The best thing about this verse is it reminds me about you every time I read …

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Signing off with Loads of Luv,

Surya Mohana Vivek

Happy Birthday Mom...

Amma,

 Of late, I have been watching a quite a few Bloopers. They, apparently, are more entertaining than the actual show. What I have scribbled below is a hilarious, but true rendition of sequence of events and goof ups Appa did while planning your birthday. The only difference though, is you are reading the blooper first and then seeing the actual product. It goes without saying that you are the most my world. So, even a smirk on your face after reading this would only reinforce the truth behind the statement "Ek Idea Mera Dhuniya Bhadal jayangae".  So, please smile after reading this J

It all started like this.

I was anticipating a great birthday for you and was checking with Appa as what his plan is. As always, Mr. Vivek (yeah yeah, Appa only) was lazy and was looking for an avenue to escape. His physical unavailability here in India only helped his cause. I was not convinced and prodded him to come with a plan.  After lot of thought, he came out with the idea to buy a Samsung Galaxy S2 for you and then claim that he has fulfilled your wish. This is what I would classify as the dumbest idea I have ever heard. Sorry to say mom, he has such a poor his imagination. Thank lord, am like you.... J

As you have told, every challenge is an opportunity in disguise. Appa's dull plan just served that purpose if not anything else J . It quickly dawned upon me that there cannot be a better day than your Birthday to tell you as how much we love you.  And I was very sure that we could express in much better way than just getting a Android Phone (It is not even a windows phone... )

I, for once other, took responsibility and donned the hat of an event manager with the goal to make this birthday the most unforgettable one till now. Right after becoming a self-proclaimed event manage, I realized that I needed a partner to execute this plan. I, immediately, struck a secret alliance with Chittappa as I knew he was equally keen to make this moment big. (Everyone other than Appa are more keep on your birthday  J ) While Appa was busy watching the Olympic ceremony, Chittapa and I had marathon discussions and etched, what we called the "Surya's super cool plan". As always Chittappa was very generous and named the plan after me. Thanks Chittappa.

Casual Conversations can at times trigger great ideas. It is no different here. I was telling Chittappa as how much you are interested in creating a diary for me, marking all important events of my life and how disinterested Appa is about that. As I was telling this, an idea struck Chittappa's brilliant mind as why we should not capture the best moments ever since I became the cynosure of your eyes and make a personal album of it. It was this personal touch that was missing in Vivek’ s so called master plan.

With the high-level plan in place, we quickly identified that the first thing we needed to garner is a collection of your photos. Chittappa attempt to grab your photos from Appa was futile. We weren't overly surprised :). I exactly knew whom to rope in to get going. Who else other than my all-time favorite Chitti would be more interested your birthday????? So the GOT (Gang of Three) team got into act again and came out with this album which we think capture the 12 most best of your life

I have posted the poster  at http://sdrv.ms/Ndem6s . While I took the pleasure of designing the poster, Chitti and Chittappa designed the album.

I hope you liked the poster. However did you try opening the album Mom? Ah Ah .. Too early! 

Let’s have the starting ceremony before viewing the actual gift. So, here we go. Please go and collect your first gift from Chittappa and then continue reading..... Yeah, we did not want Appa to feel miserable about his hopeless plan. We decided to have it as the starter. Chittappa, being one of the 2 partners in crime, forged Appa’s signature in one of the cheque leaves to withdraw money for the mobile. Chittappa, has mastered the art so well that I would not be surprised if the bank starts rejecting those cheques which are actually signed by Appa. :)

You should have figured out the password for the album by now. Haven't you? So let’s open the album together and view what's in store.

Hope you liked what we presented to you. Just before I sign off, I wanted to tell that the master mind behind this plan is...... I know what you are thinking but you are wrong.... it is of course me J

Loads of Luv,

Surya

Time to Christine me...

It has been 5 days since I announced my arrival to this beautiful world. For the past 37 weeks, I was was snuggling in my mother's womb and thoroughly enjoying her warmth. What a fantastic lady she is. She did whatever it took to ensure I was happy and safe in there.

Well, now with my grand arrival to this world, I have tasked my parents to decide as how the world should call me. While one's name has no connection whatsoever with who he actually is and I would not associate undue importance to it, hunting for a name is fun and my parents would definitely enjoy doing that. Myself, my parents and all our well wishers unanimously agreed that I should have a tamil name. Somewhere in the middle of this name hunt, we found that Sachin Tendulkar was named by his father as a tribute to the great musician, Sachdev Burman and we decided to follow suit. My father, hence was tasked to find some great personalities who have truely touched and transformed the life of millions of people.

My father, for once, took this seriously zeroed in on two personalities. One was Dr G.Venkatasamy, founder of Aravind Eye Hospital who with his will power and urge to transform lives of people did over one hundred thousand cataract surgeries inspite of his fingers being affected badly due to a rare disease. His creation, Aravind Eye Hospital, today stands as a testimonial of how a single man can change the way of life for lakhs of poor people in rural India. 

If Dr V did a revolution in the medical space, the second person, M.S. Swaminathan, had even more wider impact across the country. Known as the "Father of  green revolution in India", he is in a sense responsible for every morsel of rice we eat today. While the greatest tribute to them would be to live a worthy life like theirs, I would feel proud to share the names of great personalities who definitely live\lived   "larger than life".

While my father is continuing his hunt, I' looking forward to hear your suggestions. Please leave a comment behind with a name which you think would befit our line of thinking.

Luv you all....