Bathing Ganapathy in milk and honey

Mom said Nikhil/Sidharth could give Ganesha a bath for Vinayaka chaturthi, if they shower and get dressed first. The brothers were ready by 10 a m. Which was rather early for a Sunday morning.
It was patti who delayed the proceedings; she wasn't quite ready, with milk,honey,sugar,yogurt and ghee. Sidharth and Nikhil had to wait for the elders in the house,who appeared to take their time.
Sidharth and Nikhil could use a lollipop for time-pass. Besides,it helped silence the younger one, getting restless and wanting to get rid of his silk dhothi. Sidharth no longer had any issues with going desi on special occasions. In his younger days (when Sidharth was two-year old) he used to protest, saying he preferred GAP to kurtha.
Speaking of going desi the brothers changed into glitzy shervani for a dinner outing at their friend Drhuv's place in Dublin. But then their thoughtful mom carried a change of clothes , for Sidharth/Nikhil couldn't wait to take off their dress after posing for this group photo. Dhruv appears to have a jolly time with Sidharth.
At the puja Sidharth and Nikhil took turns in giving Ganesha a bath.Sidharth started it by pouring honey.Thick and sticky,honey wouldn't flow switftly; and Sidharth is helped along in giving Ganesha a honey shower,as Nikhil awaits his turn with uncharecterstic patience.
When it came to his turn to pour it on Ganapathy's head, Nikhil had it easy with sugar, and milk.Sidharth rounded off the bathing ritual with yogurt and ghee.
After the ritual bath of Ganapathy at puja room it was time to shower him at the kitchen sink.
Back at the puja room, Ganapathy is taken back to be dressed up and worshipped with offerings of flowers, before managalarthi that marked the end of the rituals.

London Murugan Kovil

After being in the middle of all Sikhs of Southall (the place where we currently stay) my parents were very much surprised to have a traditional South Indian Murugan Kovil in London.

The temple is situated in the east part of London (East Ham) which is around two hours of journey by train from west part of London where we stay.

East Ham is inhabited mostly by tamils, both from India as well as from Sri Lanka.

Murugar, Vinayagar , Ayyappan, Chandiran, Sooriyan, Durga Devi, Bhairavar, Natarajar, Shivalingam, Dhakshinamoorthy, Navagraham, Anjaneyar, Perumal, Lakshmi and what not !

We also got Ellu sadam (Sesame rice) and Ven pongal as prasadam (No wonder the smiles on our faces). Pity we got only one plate per person as we reached very late to the temple.

So to compensate, we went to Saravana Bhavan, where though food is costlier than at most other places, but it had the same quality as the one in T Nagar.

The restaurant was decorated with Pattu sarees as wall posters and classical music was played in the background.

Seems even Sahasra enjoyed the trip.

A walk through Berkeley

These guys know not how to walk;they run, wherever they find open space. And there appears no dearth of it - open space - on the Berkeley campus.
Chasing Nikhil could be one way to work your calf muscles.If you don't want him running around all over the place,carry him.
Karthik posing for picture,with Free Speech Movement Cafe in the background. The cafetaria close to the university library has a political background that is inherent to this university. As its former chancellor Berdahl said: "Inherent in Berkeley's excellence in the postwar era has been the free and open expression of ideas by all members of the university community, an assumption that many of us may take for granted. No one would disagree that the Free Speech Movement had a significant role in placing the American university center-stage in the free flow of political ideas, no matter how controversial."Dedicated to the memory of Mario Savio,a leader of the Free Speech Movement,the cafe that figures in wikipedia opened in 2000.Organic food and beverages are its speciality. Mario Savio was among those who led during 1964–1965 academic year a student protest unprecedented on the campus of any university those days.
Sidharth and Nikhil settle for glass of juice at the FSM cafe, to which we were guided by Srinivas,Ila's father, who is a research scholar on the Berkeley campus.
Visitors to FSM cafe, with flair for international news, get to read Page One headlines from an assortment of US and foreign newspapers,including Irish Examiner, Haaretz, Gulf News and Washington Post.
Karthik with Subbu periamma. They form a natural pair at any outing,if only because they never seem to run out stuff to talk about.
The clock tower on the campus,said to be the third tallest in the world, has its spire under repair. But visitors are allowed upto the viewers gallery at the base of the spire.Looking down from the clock tower, one gets a bird's eye view of Berkeley.

Bisibelebath at Palo Alto

Raju, my wife's Chamarajanagar cousin, was delighted to hear that we were bringing along Karthik to lunch at his son Ashwin's place in Palo Alto.Karthik, doing MBA in Tucson AZ,is visiting us at San Ramon, and his presence evoked in Raju memories of Karthik's mother. He recalled, for the benefit of young Karthik, that his mother Chitra as a toddler had won a chubby baby contest.
He told Karthik that his grandfather - mother's father - as a forest officer had an eventful career. Recounted his encounter with a wild tusker in Topslip ; and how he came to bring home a couple of new-born tiger cubs that had apprently been separated from their mother in Cumbum forst.Raju said Karthik's grandma Meenakshi used to bottle-feed the cubs and nurse them as a baby. When they grew up to be old enough to bite, the tiger cubs were gifted to the Madras zoo.
Raju and his wife,now settled in the US,split their time between Palo Alto, California, where their son Ashwin works for SAP, and Philadelphia, where their daughter,son-in-law, and their grand-daughter live.

The Rajus are a hospitable couple who relish meeting relatives and friends.They had lined up for lunch a feast that included vada, payasam, bisibelebath, rasam morecozhambu,and a couple of curry items.

More on Raju - Raju banega greencard holder

Raju comes to Mysore

Where to study College???

Though the above thought keeps on playing on my mind with respect to Sahasra, it had no bearing on why we went to Cambridge on a weekend. We were interested in knowing of a place which has featured in various movies and novels as one of the most sought after place to study, along with us wanting to spend a day outside London to view the countryside.

It was an hour's journey from London by train. Appa found the journey somewhat similar to his numerous train journeys in India and was enjoying his stroll in the intermediate stations much to Amma's despair.

From the station it was around one and half mile walk to the Town Centre where all the main activities / shopping centre are present.

The main attraction in cambridge is a Punting tour, with a guide across all the important colleges within the town. Though we could have taken a boat for ourselves and did the punting, but none of us where confident enough on each other's punting skill. Moreover none of us knew swimming.

From the boat we could see a glimpse of most of the beautiful colleges within Cambridge. No wonder, students from all across the world aspire to be a part of the university

Post the Punting tour we had our lunch break, wherein we had our regular Puliyogarai and Thayir sadam and Appa had his afternoon nap.

Post Lunch, we travelled through the streets of Cambridge which very much reminded me of Gali's in Kashi, though a much cleaner Kashi.

I and Purnima visited King's Chapel, a very famous chapel built alongside the King's College. Amma and Appa were very tired of the walk and rested outside with Sahasra for company.

A view of King's College.....

And then we returned to our three mile walk back to station (extra miles because I took a wrong route back to station :-))