“Ammamma…Boost…”, I would ask her for a hot malt beverage, as she would get busy in her tiny kitchen after her short afternoon nap on the hard concrete floor, with a strategically placed pillow for her head. Ammamma means maternal grandmother in my mother tongue, Telugu. Amma is mom, and ammamma is, literally, momom. She would then get busy preparing the late afternoon coffees for the elders, starting with the eldest – Tatagaru, and Boost for the kids. Although I mostly saw her only over summer holidays, this particular aspect of her routine was probably eternal. In fact, all her routines were seemingly eternal yet inexplicably fresh every time. She would hunker down at the old, grime-laden, two-burner gas stove sitting on the floor of her tiny kitchen and with what seemed like an impossibly tiny collection of utensils, groceries and gadgets, came up with the most exquisite of dishes. Simple fare it always was, and she was not a great cook, but the taste of her cooking was earthy and heavenly. Vegetables of all manner were shallow fried. Coffee and Boost was not served before being poured several times, alternating between two tumblers to generate froth (steamed milk). “Boost tagutawa, Kishtappa, aain?”, she would ask. The “aain?” was kind of like Amitabh Bachchan’s pan-laden mouth confirming something – “aain?”.

Kishtappa was her pet name for me. And she had a way with all children. She was our story-teller come in-house-magician come mystery-keeper come stand-up-comedian come play-pal, all rolled into one. Above all, she was our friend. Maybe because she had only very little formal education (“Appatlo, SLC pass aiyyenu”, she would confirm – “I completed 8th grade in those days”.), or maybe because she was married off when only 9 years old, my grandmother never really got along as well with adults as she did with kids, and always seemed to have stamina for reliving the childhood which she did not get to truly enjoy. She had a way with kids. And with five daughters and three sons she never ran out of kids or grandkids or great-grandkids to enthrall.

Ammamma was the queen of her territory in my Tatagaru’s large house in Dondaparthy, in Visakhaptnam. Her territory included her tiny kitchen, the attached utility area (her bathing area), the verandah just outside the kitchen where we would all eat (sitting on the rough concrete floor), a step down area from the verandah where the dishes would be washed and which led to the back yard, the strip connecting these rooms in the back of the house to the front verandah of the house (at the head of this strip was where she would strategically place her pillow ever afternoon for a watchful nap), and, the sacred sanctum of her territory, the store room (ammamma kottu) which remained mostly under lock and key. Except at some strange hours at the night. This was truly ammamma’s territory. I have probably only caught a glimpse of the inside of this room a handful of times, and I think I have been lucky enough to step into the room only once or twice. The room was just a large walk-in pantry with wooden shelves loaded with boxes and bags of all sizes and descriptions. The occasional mice, cockroach, or a scorpion (none of which would faze the dauntless ammamma) along with the dim lighting in the room and ammamma’s reluctance to let kids enter added to the eeriness of that store room. On the rare occasion we kids found the room open and would gather enough courage to peek in, ammamma would bustle out form the dark confines of the room, shoo us kids away, and tell us kids to stay away from the ghoul-laden innards of the place. She would then promptly hand us 25 paise or 50 paise and ask us to go get ourselves some mint candy (straangu billalu) from the Nair kottu – Mr. Nair’s small shop which sold everything from candy to biscuits to soft-drinks (of which, goli-soda was a strange attraction) to cigarettes to stationery. It was a shop where it seemed you could find anything that could be held in one hand.

Ammamma had a very interesting relationship with her husband, my Tatagaru (respected grandfather). To us she seemed to never be in speaking terms with her husband. I have never seen her converse with Tatagaru. However, her day would revolve around him. Being a lawyer, Tatagaru would spent some hours of the day at the Vizag District Court. And the rest of the day, his clients would come see him at his elaborate home office. He was a simple man, often sporting only a dhoti (similar to Gandhiji), but his office was well endowed, with lots of Law books and legal proceedings, case studies etc. He had an office room, which was separated from the road outside by a small waiting room for clients to wait in if he had company. Ammamma would have to keep an eye on Tatagaru, for he was a man of few words and if he needed lunch or one of the many servings of coffee, she would prepare that. She also had to occasionally keep an eye out for important clients and make sure they were served coffee or water etc. She was particularly displeased with lady clients who would spend a lot of time in Tatagaru’s office and would keep an eye on them as well. The office room was always open and though there was nothing to be concerned about, I guess she was possessive after all. These lady clients were often from small villages, and were from farming families. They would be visiting Tatagaru in relation to some land-related case. Often they would wear only a saree without a blouse to go with it, and this seems to particularly displease ammamma, although she would never make a big fuss about it. At most it would be an extra visit to the office to remind Tatagaru, “Vadinchestaanu, kallu kadukkoni randi” (“I will serve” – likely lunch – “wash your feet and come”).

I felt that the best times ammamma had was with her grand kids. With her kids, she was probably too young herself. With her great-grand kids, she was too old. But the best times she had was with us grand kids. She would play and teach us card games and tricks, then she would tell us stories or read us stories from the children’s magazine “Chandamama”, or read us jokes from her Telugu magazines, such as “Swathi”, “Andhra Jyoti” or “Andhra Prabha”. She would play “ashta-chamma” (similar to Ludo) or some variant of knucklebones with us kids, and perpetually keep us enthralled.

Maybe it was childish innocence. More likely it was sagely wisdom. Ammamma was never one to get too emotionally attached or emotionally charged. Her actions were devoid of any scheming, but like I said, probably not out of innocence, but rather out of a sagely understanding of the futility of such schemes. She was happy-go-lucky. She might have been different when younger, but as she grew older, she became a person of caricaturable simplicity. Maybe that is why we kids loved her. We could understand her. She would get happy at the small things in life, while the elders were never truly happy with anything. Some small things I remember about her were the way she would comb her tiny swathe of hair very meticulously each day after her bath and after applying a generous portion of hair oil. She would neatly part her hair at the center and with a vigor exceeding her age she would straighten her hair on each side, before finally tying it up into a braid or a knot. That she managed to do all this with a tiny mirror, and a tiny comb, each less than a few inches in size, never ceased to amaze. She loved the cinema, and would take us kids and go watch movies, mostly mythological or allegoric ones. She took me to watch “Keelu Gurramu” (the Magic Horse) once. For someone who enjoyed mythological movies, she was not much into devout worship or religious rituals. She lived an uncomplicated, pragmatic life. Although some of her beliefs would be considered backward (such as resisting graduate education for her girls), her practical point of view was that it would get harder to find a good match if the girl were overly educated. Regardless, and thanks to the calming influence of Tatagaru, most of her sons and daughters got a good education, some going on to complete their Masters, and all others picking up Bachelors’ degrees.

Ammama visited Bhilai, the steel city that was my birth place, and where my father used to work, at least a couple of times. And for her, visiting Bhilai was a wonderful time off. A vacation. Once she had a cataract operation (I think it was her left eye) at Durg (a town near Bhilai) and she was very pleased with the outcome. The other eye, which was operated upon in Visakapatnam itself was never quite the same, she said. Regardless, ever since her eye operations we only remember seeing her with thick lensed spectacles, with a thick black frame. The only time we’d then see her without her glasses was during her afternoon naps, and even still, the glasses would be tucked neatly under her pillow, lest we kids stepped on her only pair while running around during our afternoon games.

Ammamma was born Adibhatla Venkata Ratnamma on May 5th, 1921, in the hamlet called Dimili Agraharam, near Elamanchili town in present day Andhra Pradesh. Her father was Sri Adibhatla Suryanarayana, who was an inspector in the Revenue Department, and her mother was Adibhatla Perindevamma. She had two elder sisters and an elder brother. When she was born she was grossly underweight (likely, very premature) and her mother had given up hope about her surviving. The newborn did not have enough strength to even suckle milk be it from the breast or bottle. The elder sisters would go and get milk from other nursing mothers in the village and feed the newborn using a cotton wick. This was the only way the sickly child would ingest food. After three months of such feeding the mother was finally convinced that ammamma would survive. She survived. And how.

The elder sisters died in their early twenties, probably during childbirth. Ammamma, though born sickly and underweight, outlived all her other siblings, and she led a blessed, healthy life. She was married to Sri Tata Sri Rama Murthy, my Tatagaru, on March 16th, 1930 in “Kanukurthi vari satram” in Vijayanagaram city. It was a 5-day long wedding, complete with city-tours aboard a pearl-encrusted palanquin. Henceforth she became Tata Venkata Ratnamma. Married to someone destined to be a renowned lawyer, blessed with loving children and grandchildren, living a exceptionally healthy life, managing to keep her distance from petty attachments while retaining the ability to stay happy, ammamma had a great life. Recently, she had her first great-great-grandchild. Her second daughter’s first daughter’s daughter had a daughter. Truly rare. If we go looking for any misfortunes in her life, the untimely loss of her eldest son-in-law is probably the only one.

Ammamma passed away about 4 hours ago, sometime between 5:15AM and 5:30 AM on September 2nd, 2010 (India time). She was admitted to the hospital in the early hours of September 1st when she seemed to have lost consciousness after a few days of minimized food intake. Her blood pressure was quite low. In the hospital, she regained consciousness, recognized people, recognized the doctors and asked about all her grandkids. The IV drip helped her improve her blood pressure to near normal levels, and the oxygen mask helped her weakened heart. She seemed to be on her way to a steady recovery. Finally, it was her kidneys that failed. A woman who was so strong in her life, by her 90th year had gotten really good at putting up a stern fight against and evading any illness. She was a throat cancer survivor. And just as she gave us all hope that this would just be another of her minor illnesses, which she would fight down handily, she pulled off her last magic trick. She decided to say goodbye without any drama, without any emotion, without any inconvenience to others. Kavita and I must have been at the ISKCON temple in Hillsborough, North Carolina chanting “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare … Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare” right when, for the last time, Ammamma must have said her favorite prayer one last time – “Krishna Vasudeva”. On our way back, we got the call.

Ammamma left us on Krishnashtami (Lord Krishna’s birthday), and left us with happy memories.  There is not a single negative memory I have of her. That is probably how any grandson feels about his grandmother, and she was the only grandmother I knew. But still, I feel that she was special. She was different. Knowing her was a boon for me. And like Kavita reminded me, Ammamma was the only grandmother she knew as well. Kavita shares the same kind of happy memories with Maamma (as she called Ammamma) as I did. Ammamma taught me more than she will ever know. Or, maybe in her own way, she did know all along. Happy-go-lucky. Happy-went-lucky.

Acknowledgements: Some of the memories and Ammamma’s biography are based on recollections by my cousin, Prasad. Most of the pictures are from Anant.

Even before I opened the iPhone box I was impressed with the immaculate packaging. The phone was surprisingly easy to learn using, and any non-obvious features were easy to search for on the web. The ability to download the applications of our choice and even develop your own applications is a tribute to and celebration of innovation and creativity embodied by the iPhone. I could rave about this Swiss-army knife of mobile gadgets or I could argue that no one really uses a Swiss-army knife in normal life. Indeed, I have not yet figured out how best to effectively use this phone. Some of the features that translate into time and money savings are the GPS when you are lost on the road, the ability to look up the Internet to get answers to simple questions when you are in doubt, the ability to entertain yourself when you have time to kill (books, podcasts, puzzles, YouTube, newspapers, iPod music), the ability to shoot video and ship them to your friends (thus avoiding hours of procrastination) and the ability to synchronize the contact list and calendar entries with Google. In short, this tool allows you to use small pockets of time more efficiently, either the educate or entertain yourself, or to rewind. This is important, to me at least, because then the time with family does not need to be compromised for trying to rewind in my own way. Simple example: if I feel like listening to Louis Armstrong I can listen to him and other jazz artists on Pandora while driving back from work. Then once I am home, I can spend time with Kavita, as she wants me to.

So, finally, thank you, Anu, Shankar and Sandeep, for live demos and persuasive nudges, and thanks Kavita for the final push. I’m on board and I am enjoying the ride.

(I posted this entire entry from the iPhone. I am getting very good at typing on this, something I was not so sure about only two days ago.)

Here are some video snippets of the event.

 

 



 

Two girls (whose names I will provide as soon as I can find out) did an awesome job singing the kriti, “Vande Vasudevam”.

 

Kavita’s music teacher, Mrs. Anuradha (in the center in the video) along with other participants (Left to Right: Mrs. Jyothi Sadhu, Mrs. Srikanthi Gunturi, Mrs. Anuradha Chivukula, Mrs. Lakshmi Putcha and Mr. Subramanyam Darbha) sang the 7 main compositions by Sri Annamacharya, called Saptagiri Kirtanas. They were supported by, Mr. Kalyan Sundar on the veena, Mr. Vikram Raj Kumar on the violin (Vikram is an NC State student) and Master Arjun Raghavan who did a splendid job playing the mridangam.

 



 

Kavita and friends (Left to Right: Mrs. Sumana Nanduri, Mrs. Kavita Krishna, Mrs. Usha Jayanthi, Mrs. Lakshmi Karra and Mrs. Uma Gorti) singing some kirtanas.

 

The Cricket World Cup is going on in the Carribean islands. After almost four years I chanced to watch a couple of cricket matches live on TV a few weeks back when we visited my cousin, Raghu, at New Jersey. He had gotten installed a satellite dish that received live coverage of the Cricket World Cup. The two games I watched were India playing Bangladesh and Pakistan playing Ireland. It was fascinating that the two games I watched in so long, turned out to both be massive upsets. Bangladesh beat India and Ireland beat Pakistan. These games threw the teams’ expectations, betting odds and the statisticians’ calculations into relative disarray, and ended with both the losing teams, two cricketing giants, being eventually eliminated in the opening round of the cup. The defeats brought great outbursts of emotion from the fans (the lights and pretty much everything Indian and Pakistani). Weeks of introspections, evaluations, shock therapy and retirement announcements later, one thing that is clear is that an era of subcontinental cricket, one that I can relate to the most, is over. The defeat and the ouster from the competition, though surprising and disappointing, does not worry me a whole lot. If this provides a dose of practicality to the millions of sports-starved fans for whom the only sport that exists is cricket, it would be a welcome change. Maybe it will bring with it a dose of professionalism into a game. Professionalism into how the players perform indifferent to the pressures and expectations they are subjected to, and, more importantly, professionalism into the spectators and fans who need to realize that it is a game all said and done. The basic problem in a sports-starved country where sports has always taken a back seat to getting through life’s other challenges is that the few sporting events India does participate in take on an intimate and overly emotional dimension that cannot be dissipated easily through other avenues.

Living in a tiny square patch of a town, in the middle of thousands of square miles of featureless flatlands, encouragingly named “Normal”, was expected to be hard for this single woman. She took to it like a duck to water. Having been on the phone with her almost every one of the days in these 5 years, I wouldn’t blame you if you thought that we were born with the cellphone on our ears, instead of the proverbial golden spoon in our mouths. I saw her develop lasting friendships. I saw her live an independent and brave life. I saw her work hard and cheerfully. I saw her build her life in her tiny, but beautiful apartment in Cardinal Court. Her friends, her teachers, her attitude and her spirit are all worthy of our thanks. She has done us all proud. She has given us hope and promise. Dedicated work, making the best of the opportunities you get, will get us rewards. Her mother, my mother-in-law, is to be especially congratulated. Her words, which usually carry a ring of innocence, humility and simplicity are in fact words of great wisdom. Her role in letting Kavita be herself, more than a direct hand in guiding her educational growth, is one important reason for Kavita’s achievement.

My role has been one of an honest and eager listener. Although I find very few understandable English words in her presentations or reports on her subject, I always tried to atleast keep myself aware of the basics of her field. Other than playing the joker to relieve both our stresses at the end of the day, my role has also been to positively appreciate the praise-worthy in her efforts, and critique the fallacies. I have always respected her work, her efficiency at it in her fruit-fly infested lab, her action-oriented approach towards a plan and the celerity with which she picked up something new. I have been always motivated by the positives in her. And this is a moment to reflect on these 5 years and to look towards the future as she puts the knowledge she has earned to good use. Congratulations, Dr. Vadali. You deserve it.

The World Trade Center towers, since my childhood, had been to me the image of the American skyscraper and American achievement. I considered them the most gorgeous of modern buildings in the world. They were symbols of simplicity, elegance, function and efficiency. Their grandeur lay in their modesty, their attractiveness in lack of ornateness. The New York and its skyline that I saw in summer of 2000, while interning at Symbol Technologies in Long Island, was defined by these towers. New York, indeed our lives, had changed forever that day.

I saw the site of the towers again in 2004 when I visited with my parents. It was a large barricaded crater-like pit. It was a sad day with a quiet sense of loss. The current plans are to build another office complex at the site. It will be called Freedom Tower. I always wished the exact same towers be rebuilt, with the exact same plans for, at least, the exteriors. Maybe people are averse to that idea since it might seem to belittle the immensity of the event. Maybe the thought is that by rebuilding the same towers the terrible events would be forgotten and we would be pretending that everything is back to normal. Maybe the reason for not rebuilding the towers is that the suffering of the innocent people who died that day would then continue to haunt forever. Maybe economics plays a cold hand and says the office space would not sell. But I feel, what better way to rebound and rebuild, than in the literal sense. A symbol of and for the indefatigable people around the world would be the twin towers rising back up from the pit to reach for the skies like they were always meant to. They would recreate the New York that defies defeat. The plain simplicity and austere efficiency of the Twin Towers would serve as the best reminder and monument there could be for what happened five years ago.

Illinois is a place I visit often. Kavita and I look forward to meeting up on long weekends because they are a whole day longer than a regular weekend. The plan is always to meet up and spend time with each other. The way it ends up is we spend time with friends or family. And fortunately, both of us enjoy and work best in that mode.

For this September, the plans had been drawn over a long period of time – several hours spread over several weeks. That’s a big part of the fun; planning what we would do, once together. The plans, like I said earlier, always include meeting with friends and spending time with them, other than going some place nice and of course, some small doses of shopping.

The plans for this Labor Day, however, included an unusually enthusiastic attempt at meeting with many of my undergraduate schoolmates who studied with me at IIT Guwahati and now lived in or close to Illinois. The surprise was that I met up with all those friends I planned to meet, and more. Kavita, who enjoys being around people, loved every minute of it. And I loved it all the more. I was thrilled to see these wonderful people, and seeing Kavita’s delight doubled the effect.

As I write this, the American Eagle flight from Bloomington, Illinois, to Chicago is accelerating on the runway to gracefully dive into the late afternoon haze. A pale early fall sun sweeps over the corn fields that stretch as far as the land is visible, which is no too far since very soon the misty haze takes over the flat geography and stretches farther and upwards and leaves you looking into the deep blue of high skies.

The flight’s well on its way now. The vast flatlands of the American Prairies are my first memories of this country. 1999, August, when I landed in Indianapolis, Indiana, I was taken aback by the blueness of the skies, at the stillness of the air, the range of your eyes can scale with a glance across these lands and the emptiness that stretches between scanty pockets of civilization. And that welcome feeling always comes back when I return.

This time the vacation was more fun than usual and that is a good thing. The downside to that, inescapably tied to the by-product of Einstein’s laws of relativity, is that the more fun you are having, the faster time flies.

I started from Raleigh on a Thursday evening, straight form work. My accomplice in this successful escape was my trusted friend and colleague at work, Srini. Of course, my ever- supportive manager, Ken, knew that I would be taking off a bit early on Thursday. In fact, he took the whole team to lunch to P. F. Chang’s, Chinese Bistro, the same day and he did say, “You guys have been working hard. You should take off after this lunch.” He did not realize that I would take the “take off” part literally.

Kavita walked in through the main entrance of Bloomington airport, just as I approached the same place to pick my baggage up. This did strike me as a reasonable coincidence. One of the many I would witness in this trip.

On a few occasions in my life I have overeaten consciously, and enjoyed every bit of it. Once was when in Vizag, Lakshmi akka (sister) had made Inguva chaaru (Rasam with Hing). One was when Kavita made phulkas that evening for dinner. These are just rotis made with whole wheat flour; but the trick is that you put it directly onto the gas burner’s flame after baking it for a few minutes. It puffs up into a ball in a few seconds and it is ready. Kavita had learnt this culinary skill recently from Venkat’s mother, and I can vouch that the teacher and student have done well.

I had not taken Friday off and neither had Kavita. In fact I had a good bit of work to finish. I used Kavita’s laptop to connect to work. After tea and breakfast in the morning, I dropped Kavita off at her lab, came back to her apartment and started working. Lunch was at Coffee House with Carie, Kavita’s friend, and now a good acquaintance to me. After working a few more hours in the afternoon, Kavita and I officially stopped our work and started our vacation. We went to Suresh and Chaitanya’s place, and saw their two month old daughter Spoorthi. She was fast asleep most of the time, although she did wake up for a few precious minutes. Chaitanya prepared dahi-vada which I can roughly translate to fried split black gram batter in yoghurt. We spent time catching up on the happenings, since my last visit in April, the biggest of which was, of course, the birth of Spoorthi, which in Sanskrit means “inspiration”. We also saw a few Telugu movie songs on Suresh’s newly bought wall projector. It was quite impressive, throwing up a good 4-foot by 8-foot image on the wall. After coming back home, Kavita started dinner preparations. We were expecting Venkat to join us. Venkat is Kavita’s music class colleague and a good friend. Kavita made white brinjal (egg plant) curry and phulkas (that she had learnt from our guest’s mother when she was in town a few weeks ago). Venkat brought some Pulao he had made. We had a wonderful dinner and a lot of good conversation.

We had big plans for Saturday. And after our late dinner the previous evening, an early start was hard, but it was key to pack in all the activities we had planned. And we did manage a good start. Kavita, clad in a sparkling blue saree, and I were heading to the Sri Venkateswara temple in Aurora, a Chicago suburb, by 8:30 AM. We made it is good time and reached temple at 10:30 AM. We confirmed that Praveen, his friend Janaki and the newly wed Kalyan Chakravarthy and Praveena were on their way. They lived in Gurnee and Schaumburg respectively, both Chicago suburbs. We went in and Kavita got the ticket and fruits for the archana. By the time we were done with the archana, Kalyan and KGN had arrived. It was thrilling to see them after a long time. Earlier, I had hardly been standing still or concentrating on the puja in anticipation of meeting my friends. For Kavita, it was the first time she was meeting Praveen, and Janaki was new to both Kavita and me. It was wonderful to meet them. Janaki, effusive in her bubbly, childlike enthusiasm, and carefree wit, and Praveena, calm and confident in her soft spoken intelligence, were great finds. Kalyan and Praveena had just landed back from India, the previous evening and the fact that they could make it to the temple so early next morning was very special.

After the temple, Kavita and I followed Praveen and Janaki to Praveen’s apartment in Gurnee. Praveen’s newly bought Nissan 350Z was an easy car to follow. The gleaming black was never out of sight, and Janaki, who was driving, was a good driver, who always seemed to make moves keeping us in mind. At Praveen’s place, we all changed and headed for the next stop, Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. I drove Janaki’s BMW SUV and we all reached the beautiful town of Lake Geneva around 4PM. Praveen had managed to convince me that ‘wave runners’ were fun. Kavita was not buying any of that. Janaki’s enthusiasm, despite her not knowing how to swim, Praveen’s repeated assurances of its “untoppleability”, the consoling fact that we would have life jackets strapped on, and my seeming confidence in my ability to drive it, finally convinced Kavita. And so we rented them water scooters or call them wave runners. A half an hour wait while the ones on the lake returned was a wonderful opportunity to grab a couple of icecreams at the rustic market place in downtown Lake Geneva. At 4:40 PM, we got our wave runner. After paying close attention to the rules of the lake and operation of the vehicle we launched ourselves into rolling dark blue waters. Kavita was hanging onto my life jacket tight. I was hanging onto the handle bars tighter. A minute into the hour long drive our vehicle dove too hard into a trough and the wave landed itself on us, totally drenching me and partially, Kavita. From then on, we were trying to go very fast only to dry ourselves! The side effect of driving fast was that the vehicle was driving better! It was a lot of fun flying around from wave to wave, with a fountain of water spewing out from the craft’s tail in a tall parabola. Unfortunately we could not measure our speeds, but at times we did seem to go pretty fast. I never dared go full throttle though – maybe next time. On occasions, we also spotted Janaki heralding her craft with unabated aplomb.

After the hour long fun on water, we got back into the SUV and after a short self guided tour of Lake Geneva, headed to the Gurney Mills mall. We did not achieve much shopping there. But as soon as we entered the mall and started looking around, we got confused by the sounds, colors, shapes and spaces. We hunted for a directory/map of the mall, found one, and consulted it. After what seemed like a long time we were on our way to mastering its mysterious patterns. We had figured out where we were on that map. After another few minutes, we figured out where we were trying to go and how to get there. Confidently and cheerfully, we headed off, in the wrong direction, and ended up at the exact opposite end of the “Z” shaped mall. But we did find a few shortcuts to go from one end of the “Z” to another, and we also made sure we walked a good half a mile. A trip to the mall is to me, an opportunity to walk. And the more stuff you buy, the more you walk carrying weights. We must never underestimate the positive effects that malls have on the health of its patrons.

Dinner at Chinese/Thai restaurant, Big Bowl, was great. Janaki’s recommendation of Orange Ginger Ale was duly acknowledged as a wise one, although, the venturesome Praveen tried a vague tasting Pomegranate Ginger Ale, and apparently liked it. After dinner, with Janaki’s hand-written directions in hand, we headed to our hotel near O’Hare, the Holiday Inn Select at Rosemont. With barely the energy to enjoy the view from our 8th floor suite, Kavita and I crashed into the bed.

Sunday was the day of chaos. It was chaos of a good kind. Indecision was rampant, good luck was mixed with bad, anger gave way to refreshing happiness, we were all branded racists and we found sexual discrimination rampant in a famous Chicago landmark.

After the tiring affairs of Saturday, the fact that Sunday started late was no surprise. Kavita and I checked out of the Holiday Inn, drove to Navy Pier on Lake Michigan, and parked our car in a parking deck there for $22.00 for the whole day. Our original plans to rent a bike had to be dropped because of the late start.

Rajat Shah, his wife Smita, and their neighbors Pradeep Reddy and his wife Tania had made it to Chicago the previous day, after a long drive from Troy, Michigan. Rajat was my batch mate at IITG. Smita, I was meeting for the first time, as was Kavita. Pradeep and Tania, we had never met before. Rajat was driving up to Devon Avenue in Chicago after their visit to the Shedd Aquarium. Devon Avenue is where you need to go if you want some great tasting Indian food, especially if you want to enjoy it only after overcoming the travails of finding off-street parking. That was the rendezvous spot for this mini reunion. “Tiffin” was the name of the restaurant where we had decided to congregate at. Rajat picked Kavita and me from Navy Pier. As soon as we found parking on a side street, and started walking, Rajat, who was walking beside me, vanished. He had stopped suddenly and bent down so fast I had to turn around and look for him. He was up in a millisecond displaying in his raised hand, a dollar he found lying on the curb. Smita and Kavita were convinced that it was a fake. Rajat and I insisted it was good. While we were so engaged in arguing about silver strips in currency and other means of authentication, Pradeep showed up with thirty more dollars that he found lying on the road. Since we had already touched these notes before the not so thrilling idea of them being anthrax-laden baits occurred to us, we just decided to pocket the money.

We made it to Tiffin in good time, and on the way we met Praveen and Janaki, who had promised to be there. We also ran into Ashwin Vyas, his wife Tania and their friend Karunakar. The three of them said they would join us at Tiffin for a few minutes. The 8 of us entered Tiffin and promptly asked for a place to seat 10, counting Kalyan and Praveena. We forgot about Vyas, Tania and Karunakar. The reunion was a fantastic experience, in spite of the disorder. Vyas, Tania and Karunakar showed up first. Kalyan, who promised being there in 5 min, walked in after a half hour. And almost an hour after we stepped in we started our buffet. The food was good and the wait staff was accommodating to our dynamic update to the seating requirements. Amidst our congratulating each other on marriages, Vyas’ tips on selecting wine, Rajat’s hearty laughter, Janaki’s cheerful banter, Praveen’s ever smiling countenance, Kalyan and Praveena’s marriage details and loud across-the-length-of-the-table conversations, the food vanished fast. Vyas, Tania and Karunakar had had their lunch at Sabri Nihari, even before we showed up at Devon. So they had joined us for the chit-chat and to draw plans for the remainder of the day. That was the most interesting part of the lunch. Figuring out what everyone was doing next and who would join which group. Kavita and I wanted to go to the Museum of Science and Industry to see the ‘Body World’ exhibit. Praveen and Janaki were planning to go to IKEA, left, came back after a total of 3 minutes and decided to join us to the museum. Kalyan and Praveena were heading to the De Paul Univerity on some personal work. Ashwin, Tania, Rajat, Smita, Pradeep, Tania and Karunakar were going to the downtown in general. So we all started off in different directions. We ran into each other several times since even before we got out of Devon Avenue. The plan was that all of us would try and make it to the architectural boat cruise offered by Wendella cruises, in the evening at around 6:30PM.
Praveen, Janaki, and the two of us, started heading out of Devon, when Praveen spotted a sugarcane juice stall. He jumped out of the SUV even before Janaki realized what happened and bought us sugarcane juices. The juice had a tangy taste to it which Kavita attributed to the jaljeera masala. For $3 a glass the price was somewhat steep, but KGN’s enthusiasm made his treat worth it. Janaki, who originally was not sure if she wanted it, decided to give it a shot.

The disappointment of the day was the fact that the “Body World” exhibit was sold out for the day, and in all probability, for the whole season. Kavita had been looking forward to this exhibit for a long time and was visibly disappointed for a good couple of hours. But we made up for it partially by roaming in and around the museum for a while, watching some video snippets of the exhibit and checking out for the Pioneer Zephyr train exhibit in the atrium. Luckily we had found street parking for free, not too far from the Museum, and therefore were spared of the heartache of buying expensive parking only to not use it. Even if we had gotten in the time constraint due to our planned boat trip would have turned it into a short visit. Yeah, the fox that cant reach the grapes must console itself with the thought that grapes are sour. Janaki stopped at the Millenium Park on the way back, and Kavita and I were promptly huddled out by Praveen, who insisted that we should check out the fountain with a face on it, and the shiny egg. They waited for us on Randolph St. with the blinkers on, while we successfully completed a super quick visit to Millenium Park.

After spending another half an hour to find parking and with the added pressure of making our way to the Wendella Boat Tours’ starting point on time, since Vyas had already bought the four of us tickets, we walked with an added spring. We found Rajat and party, and Vyas and party already at the dock. So we picked up our tickets and joined the queue. Rajat and party apparently had not gotten tickets for the 7 PM tour, and so decided to go up the John Hancock building instead. As I stood in the queue, wondering how many people would fit in that boat, given that the line seemed long, I turned around and saw a familiar, yet unexpected face of Apoorv Saxena! Apoorv was my batch mate and project partner at Purdue University, and lives in San Jose, CA. Seeing him and his girlfriend Ruchika was a pleasant surprise. We caught up on some news after overcoming the initial shock of seeing each other away from our respective bases, and before we got on the boat, which was quite soon. The boat was full on the open top floor and the open front section of the ground floor by the time we all got in, and we got the best seats we could under the circumstances. The cruise that was supposed to last an hour and a half started on a bad note, when we realized that every building that they were talking about in the cruise was on the right hand side. We were sitting on the left, and as such could not see much out of the window. So, the $19 we paid for the ticket was not getting us much for the money. In fact, if anything, it was causing us a lot of grief. So, Praveen, Apoorv, Vyas and I went upstairs to stand and view what was being talked about with such interesting historical references. But promptly a stewardess confronted us with a pleasant but firm, “Sir, for safety reasons, you cannot stand here, and I must request you to go down”. I made an attempt to make her understand that we could not see much from below and that there was no forewarning about this possibility. She offered no help and insisted we go down. I asked her for a refund to which she denied having a say in that matter. So we all walked back down. After another few minutes of trying to follow along, Praveen just got up and said, “I am going up, man”. I followed him. We just went up and stood there. The view was gorgeous and no wonder the architecture tour boat was sold out. But not for long. The stewardess approached us again and repeated her order. Praveen said, “I am not going down”. She tried to tell him her reasons. He said, “Throw me over board, but I am not going down”. He was angry. He was in clear earshot of the fellow passengers and he was loud. The stewardess, in her feigned innocence, wondered what the problem was. And after making it amply clear, Praveen and I saw her walk back. After about 15 seconds, the craft’s captain showed up and gave us the same orders. Praveen did not budge. He looked the tall, young, imposing figure of the captain in the eye and said there is no way he is going down. He made it clear in no uncertain terms that he spent a lot of money, invested a lot of time in this tour and he will not be suppressed into obedience. The captain asked us to talk downstairs since the passengers on the upper floor were hearing all this. We walked down the steps with him and he said he would try to get us a refund after the tour was over. KGN said, “What about all the time I am going to waste on this tour”. So the captain angrily asked us, “So, if I dock right now, will you leave?” KGN said, “Yes”. I agreed. And that was the last we saw of him. The boat which had made a U-turn on the Chicago river and luckily was close to the starting point, started drifting closer to the dock. The four of us got off. Unfortunately, we could not say proper goodbyes to Apoorv, Vyas and others. But as we walked across the plank to the dock, and the lady on the boat’s PA system announced, “We are sorry but we have a small problem and we will be delayed by a few moments. We have a few passengers who want to get off the boat”, we heard approval from the others on the boat in the form of clapping for the stand we had taken. After a few enquiries, we were refunded our money and it was refreshing feeling. Praveen came in for a lot of praise from the three of us.

We were done with the boat cruise and it was still too early for dinner. So we started walking north on Michigan Avenue, looking at the storefronts. We decided to meet up with Rajat and party, who were likely at the John Hancock center. We met them at the base of the John Hancock building. We related our respective experiences, and had a good laugh. We compared the downtown of Detroit to that of Chicago. We talked about the view from the Signature Lounge on the 95th floor of the John Hancock building. Smita informed Kavita that the ladies room on the 95th floor has a big window providing a breathtaking view of the city below. About right then, guy walked up to us and asked for some money. When we all declined, he asked us if we were Christian. We did not respond and continued our chat. He seemed unimpressed and said we were all racists. He said it under his breath and as he hastened away. And probably there was a question in his mind about whether we heard him or not because we all started laughing at being called racists. A black guy calls us brown people racist. We thought that was amusing. After a minute or so he returned to walk right though our group declaring that he wants us all to go back to India and that we were most certainly racist.

After hanging around for a few more minutes and catching up on Smita’s experience with people she thought were muggers in Detroit, and Kavita’s experiences getting lost in downtown Detroit recently, we said our goodbyes. Then the four of us went up to the 95th floor of the building, to the Signature Lounge. The view was great but limited. We decided to not stay for a bite or a drink. Instead we checked out the restrooms. Kavita and Janaki came out elated. The view was apparently spectacular from the large window in there. Praveen and I walked into the Men’s room. Not a square inch of window anywhere. For all we knew we could have been a hundred floor under the surface of the earth. We decided this was not fair. But then as long as the women are happy, we were fine.

We picked up Janaki’s SUV from the parking lot, parked it on the street and stopped for dining at the McDonalds owned, Chipotle’s. The food was good. Praveen’s margarita, served in a no-nonsense plastic glass was not that great. But he was quite drunk, or so he claimed after the single glass. Praveen and Janaki dropped us off at Navy Pier and both of us drove back in just over two hours, recounting the incidents, talking to parents in India, playing crazy-antakshari (a game which Kavita and I play where you sing real or imaginary songs, with accurate or contorted lyrics, in any order you like) and finally reached Normal, exhausted, but very happy with the memorable trip.

The pictures of this trip are here.