16 July
2023
15 July
2023
New addition to Saturday morning routine
14 July
2023
Have you seen anything like this before?
Do you see anything interesting in the top picture?
We were sitting in one of those benches around The Green in Alpharetta Downtown when a bunch of Indian folks – seemed like a couple of families – caught my attention. It was the way the men were dressed. They looked like they were wearing “veshtis“. (My South Indian folks will understand). The other thing is that I had crossed a couple of them while walking Jay Jay a few minutes earlier and they had the pronounced mark of “vibhuti” on their forehead. Fairly religious person, I had concluded then.
They gathered as a group next to Curry Up Now. This is what I would have expected. A couple of Indian families walking up to Alpharetta Downtown to get some Indian food from Curry Up Now and making the most of the evening – that is fairly par for the course. It was a pair of large boxes they were carrying that had my curiosity piqued. They could not have hauled their Indian dinners from home to eat in front of the Indian restaurant – right?
Well, without ordering any food – in fact, they did not even go inside – they sat down on the green and then without any apparent provocation, started singing. From the way the ladies were giving the “taala” with their right hands, my guess was they were singing some Carnatic songs. What is more – I could hear the sound of “dhol” (kind of drum) and “khanjani” (hand held metal percussion instrument) wafting thru the light breeze. In fact, I could see the young kid on the “dhol” and two of the men playing the “khanjani”.
People were walking by curiously. As did I (that is how I got the lower picture). Turned out they were singing religious songs.
This is what I would expect to see in any random street corner in India on a nice evening. Never expected that in Alpharetta Downtown!!!
After about 45 minutes, they simply packed up and left. As suddenly as they had come. Did not get a chance to walk up to them and find out what were they up to.
13 July
2023
One of the most satisfying part of this India trip
The advantage of meeting all those relatives was that I could ask them a lot of questions about our ancestors. And finally, I have put three family trees together – two for my paternal grandparents’ and maternal grandparents’ side and one for Sharmila’s maternal grandparents’ side. One goes 5 generations up (from our generation), one goes 4 generations up and one goes 3 generations up. The one I have not been able to put together is Sharmila’s paternal grandparents’ side.
Yet.
I think I have made the most of my parents’ absence this trip!! I wanted to get this put together for posterity before deaths take away all the sources of information from me.
13 July
2023
“Relatively” successful trip
The goal was to visit as many relatives as I could since I did not have to be with my parents any more. Let’s see who all I met this time:
Sharmila’s and my immediate family members: 13
First cousins: 10
First cousins, once removed: 9
First cousins, twice removed: 2
I am marking this a “Mission Accomplished”
12 July
2023
One last set of cousins
12 July
2023
From the old archives in India
12 July
2023
Can you identify the person in this picture?
12 July
2023
There has to be some kind of a demotivational poster like this…
12 July
2023
Flying is still a novelty in my town
I was pacing up and down to keep myself active while waiting for my flight in Durgapur security zone. Suddenly, I saw most of the folks get up and walk towards the gate. Which was surprising, since there no announcements that preceded that. What was even from unintuitive that the gates were nowhere near where everybody was.
That is when I realized that the folks were excitedly watching our incoming flight land and then walked up closer to the glass panels to take all sorts of pictures.
