30 December 2013

Chalu-pa run across the continents

The Sunday morning Bengali running group was on vacation. However, everybody ran at 8 am on Sunday in a virtual Chalupa run. The first five pictures are from a few members running on the beaches of Florida, the next two are Sudakshina and Manas doing the authentic run in Atlanta and the last one is myself and my brother running in India. Apparently distance cannot separate our running together spirit….

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29 December 2013

Operation Khokon!

Remember my old friend that I finally traced down after nearly forty years? http://www.rajibroy.com/?p=4329

Today is the day I get to see him !! My brother and I started early at 7 am so we can zip thru the roads thru different villages before the villagers wake up. Instead, we are crawling with a fog visibility of less than 30 feet 🙁

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28 December 2013

Prized find!!

As I posted in my last blog, my brother and I dragged my mom and my sister to visit my mom’s second youngest sister (“masi”) and her husband (“meso”). The village that they live in – Kakgachhi – is barely 26 miles away. It took us two hours one way to drive there!!! We surely encountered more square feet of potholes than that of road surface!!

But it was great to see my mom so happy to see her sister after decades. And I scored an invaluable prize too!

On a hunch, I asked “meso” if he still had his wedding pictures. Not knowing my ultimate interest, he was overjoyed by my interest in seeing his wedding pictures. This goes back to 1980. He brought in an old dusty album!

Ultimately, my Machiavellian scheme worked out!! After painstakingly going thru pages and pages of photos, I found one that I was hoping to find!!

That is me in the row behind with the glasses on. The girl next to me is my sister. The lady in front of her left hand is my mom! And the lady on her left is the “masi” who we visited today!!!!

That is me in 1980!!!!

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28 December 2013

We are still young!!

After visiting my birthplace and my great aunt, we were exhausted having had to deal with three hours of potholes 🙁 Brother and I had shower and lunch and lay down to take some rest once we reached home.

Within five minutes of laying down, we agreed that forties is too young to be cowed down by three hours of potholes. So we decided to take my mom to a sister of hers that she has seen only twice in the last thirty years. Got her and sister to get ready hurriedly and then hit the road again!!

Back to google map, gps and potholes again!!!