Happy 90th Birthday Dear Father!!

 On this special day (15th May),  I want to share a story about my dad......

 A  wedding in the family— I am excited for I hear my dad is coming to attend it. He is staying with me for a whole week— I can't believe it!

 The minute he enters the house he starts chatting with us non- stop….. for there are so many things to ask , so many things to share etc. etc. He is a real store – house of knowledge …. we have to just ask him something, and he would give a detailed explanation, amazing us with his intelligence, sharp memory, and great sense of humour. He would go back to his younger days and relate all the stories of how he met and married my mother.

 Those days marriage was not a matter of choice …. it involved marrying for various reasons. Marrying within the family was considered to be best option for everybody. For example if your father’s sister had 5 or 6 daughters to be married it is the duty of the father to bring home at least one of his sister’s daughter as his daughter- in- law, this way he was helping in reducing the burden from his sister’s shoulders. Similarly an uncle could marry his own niece.
 This was the custom followed for ages all over south, though now it is not so much in vogue, but still some people follow it . As long as it is not direct blood relation everything is okay. One can’t even think of such things these days.

Well my father married his mother’s brother’s daughter, (which is my mother). According to him he was given the choice of marrying any 1 of the 2 daughters, who were suitable for his age. But he was in a dilemma, for both were good looking, and it was up to him to choose. So he changed the names of the girls in their horoscopes and also  changed his name in his horoscope, (because everybody knew everybody, the astrologer would not even bother to match horoscopes when it is in the family), so my father cheated a little and made him match the horoscope saying it was for a friend. Of the two only one matched, which happened to be my mother’s horoscope, and thus the choice was made. Another distant cousin married the elder daughter, in fact both my father and his cousin married the respective girls on the same day to save money. That was the way things were done in those days , one had to keep everything in the mind.

 But, although my parents remained happily married for 49 years, they were the sort of couple who could never see eye to eye on any issue, and since my father had the dominating streak, what he said only prevailed. My mother although loved him deeply, she hated this attitude. He had jokingly revealed to her, how he made the choice of marrying her, and whenever my mother happened to meet that astrologer, she would tell him that she felt like tying him to pole and give him 100 whip lashes.

 My parents life was full of ups and downs. Whenever my parents did get along, my mother would ask my father, to tell her the truth ….. that he married her because he fell for her , and he would always tell her it was not love. Now he is all alone, and he feels bad that he never told her how much he loved her.  He said he could have told her that at least once, but he was too proud to admit that to her.

But I am sure she must have guessed it long time ago, but simply wanted to know right from the horse’s mouth.  Now he feels her loss so much, that he would keep going back to the days when they were really happy, and he says they were made for each other despite their differences, that  the universe works in mysterious ways, though he thought at that time he could choose between the 2 sisters, and tried to hoodwink the astrologer, he must have known deep in his heart that it was my mother he always wanted to marry.

 This, coming from my father, now when my mother is no longer here to feel happy to hear it, was really moving.  However this is not the first time I am hearing him say this, for I have heard this story many times from him, but only after my mother passed away, which was  almost 19 years ago.

 Well, this is just one interesting story about my father and mother, there are many, many more, but it would take volumes to write about each every interesting facets of their turbulent lives together.


Accidents and my father are made for each other, but he would never let such incidents bother him. He would pick himself up from the scene of accident, and bleeding all over, he would be back home in the same moped. Being a Pharmacy graduate he would know what medicines to apply and within 2/3 days he would be back to normal with not even a single mark or scar to show how badly he was hurt.


Even recently about 15 days back he was hit by  somebody while he was travelling in his moped, left there to deal with it  all by himself, and as usual he was back on his feet and  came home riding the moped with lot of pain everywhere in his body, saying as usual his time is not alright/ that he must have troubled the fellow who hit him and went off,  in some previous birth, and that it is all part of the game.......




Surprisingly not a single person has ever helped him during such accidents. Somehow God has given him the strength to pull himself up and keep moving without looking back. 


He can still walk faster than any of us, and would always take the stairs instead of the lift.
 He still likes to have everything under his control, like his finances, his freedom to live life in his own terms, and that dominating streak has still not left him, putting him into lot of trouble, unnecessarily.


  I can only say that, I am proud to have had such a loving and patient mother, and I am equally proud to have a such a wonderful father, who, may have been very proud at one time and still is,  but is definitely a man with very good heart and a great smile and a positive attitude towards life.

  What Makes a Dad

God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle's flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so,

He called it ... Dad


~~Author Unknown.~~

Taken just 2 years back, my dad looks so fit and smart.

Happy Birthday Day Dear Appa!

No longer a working 'girl'

 Raghav was a handsome and highly qualified young man holding a very important position in a bank. He was  the only son of  well-to-do parents hailing from a business family. He had everything a young and talented man could ask for ----- except a wife.

    Raghav was very particular that the woman he married to be a working woman even if she was not a great looker. His parents, on the other hand,  had a long list of specifications in addition to the single-point agenda that Raghav had set. So the search began for that elusive girl who would fit the bill.

  Many houses were visited , many girls were seen, and an equal number of bajies, bondas , kesaries  and coffees  were consumed and yet there was no sign of the girl in sight. If the girl was working , the parents would not approve , for she wasn't so good-looking, or not fair enough or the staus of the parents were not high enough and so on. Ironically,  when the girl had all the desirable qualities, she was the non- working type.

     The years slipped by. Poor Raghav ---- a few strands of grey hair on his head and a few extra kilos around the waist ------- slipped in, as friends and relatives pitched in to find the perfect girl for Raghav.They persuaded Raghav and his parents to be more practical and compromise just a bit on the specifications. After all, the 'Boy' also was not the same handsome young Raghav of the past. The same logic would apply to the girls too.

  Around this time , a distant cousin dug up a girl, who was fairly good- looking and was also an officer in a bank. Well-wishers advised the boy and his parents not to dilly- dally and quickly finalise the alliance, for they may not find another girl of equal merit. Also the boy was getting older. It was alright if the girl was a little short and stout. She could always wear platform heels, couldn't she ? The most important thing was that she was working woman and also decent to look at.

 Raghav and his new bride , Meena, had a wonderful honeymoon at Kodaikanal. At the end of the week,  it was time to get back to the routine grind. Come Monday morning ,  Raghav got ready for the office and dutifully offered to drop Meena at her place of work, altough her branch was quite some distance from his own.

  She seemed surprised by his offer and said " Bank? What bank? I don't have to go anywhere near a bank anymore."

 "But aren't you joining duty today? queried Raghav, taken aback.

     "Yes,  I have joined duty ---- not at the bank, but at home --- as a housewife. I have had enough of working outside. Now I wish to work only at home, raise a family and lead a contented and peaceful life. I put in my papers at the bank the day we decided to become life partners. There is no financial compulsion for me to continue as a working woman. Now, darling,  would you be a pet and drop me at the market? Vegetables are always so fresh and cheap in the mornings."

  Raghav, who was too stunned to make any meaningful response, kept mumbling incoherently, and drove the car like an automaton. The last image which froze in his mind  as he drove away from the market was that of a short woman trying to balance herself on platform heels , waving with one hand while the other hand clutched an enormous shopping basket. Some corner of his brain registered a shouted reminder " Come home early for lunch, I am making drumstick sambhar and potato curry." 

Do arranged marriages work? Opinions tend to differ.

Can love grow out of an arranged marriage? 
Absolutely, and in the same way that love can grow in romance novels from a marriage of convenience. But there's more to love than finding a suitable match. Love can grow for many reasons, from lust at first sight to friendship that develops over a long period of time. It's impossible to predict whether a union will be successful. The only two people who can make it work are the bride and groom, the hero and heroine of their own story.

I am sure all South Indians would  love this blog, and may even be able to relate to it. It happened to someone known to me years ago, but believe me, it is still happening and there is nothing really wrong in it.