Parenting young adults

My kids .....oops.... my young adults... are (almost) 18 and 21.

The lifestage I looked forward to, even yearned for, for years and years, has finally arrived. A couple of years ago, something shifted, and did so quite beautifully. When Advaith left home, he went to a school that was far away (11 hours by car, 2 hours by air IF we managed to get a direct flight). We couldn't just pop over with a homemade meal, rush to take his temperature, or have him come home for the weekend. The husband, who left home at the age of 16 and later went to college a good 1700 miles away from his family, opined that going so far away would turn out to be a very good decision. He was so right!

In the past 3 years, Ads has navigated painful health issues, figured out insurance, physician referrals, and orthopedic and physical therapy appointments. He found an apartment and moved there. His apartment flooded, and he had to move out for weeks (and move back in after repairs were complete). The flooding damaged his laptop and other appliances in the house. The dishwasher and AC gave constant trouble. He fell ill with viral infections a couple of times (that we know of). We were not there to help him with any of these things. He will graduate with a double major, but his real education has all happened outside the classroom. 

In these 3 years, our relationship has completely shifted. We were parents who shaped every decision, were responsible for his safety and well-being, and our dynamic was rooted, however softly, in authority. Now, we have to let go of the authority and the all-encompassing feeling of responsibility. Over the years, starting in high school, I have trained myself NOT to intervene and provide a solution. Biting my tongue several times a day is par for the course :) 

The shift to parenting adults requires more from us than it does from them. It is our role that must change, not theirs. There is a constant tension between restraint and instinct. I've personally had to reframe my responsibility from outcome to presence. Be that safe space, that judgment-free zone, that friend. But don't really believe that you can transition fully from parent to friend. Being a friend is easy :) I've always maintained to my kids that I am not here to win a popularity contest, but to be your parent. Friends want you to like them, but parents can exist comfortably inside their child's dislike :) 

An accident

Shortly after we came back from our spring break vacation, Y had a bad car accident. Fortunately for her, it happened just outside her school during the morning school rush. She was driving alone in the car, and was hit by another kid driving 60 mph in a 35 mph school zone. Technically, she was at fault ("failure to yield on a left turn"), but the other kid was speeding so much she never saw him, even after she exercised due caution while turning. 

Our car flipped a whole 90 degrees and came to rest on its side. Thank God for airbags and seatbelts, which saved her life. She was very shaken but thankfully unhurt except for a few minor scrapes and bruises. More importantly, there was no drama or hysterics, and she stayed very calm throughout the whole ordeal. The car was totaled, though, and we had to get a new one at short notice.

Our family seems to specialize in near-death experiences :( 

Thank God we all inherited a sense of humor. For several weeks afterward, Yukta claimed that she had a "new perspective" on life. In the midst of a gossip session, she would deadpan, "I don't judge people anymore" or "I'm a judgement-free zone".

The girl can make me laugh even after going through a traumatizing experience! Cheers to that!

2025 Recap

 Time to do a recap of the year gone by, before Q1 ends!

January - meeting friends and starting our local philanthropy at a giving circle started by a friend. It's called the Immigrant Giving Circle. 

February -New York for a board meeting. By chance, my brother was there at the same time, and we met for breakfast! Did a FREEZING guided walk in the Lower East Side with a friend's son. It would have been more enjoyable if I hadn't felt that my fingers and toes were frostbitten.

March - Walking tour of Leesburg with friends (again, freezing!) Ads was home for spring break so for the first time, all four of us went to the Tidal Basin for cherry blossoms.

Started a new job as Operations Director in a local nonprofit and was so happy!

April - first concert of the year at the temple. Bluebell season!

The highlight of April was spring break with Yukta in Belize. What a wonderful time we had! Truly relaxed, blissful, and great weather. I'd go back again in a jiffy.

Gave our first grant from the Immigrant Giving Circle, and had a nice event at the Community Foundation in Leesburg.

May - Bethany Beach, Delaware, for Memorial Day. Karaoke, beach, lots of fun! S's birthday at home.

June - Our 25th wedding anniversary! Ads was back in Madison for his internship so S, Y and I went out for a lovely dinner. A week later, Ads came to babysit his sister. S & I flew to Bozemen, MT, for a long-awaited week in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks. It was all we expected it to be, and more. 

Also June and into the Independence Day weekend, we went to see Ads at Madison and squeezed in 2 college tours at Purdue and Indiana University. The weather was fabulous (warm). S & I did a day trip to Devil's Lake State Park in Wisconsin and hiked there. 

July (end)- I flew to Vancouver for a family reunion. We took a ferry to Victoria on Vancouver Island and had a wonderful 3 days of family bonding and celebrating multiple milestone birthdays.

August- Adv is finally out his teens! His 20th birthday at home. Sheila came from Mumbai to spend a few days with us. I took her to DC and Great Falls. Joyee and Piyush showed up a few days later. 

September - the BEST month ever! My 50th birthday, and so many events leading up to it. Lunch and wine at Stone Tower winery, hiking at Harper's Ferry, English tea at Mocatinos, lunch at Zaytinya in DC (where a couple of our friends surprised me!), and a big surprise birthday party organized by the neighbors. What more can a girl ask for! To be surrounded by friends and family, sweet neighbors, and to get a birthday video from friends who could not be there. 

At the end of September, our big gala at work. where I was announced as the new Executive Director of the organization. Navarathri was low-key this time as I couldn't host at home due to the gala. Still managed to visit others' Golus.

October - visit of friends from Mumbai. Fall colors. New Mexico with Joyee. Diwali, at home, Hillside party. Spent a couple of nights in DC for a board meeting. 

November - New York for Y's birthday. Mamma Mia and Hamilton shows, fall colors in Central Park. Downton Abbey Tea with friends - had so much fun! Thanksgiving was quiet and at home.

December - Egypt! A bucket-list trip for sure. 

Epic year, 2025.

The Thank You Project

For years, I’ve known how I wanted to mark my 50^th birthday. I’m not a big partier, but I do love to travel, so I asked my closest friends to give me a birthday gift - of their precious time. A weekend or more, so that we could go on a fun trip and make some wonderful memories. Everyone was on board and quite enthusiastic, and in late 2024, I started planning those (multiple) trips in earnest.

Around the same time, I began to notice that my daily gratitude practice was evolving and deepening, and one of the things I was consistently thankful for was my relationships with family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors. The idea of writing a thank you letter to all the important people in my life as a way of honoring my journey and the people who have been an important part of it began germinating in my head.

The Universe has a way of responding to our thoughts and intentions, and it so happened that on my morning walk, one of my favorite podcasters was interviewing a woman called Nancy Davis, who had written a book called “The Thank You Project” which was about the exact same idea I’d just had! Nancy Davis wrote 50 thank-you letters to the important people, places, and things in her life, to mark her 50 years on earth. She wrote thank-you letters to cities she’d lived in and loved, musicians she admired, and even people who’d passed away.

That seemed like a bit too much work! 50 letters! I dismissed it out of hand. And then what would I do to mark my 60^th birthday?!! Even before reading Nancy’s book, I had decided to use the following criteria to decide who would get a letter. It had to be someone I’d known at least for a couple of decades, someone who’d had a big impact on my life, someone whom I was very fond of. I used the AND operator instead of OR, as the latter would have created a fairly large list. I would have had to quit my job and write letters full-time! The names of some terrible bosses and toxic friends come to mind if we are talking about a lasting impact on my life:) 

My final list consisted of 14 people. I decided that each of them would get a handwritten and heartfelt thank-you letter. Husband, kids, parents, and sibling got automatic spots (somewhat like US college legacy admissions!). Along the way, the handwritten part was discarded, and I settled for a calligraphy font, nice paper, and signing my name at the end. For my friends, I also included a couple of snapshots of us together. 

The experience of crafting these letters was intensely therapeutic. Finding things to write about was not a problem. Broadly, I would mention how I had met this person, our shared experiences, and how this person had helped/shaped/inspired me. I ended each letter with a wish or positive affirmation and some hopes for our future time together.

The time I spent thinking of that person, funnily enough, became its own prayer of thanksgiving, an unexpected meditation of sorts that made this project a labor of love in the truest sense.

Letters to my parents and my kids were obviously the hardest to write. The material was too much, there was too much to say, and I was tearing up before I had written five lines. I gave myself 4 months to finish all the letters (giving ample buffer time for the emotional labour involved :)). As it happened, it took longer; I started in January and finished only in June.

Was it fun? Yes, it was fun, and funny, and sad. Lots of feelings and memories came up (good and bad, free therapy!) I was relieved, happy, and even more grateful when I finished. I will hand over the letters with no expectation other than that they will be read. I think of the project as a gift to myself rather than to the recipients of the letters.

I have a copy of all the letters, and it’ll be nice to read them over every now and then and savor my incredible good luck. I will have a longer list of people to write to if I make it past another decade!

2024 Recap

 I wrote a grand total of 3 posts in 2024. Trying to do better in 2025. 

2024 was another eventful year. I've been looking through the old photos and recapturing the highlights.

January - Took my parents to Sri Lanka for their golden anniversary. Sri Lanka is so gorgeous and it was my second trip. We went to Colombo, Galle, Dambulla, Trincomalee and Kandy. 

Spent a few days in Bangalore as well and met so many old friends including someone I hadn't met since college (Ethiraj)! (more on that later)

February - S was in India and some of our Canadian relatives came over to our neck of the woods

March - Cherry blossom season! We all went to the SF Bay Area for spring break. It was a social whirlwind as we had to catch up with all the friends and family who lived there, many of whom had seen my kids as babies/toddlers. Met another Ethiraj buddy there. 

April - Portugal with 2 of my friends! That travelogue is still sitting in the drafts :( 

May - My cousin graduated from Georgetown Law and we went to her fancy post-graduation party. Memorial day weekend, we started S's early birthday celebration with a biking holiday in Lehigh Gorge State Park, Pennsylvania. On S's birthday, our close friends from NY, J and P landed up to surprise him on his 50th! We had a lovely two days with them. 

June - our anniversary at home. We hosted S's aunt and uncle for a few days. 

June end/early July - 50th birthday celebrations in the Smokies. Kids left for Singapore.

July - my parents arrived for a few months' stay. The first time they came in warm weather :) 

Aug - Beach trip to Norfolk and Virginia Beach. I dropped Ads back at Madison and helped him set up his apartment. 

September - My cousin's wedding in Toronto - famjam! I don't know how we packed it all in but apparently I also took my parents to Swaminarayan temple in NJ, Harper's ferry in WV and Mt.Vernon the same month :) Y's homecoming dance. My cousin visited from the Bay Area.

Met yet another Ethiraj buddy in TO!

October - Navarathri. Big crowd, golu hops, dandiya with my Zumba gang. Yukta started driving lessons. Halloween celebration in our community. 

November - We went to NYC for a few days as an advance celebration for Y's 16th. Watched 2 amazing shows - Six and Hamilton. In Seattle with my brother and his family (and my parents) for Thanksgiving. 

December - India! Our silver jubilee reunion at IIMB and a few days in the Mangalore area after. 

Loved that I could meet FOUR of my friends from college in the same year as I happened to go to each of the cities they lived in - Bay Area, Madison, Bangalore and Toronto. We were meeting for the first time since 1996 (except for the Madison friend whom I had met a few times in between) 

Other highlights were that I started going for a Pilates class once a month in the latter part of the year (and I'm loving it). I also found a good Carnatic music teacher not far away and we have a weekly class. It feels good to restart my music practice.

Holi-day memories

Imagine the time and place - early 1980s, early March, somewhere in UP (Meerut, Lucknow etc). It is Holi. Schools and offices are off. For days, the Subramanian family has existed in a state of dread. Their least favourite festival is looming. Amma grew up in Dehradun and Delhi, yet dislikes Holi, as does Appa who is a Madras boy through and through. My brother is probably too young to register much perhaps, but I have certainly contracted my parent's apprehensiveness about this Helli-day.

We have many friends among our lovely North Indian neighbors and colleagues (South Indians and Tamilians being rather thin on the ground), but we don't enjoy their boisterous and aggressive Holi avatars. Our wallflower-ish Tamilian instincts rebel at all that shouting, dancing, music, throwing color and water. Our biggest fear is being dragged out of the house and forced to be a sport and participate in Holi festivities. 

Our house in Meerut has two front doors. So my dad has the brilliant idea one year to install a big lock on one door, enter the house through the other, and barricade ourselves in. The four of us sit inside, quiet as mice, knowing fully well we would be getting visitors shortly. (It was probably 2-3 people from my dad's office but to my 7 year old self it felt like a mob!)

Sure enough, some people arrive at the door. Knock loudly, ring the doorbell. "Subramanian, we know you are in there. Baahar aao! Hum kuch nahin karenge" someone with a name like Dubey/Goel/Tiwari yells. 

After multiple rounds of shouting "Subramanian", my dad knows the game was up. He bravely opens the door. They are very nice, they put a teeka, throw some color on all of us, maybe we exchange sweets. 

Anticlimax! Much ado about nothing! Rinse and repeat every year :) 

Just in case you were curious, I love playing Holi now :) Yesterday's trauma is often today's funny story! 

Spring break in Bay Area

The kids' calendars aligned for spring break, so we decided to spend it in the SFO Bay area. We have been planning to visit the Bay Area for a long time. S and I have such fond memories from our time there many years ago (and this blog was born there!)

Our agenda was comprised of meeting lots and lots of friends, cousins, and relatives and eating some amazing meals along the way. Managed a couple of hikes as well, one in Fremont and a couple in Sausalito and San Jose. They reminded us of why we'd fallen in love with this area in the first place. We spent a day showing the kids around SFO - Golden Gate Bridge, Ghirardelli Square, Pier 39,  Fisherman's wharf, Salesforce Tower etc. 

Sweet beginnings

My parents celebrated their golden anniversary in January and I organized a week-long vacation in Sri Lanka for the three of us. I left for Chennai in mid-January and spent two and a half weeks in Chennai, Bangalore, and Sri Lanka. With my penchant for cramming my schedule, my few days in India were hectic, but I'm glad I did cram my calendar because I got to meet so many friends and family and spend quality time with all of them. Such opportunities for connection, especially when you live abroad, are few and far between, and I cherish them all the more for that. 

Our road trip in Sri Lanka covered Dambulla, Trincomalee, Kandy, Colombo, and Galle (in that order). I relished spending 1:1 time with my folks. Time is the most valuable currency; once lost, never to be regained. I think we'll all look back on our week in Sri Lanka with a lot of fondness and I am really glad that I was able to execute this plan successfully. 

I met a friend in Bangalore who loves Sri Lanka too. She pressed on me a book called "This Divided Island" by Samanth Subramanian which I was engrossed in during the long flight back home. It's a nonfiction account of the civil war in Sri Lanka told through the tragic stories of the innumerable victims. It really opened my eyes to all the trauma that is still being carried around by Sinhalese and Tamils alike, under the veneer of normalcy and hospitality which is all that we experienced during our time there. 

I spent a couple of days in Bangalore at the office and some changes are in the offing on the work front as well. Since I have been back home, I have been deliberating on my next (professional) steps and discussing them with S. In the meantime, I restarted my weekly Zumba class and also began volunteering as an ESOL teacher again (once a week for 2 hours). Summer plans are being made ...lots of travel this year as well. 2024 is shaping up to be another eventful year.

2023 Recap

What a whirlwind year 2023 has been! 

THE most eventful year of our married life. 

January - we started seeing our new house coming up. What had been mud and stones in late 2022 started taking shape slowly.

I went to NYC for a few days of Board meetings (where I was inducted as Board Chair), followed by a very adventurous road trip in Arizona with my dear friend J.

The minute we landed in Phoenix, S told me the good news that Ads had been admitted to UW-Madison.

February - I joined my lovely Zumba class. 

The four of us went to DC to see Jerry Seinfeld in the flesh. 

March - Spring! Lots and lots of lovely flowers and sunnier days. We went to DC and Maryland to see the cherry blossoms.

April - To the coast (Hampton) for spring break, a nice week staying in a quiet airbnb. 

I participated in the World Bank Spring meetings in DC and moderated a panel on Climate and Health, which I was super nervous about. There was a lot of prep involved and we didn't have a great turnout but it was a good experience. 

We closed on the new house and my cousin and her husband came over and did a small pooja for us.

We got a lot of vendors into the house for putting up blinds, closets, etc etc.

May - Yukta had her homecoming dance. 

I went to Bangalore on work. Also spent a few days with my folks in Chennai and with friends in Bangalore. Bonus: Attending a close friend's son's poonal and a niece's engagement in Chennai.

However, my trip meant that I was not there for S's birthday this year. He and the kids went to New Jersey to attend a family wedding when I was away. 

June - The craziest month of the year! It started with Ads' high school graduation just a day after I landed back in the US.

My colleagues from Bangalore visited for a few days of meetings in DC. 

As soon as the school year ended, we moved into the new house. It was a real pang leaving our Chantilly home of 5 years. 

We worked like mad getting the house in order and within a week left for a few day's break in Chicago and then on to Madison for Ads' orientation. Blown away by the beautiful campus and the clockwork manner in which the parent's and student's orientations were organized.

Met my old college buddy Sow after 20 years!

July - Watched the Independence Day fireworks with Y, live for the first time.

S's parents arrived. 

We went on a road trip to Philly and New Jersey, where we also had a mini IIMB reunion. S then took his parents to NYC while I came back home with Y

August - S took his parents to Niagara Falls.

My mil's bday and Ads turned 18!

We went to Ocean City for a few days to celebrate the last days of summer. We also visited Chincoteague and Assateague. It was a lovely trip with warm sunny weather. 

Y started her freshman year in the new school. 

We dropped Ads at his new home for the next 4 years - Madison. 

September - My birthday! I went to Houston for my uncle's 60th birthday pooja.

Then to NYC for UN week. It was my first time at UNGA and NYC was even crazier than usual. Great experience speaking at a panel on reproductive justice and meeting lots of folks. Bonus: spending time with my friend J.

S started a new job at Stout, ending a solid 11 years at Grant Thornton.

October - Trip to Shenandoah NP.

Golu at the new house, our biggest one yet and the first time I have a proper stand. Invited a ton of people and for 3 days the house was buzzing. 

The fall colors in 2023 were spectacular and S and I took many many walks documenting the vivid foliage. 

We went to Hershey's Chocolate World for my fil's birthday and he was like a kid in THE candy store!

November - Y's 15th birthday.

I went to upstate New York for a conference.

My in-laws returned to India.

Diwali. My neighbors and I organized a get-together with food and fireworks for the community which was a lot of fun. 

Ads came back home for Thanksgiving and we had a nice lunch at my cousin's place. I learned how to make mashed potatoes and gravy!

Our new dentist found a worrying cyst in Y's mouth and she had to have a biopsy. It turned out to be a benign water cyst which needed a second surgery to remove.

December - Yukta's surgery to remove the cyst and subsequent few days of recovery. 

We went to the Dominican Republic for a few days and it was a gorgeous and relaxed finale to a super eventful year.

Whew!!

We hosted a lot of people last year- lots of lunches, dinners, and high teas (the last with our new neighbors in a bid to get to know everyone better), plus family who came to stay. My culinary skills definitely improved. I learned how to make Indian bakery-style vegetable puffs from scratch, and other things with puff pastry. 

Grateful for all the relationships we were able to nourish, all the transitions we navigated with relative ease, our new house with its beautiful mountain views, and neighbors all of whom are really nice and friendly. 

Lots of things to look forward to in 2024. But that's another post!

Brazil #1

"God is Brazilian" - the people of this country like to say. One can almost believe it; that it could be no alchemy of geography and climate, but only a divine hand that could have endowed this land with such an indecently large share of natural treasures. To counteract which, as one of our guides wryly observed "We have our politicians!" 

The tiny part of the country that we managed to see in a week or so is swoon-worthy alright. Rio's setting is spectacular, a picture-perfect composition between the South Atlantic Ocean, Guanabara Bay, and the Atlantic rainforest.

What really stood out for me though were the people. Our family usually blends in quite well in Latin America, but in Brazil, there is such a wide range of skin tones that no one could tell we were NOT Brazilian (until they started jabbering to us in Portuguese, at which point it was clear we weren't even from the same continent!). It's not that there is no racism in Brazil but there has been such a long history of miscegenation and "racial democracy" is such an ingrained part of their national identity, that race is simply not a part of the national conversation as it is in the US and other countries. 

And the body positivity!!!! I was very impressed with how Brazilians of every size shape color and age own and rock their itsy-bitsy bikinis (I rarely saw anyone in a modest one-piece swimsuit; if I did, likely they were foreigners). Not just women but men too. From 80+ year old grandmothers and grandfathers to tiny kids, from the morbidly obese to the size zeros, whether suffering from postpartum stretch marks or the unfortunate effects of gravity;I guess this is what comes of a lifetime of wearing the minimum of clothing and knowing no one cares or judges what you look like. 

Keep calm, sip a caipirinha and watch the sun go down in Copacabana :)  

Also, even purist Tamilians will find it hard to complain about the coffee :) 

Arpoador

Arpoador. In Portuguese, it means "Harpoon thrower". In the 16th and 17th centuries, this rock was where the indigenous people of Brazil and the Portuguese settlers would harpoon whales. Today it is THE spot to view the famous South Atlantic Sunsets in Rio. 

We arrived well in time for the 6.45 pm sunset, found a good spot, and perched uncomfortably on the hard rock. The husband went to the very edge of the rock to guarantee unobstructed views. Y plugged in her Airpods and immersed herself in a musical world. Ads, irritated that we were a full 30 minutes early for the big event, pulled out his phone as well. 

I elected to people-watch. Next to us, a young couple was cootchie-cooing inside a warm blanket.  A little ahead, another couple was fiddling with some complicated pieces of equipment to get the best shots of themselves with the falling sun. A woman about my age tied her flip-flops around her arm and gingerly made her way down the rock, away from the rapidly swelling crowd, to sit in solitary splendor at a 90-degree angle to the sunset. I would have loved to click a picture of her, so regal she looked illuminated in a glowing haze of yellow. In the water, surfers were riding the waves with varying degrees of competence. In front of me, Morro Dois Irmaos (the two brothers' mountain) leaped up from the waters, their jagged peaks in sharp relief against the orange sky. "Agua, Agua Coco!" yelled a young man walking in between the crowds, paying scant heed to the view. He had probably seen hundreds like this one and was intent on selling his water and coconut water before the crowds dispersed. 

The kids woke up from their phones. "It's really pretty", Y remarked and started clicking photos. As the sun slowly sank into the ocean, clapping burst out all around us. Ads looked at me in wonder "Why are they clapping?"

"It's a tradition here. I read about it", I told him. 

That evening, there were probably 200 or more people on the Arpoador, waiting for the sunset. Yes, many were on their phones, and many were posting about the experience even as it happened.  #stunningsunset 

There were foreigners like us, and Cariocas too. There were rich people from Leblon and Ipanema and poor people from the favelas. There were families, people in love, kids, and people having deep conversations with others and themselves. There were also people making a living selling coconut water. 

But for 45 minutes, all we did was sit on a rock and wait patiently for that most common yet most timeless of daily events, a sunset. For a brief moment, even the avid surfers just bobbed along with their boards, their bodies and eyes turned towards the horizon. And when it finally happened, all of us clapped, in delight and wonder, and okay....because everyone else was doing it :) 

I could tease some "universal human experience" gyaan out of this but what I really learned from it was that one must always always clap for a sunset :) Oh and sunrise too, why not?!  

2022 Recap

2022 has been an intense and eventful year, possibly the most eventful ever. It started with a lovely winter trip to New York City during the President's Day weekend in February. Later that month, my parents arrived for their long-anticipated visit. We did some sightseeing in DC (including the famous Cherry blossoms) and in April set off for a road trip through the Carolinas. Oak island, NC, Charleston, SC, and the RTP (Research Triangle Park) region all in one week. In May Ads & S went off to Atlanta to play a tournament and Y and I were alone at home. Appa & Amma came back from Seattle and we spent our anniversary weekend in June in Lost River, WV, followed by a wonderful 5 days in NYC. The weather was warm and the city looked beautiful and it was a great pleasure ferrying my parents around the iconic sights. Everyone had a blast at Madame Tussauds!

In the meantime, Ads was driving well and had started his job at Old Navy. Unfortunately, in late June, my mil had a bad fall and S rushed to Chennai to help. Y and I followed suit after S came back. We spent 3 uneventful weeks in Chennai and I started my new job there on Aug 1. By the time we returned, Ads had made tremendous progress with his college essays and in late August we got started with the college process in earnest even as the kids went back to their school routines. September and October were a blur. Y started fencing lessons. I traveled to Portland for a board meeting and detoured to the Bay Area for the weekend to meet my close friend Chitra. We got our green cards (for the second time!), Ads got his driver's license and we sent off his ED/EA applications well in advance of the Nov 1 deadline. 

Fall 2022 in our neck of the woods was truly spectacular. This is the fifth fall we are experiencing and the colors were mindblowing this time. We spent 3 days in New River Gorge NP, WV. New River Gorge is one of the newest national parks and is absolutely gorgeous. Back in VA, it was time for another round of applications for regular decisions. My Diwali gift was one of my poems published in the 2022 edition of NOVA Bards (an anthology).

Y's 14th birthday in early Nov, and then Thanksgiving break later that month, in Puerto Rico. My first time using Costco travel and I am now officially a fan. The resort we were booked in was probably (most likely) the BEST we have ever stayed in. And we've stayed in lots of nice places. Multiple pools and jacuzzis overlooking the Atlantic ocean, a water park inside, an abundance of swaying palm trees, and a lovely ocean-view room made for a vacation that broke the bank (as always!) but left us with a ton of amazing memories. 

A scant 2 weeks later, we are prepping for a vacation in Brazil. Ads has received early admission confirmations from Pitt and Penn State which has been a relief. Sometime during the year, we all got our Covid bivalent booster shots (the 4th shot!), Ads became a National merit semifinalist and managed to score 1530 on the SAT. If there is someone who has worked REALLY hard this year, it's him.

What an action-packed 2022 we've had. Immensely grateful for all the time spent with family and friends, and all the progress made toward our individual milestones. It doesn't get any better than this. 

Family history in Triplicane

Reposted from Medium

Imagine a typical Chennai (Madras) morning. 7 am and the temperatures are already in the early 30s (Celsius). I don’t have to state that the sun is shining (it usually is!). My father and I are walking along Beach Road, and I am glad for the brisk sea breeze that is somewhat tempering the feeling of being in a hot oven.

For the past few years, Appa has been taking members of the extended family on a walk down nostalgia lane with his detailed posts on memories from the 1940s-1960s in Triplicane and Adayar. The family WhatsApp group, fondly named “Annapoorna” after the house where my father and his siblings grew up, like most family groups, tends to be a repository of happy birthday and happy anniversary wishes, but the memory train has engaged and revitalized it into something more meaningful. My dormant interest in documenting our family history has been rekindled, and today, I have asked Appa to give me a family history tour in this part of my hometown.

My paternal grandfather hailed from a village called Chandrasekarapuram near Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. He was born in 1910. He was a journalist and a staunch Gandhian. A Congress member, I have heard he only wore Khadi until he died in 1975. He was a keen political observer and well-known to the political bigwigs of the day, while never holding a formal position in the party. He died some months before I was born, but I have always been fascinated with our origin story. Who are we, where did we come from, and what happened in those early years that influenced the course of everyone in our rather large family?

Our first stop on this history tour is “Thilagar Thidal” or Tilak Ghat, an area of Marina Beach that bore witness to many impassioned speeches calling for independence. This spot is right opposite the deep red imposing structures of Presidency College, where my father got his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. We walk through a small part of what is evidently a large campus. The buildings are beautiful, but the grounds are so poorly-maintained. This is a 180-year institution with a huge list of notable alumni, including TWO Nobel laureates (S Chandrasekaran and CV Raman) and C Rajagopalachari. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan used to teach there. The place is a monument to 2 centuries of advancement in political, social, and scientific thought, and it lies in a pitiable state with plastic water bottles, polythene carry bags, dead leaves and plants, and general litter visible everywhere.

We step out of the college and start walking down Pycrofts Road, now renamed Bharathi Salai, the arterial road cutting through Triplicane (Thiruvallikeni). While I lived in India, I never gave a second thought to the hazards on the road or the need to keep all senses on high alert while navigating potholes, electricity pylons, cows, autos, buses, motorbikes, and people. How beautifully nimble all of us are — human, beast, and vehicle! I was glad I could still easily transition to the old ways, keenly observing life on the streets while deftly avoiding the generous helpings of cow dung on the ground!

The Triplicane area is among the oldest settled parts of Chennai. With the 8th-century Sri Parthasarathy Swami temple as its locus, the area is a multi-cultural neighbourhood with Vaishnavite Brahmin, Jain, and Muslim influences. It is a hub of commerce, religion, and living, breathing history and culture.

Our first stop in Triplicane is Raja Hanumantha Lala Street, where my father lived for the first few years of his life (maybe till he was 5–6 years old). He hasn’t been able to locate the exact house, but we saw the Siva temple, which was a few doors away, and the Corporation school where he and his brother started their education. In the early 50s, they moved to SMV (Sundaramoorthy Vinayagar) Koil Street to a bigger house with a verandah, large hall, 3–4 rooms, and a terrace. It needed to be that large to accommodate 4 adults and 7 children! Not to mention the relatives who kept coming and going. The house does not exist anymore but has been torn down to make way for a bigger, more modern dwelling.

On Big Street (Veeraraghavan Street) off Pycrofts Road is the venerable Hindu High School, where my father studied from Grade 5-SSLC. He says when he was a student there, the school was already 100 years old, populated mostly by Brahmin boys with tuft and dhoti-wearing male teachers. It was a 10-minute walk from the house. Interesting to imagine those days with few cars on the road, no autos, motorbikes, but only hand-pulled and cycle rickshaws. Many more cows!!! People walked or cycled everywhere, or walked to the nearest public transport option (tonga, rickshaw, bus, or tram). The women worked hard at cooking, cleaning, and caregiving. I recently read RK Narayan’s autobiography, where he speaks of taking long walks along Beach Road. No wonder they were all able to digest those big meals and keep a trim figure!

Our last stop in Triplicane is, of course, the Parthasarathy temple. En route, we stop to click a pic of the home and memorial of the great Tamil poet and activist, Subramania Bharathi. Partha is majestic and handsome, and the sanctum sanctorum seemed to be air-conditioned! A welcome respite from the heat outside. The area around the temple is full of name boards like Rangarajan (Chartered Accountant) and Srinivasan (Advocate). Not a single obviously Shaivite name in sight, and bare-chested Iyengar mamas are much in evidence!

There is more to see, but it would require a longer walk. We have seen the “Chinna Kadai” (small shop), a shop owned by my grandfather, where my dad used to be in charge during his school days, but the “Periya Kadai” (big shop), where my Periappa (father’s elder brother) was in charge, was some distance away. I guess this is what we call an “internship” these days!

Hearing my dad talk about his days playing truant from school, walking merrily along these streets unsupervised, and spending entire days bouncing a ball inside the Parthasarathy temple, I am fascinated by what I have not experienced, or experienced very differently- those tight bonds of community, the culture of sharing material things and responsibilities, the carefree days of childhood undiluted by any safety concerns. My childhood was vastly different from my father’s, and my children’s bear no resemblance even to mine.

No one wants to turn back the clock, but learning about our families’ histories can certainly help with identifying best practices for living and being. What can we learn from the experiences of our elders? Migration, the generation gap, and modern lifestyles have taken a toll on family connections in any case; however, I don’t want to have genealogical amnesia. I want to have a small window, if nothing else, into the unique memories of past generations. Reminiscence and nostalgia are pleasurable but useless exercises if they don’t help us reflect on our own journeys. And if there is one thing that we learn as we age, it is that there is no making sense of who were are if we don’t know the journeys of those who came before us.

Goals for 2022 and 2021 report card

Since 2019, our family has had a formal goal-setting exercise every December, for the New Year. Since 2020 we expanded to doing a family meeting at the end of every month to review where we are on our goals, how the last month went, what's top of mind of us for the next month, etc. 

Last year had me set relatively modest goals. Here is the report card :)

Report Card 2021 

Learn swimming - I was hoping to resume swimming lessons in 2021 but ever since our health club closed in the pandemic, none of us have been able to go swimming. Reluctantly, I struck this goal off my list when it was apparent it was redundant.

Lose weight- Wanted to lose 6-8 kgs, managed 4.5 kgs in the year. But walked almost every day, worked out (yoga/strength with free weights/mobility work) almost everyday and fitness levels are far higher. So I'm not going to quibble over weight loss :)

Meaningful work portfolio (including my Board work) - Checkmark for this.

(Continue to) paint, sing, write - Painting was a washout. Wrote quite a bit, got published in a poetry anthology, and sang a LOT including several shareable songs and a series for Navarathri. Hope to continue this momentum in 2022.

Ads' college research - Okay-ish. S did all the initial research and my part of the research starts this year.

Connect regularly with friends and family - something we started doing more intentionally in 2020 when we couldn't travel. I reconnected with school and college buddies and with cousins and extended family a lot more in 2021. Hope to continue this good habit going forward as well.

Goals 2022

Continue to work on physical and mental aspects of well-being- This year I want to focus on strength and agility/mobility work. I will continue with my breath work and meditation as well. 

Meaningful work portfolio (including my Board work)

(Continue to) sing, write - have targets for each of these :) 

Ads' college research and applications 

2022

January 1st, 2022. An unseasonably warm day and I spent the first few minutes after waking up inhaling the cool fresh air, watching the soft raindrops soak the ground, and listening to the sweet sound of birdsong. What a positive, uplifting way to welcome the new year! I have been feeling very grateful for the gifts that 2021 has brought to us. The continued good health and good spirits of everyone in close family circles (no Covid cases!). The kids being able to attend school in-person, the freedom to go out to a restaurant and watch a movie without worrying (too much) about the after-effects. The freedom to travel, experience new places, and meet family and friends. Every one of these a precious blessing that I have cherished to the hilt. 

It feels to all of us that 2021 was such a disappointing year, and in many years it was- just without the novelty of 2020. Once again, the pandemic upended lives and families and created an unending saga of frustration and despair. Yet we all got vaccinated (boosted in some cases), accustomed to our different-looking lifestyles, and started limping back to a new normal. Omicron notwithstanding, I feel optimistic that 2022 will be better. 

We spent Thanksgiving in Seattle with my brother and his family, which was really nice. We had vague plans for heading to India for the winter break but that did not materialize and we instead headed to California/Nevada for a vacation in Vegas, Death Valley, and Los Angeles. The kids thoroughly enjoyed wandering through the casinos, playing golf, and visiting Universal Studios Hollywood. We came back home on Christmas Day, and have been spending the rest of the break doing various errands - opening bank accounts for the kids, getting Ads his Covid booster, and a couple of trips to the DMV for acquiring his learner's permit. In addition, I spent time connecting with various friends and cousins etc; something that is becoming an annual ritual and one that I very much enjoy. 

S & I had our annual physical a couple of months ago. All is well except my nemesis, low hemoglobin levels (something I have been struggling with for years), and slightly high triglycerides (a new development). Have been trying to reduce sugars and saturated fats from my diet with a small degree of success. 

I hope to be more frequent with my blogging in 2022. I am proud of how many books I read in 2021 (59 was what I recorded in early December but I finished 2 more by year-end) and hope to continue that streak in 2022 as well. 

16th birthday

Ads turned 16 last month. I had dreamt that his grandparents would be there for his birthday but sadly, that was not to be.  However, my uncle and aunt were down from Texas and a few days before his birthday, we had a family dinner with them and my cousin. Y and I baked a cake and I got him a cute coffee mug from Etsy and also splurged on a fancy cake topper, in addition to buying him a pair of bluetooth earphones.

So all pretty low-key. The day stands out in my mind for being swelteringly hot. We have been dealing with AC issues on the ground (first) floor for weeks now so the frosting kept melting and I had to keep pushing it into the fridge to cool it down! Plus that was the day the whole snake drama happened. A very memorable birthday indeed! 

Summer 2021- it's almost over!

This summer has been a lot busier than anticipated. We renewed the lease on our house, and we are here for another two years. 

In July, we drove to Cleveland, Ohio, for a short vacation. Met an old friend of S's from high school. On his suggestion, went to a place called Put -in-bay which is an island in the middle of Lake Erie. It was a 2-hour drive from Cleveland to the place from where we had to catch a 20-minute ferry to the island.  From the dock, we took a bus to get to the downtown area. The town of Put-in-Bay is small and quaint and entirely dependent on tourist traffic. The kids were able to go parasailing for the very first time. Who would've thought that a cold dreary city like Cleveland would afford that opportunity?!!!! They had a blast that day - parasailing over the lake on a perfect-temperature sunny day, wading and swimming in the cool waters, playing ball near the beach.....Y pointed out that it was the first time she and her dad had been able to go swimming since March 2020.

Overall, I was very impressed with Cleveland. It has a small but nice national park, a couple of good universities, a nice museum and arts district, and Lake Erie (one of the great lakes). We were blessed with very sunny bright weather most of the days so I guess we saw the city at its best. 

Back home, one of my besties visited for the weekend, her family in tow, and the next weekend, we drove to North Carolina to meet her and tour UNC Chapel Hill and Duke University. In a few days, we are off to Columbus, Ohio where Ads is playing in a tournament and where I will meet yet another friend from high school whom I haven't seen in years. In between, we have middle school orientation for Y, and I have been prepping to make sure we have clothes and supplies for back-to-school. Before we know it, the summer vacation will be over. 

Ads recently received his very first paycheck which was quite thrilling for me :) More on that, coming up soon!

Summer 2021 - Rhode island vacation

Cobalt-blue water, beautiful bays, divine sunsets, fancy Marlinspike Hall-esque mansions (get the Tintin reference?), the sun shining on it all...Newport Rhode Island is a paradise. The famous Cliff walk is a moderately challenging 3.5 mile walk along the Atlantic ocean, paved in paths and rocky in others. On one side is the aquamarine water pounding on the rocks, the other side is lined with the mansions of rich and famous (some of them converted into boutique hotels). The Sachuest Wildlife Refuge, the Cliff Walk and all the beaches were close to the airbnb where we stayed. A short drive away was the Fort Adams State Park which claimed to host the best sunset in the area.

Good food (first time in a while all of us went to a restaurant), long lovely walks, and a side trip to Providence to walk around Brown University. We spent a day in Yale (New Haven, CT) on our way back home. 

The summer holidays have just begun, with a bang :)

Vaxed!

The weekend has been spent resting, after our 2nd dose of the Covid-19 vaccine. Today I napped for more than an hour, a deep, strangely unsettling period of rest. Immersed in the very depths of sleep, as I fought my way to consciousness, it felt like I was buried many thousands of fathoms under the sea. Laboriously, I pushed my way up into awakeness, hands and legs pumping in the imagination. Even at the surface, the eyes would not cooperate and refused to open and take in the world! It was a process of almost physically having to peel the eyelids apart, so heavy had my slumber been. 

I come out of these naps feeling lackluster rather than rested (S says that's because they are too long, and he is right). There is a heaviness in the limbs which makes me think that this is what it must be like to be very old. One of my husband's (and Y's) "fun" things to do is to click a snap of me while I am sleeping. I am always upset to see how utterly exhausted I look in these photos. Mouth slack and open, I look for all the world like someone who has run a marathon and just plopped herself down to sleep, not at all like an active woman who gets her 8 hours every night! I wonder if this is just one of the many changes that the body experiences, with increasing age.

Anyhow, relieved to have got both shots now and we will be considered to be "fully vaccinated" after 2 weeks. The CDC also approved the Pfizer vaccine for 12-15-year-olds and Ads has already got his first jab.