Dinner meeting with IBM execs on Friday - 11/16/2007

We had a dinner meeting with execs from work. The dinner invite was extended to employees families too. Here are some pics from the dinner.

Dinner Meeting with Ravee - Fri 08/17/2007

On Friday evening, we (Chandra, Arul, Thanga, Jagadish, Kannan, Murali, Nagesh, Naveen, Raju, Ratnesh, Shebeen, Srini Jayanthi, Babu, Arvind, Anurag, Manoj) were invited to dinner at Chand Palace, Piscataway, NJ for a dinner with Ravee. Anurag and Manoj could not make it to the dinner.

It was a fun evening, with good food and drinks. The atmosphere was light and filled with good doses of humor - Murali, Raju, Thanga, Naveen, Arul, Arvind were good sport.

Some pictures from the dinner -

Zaara and Ahshaan - drive away our stress from work

We had a very stressful day at our work. An evening spent with Zaara and Ahshaan was one of the best things that could have happened to us. All of our stress and worries were wiped away by their sweet smile.

Indian Independence Day

India's Independence Day is August 15th each year. At midnight, on 15 August 1947, India became an independent nation.

On a lighter note, this being a national holiday in India, I guess I will be able to get some little extra sleep (). Though, this is not looking likely.

Abirami Sivaramakrishnan

Abirami (our colleague from work, also called 'Abi') arrived in NJ this past weekend. Got to hear of her arrival from Gordon.

I had to handover a computer to her, so used the opportunity to say 'hello' in the evening. My first impressions of Abirami, on meeting her in person - she is a nice lady. I did not have much time with me to have a longer conversation. Will post later when we do get to sit down and talk about things other than work.

Abi is currently staying at Rinki's home.

Late night work

Recently, there have been meetings from work which are run from India. As a required participant in these meetings, I have found myself staying awake at late hours to be on these meetings.

Jugnu

I met Jugnu on Sunday, 8/5. He had shaved off his head. How different he looks now ...




This was how he looked earlier ...

A dinner with friends

Friday evening, 8/3, we (including Saurav, Uma, Shebeen, Shahana, Ahshaan, Zaara, Prasad, Bala, Gautam, Roopali, Praveen, Prajakta, Jay, Radhika, Neeti) gathered together for dinner. Uma prepared a great dinner, with help from Shahana and a little bit from yours truly (). As you can see in the pictures




Thanks to Praveen for the pictures before we got to the dinner.

Dinner menu was: Rajma, Alu Gobi Mattar Paneer, Alu and Green Chawli, Sambhar, Rice, Roti, Salad, of course, Kheer for desert

Ahshaan and Zaara had some fun time with me before folks started to arrive.

Guru Purnima गुरु पूर्णिमा

Sunday, 29-Jul was Guru Purnima. On this day, devotees offer puja to their Guru. Our two gurus are Sai Baba and Mata Amritanandmayi.

Clarification on Ahshaan and Zaara

We have been receiving questions offline on who Ahshaan and Zaara. Ahshaan and Zaara are Shebeen and Shahana's children. Shebeen is a friend and colleague from IBM. He is also our neighbour.

Saravana Babu

Saravana called us up yesterday (12-Jul) evening, to let us know his return to India is this weekend. As soon as we heard this, we drove down to his work to meet him. Traffic on 287 was bad, but we still managed to get to him before 5 PM. We drove back to his residence and caught up on past times.

Saravana studied at Amrita Institutions, Ettimadai, Coimbatore. We happened to work on the same application at IBM, Bangalore. He has always come across as a direct and straightforward person.

Saravana's wife and child are at Bangalore. His stay here in the US for three months were packed with work. Long distance communication was his contact with family from here. We understand what it means to be away from our family for long durations.

Wishing Saravana a happy journey and joy of being back with his family, as he sets sail for his most awaited trip the past three months.

Bon voyage

Ahshaan and Zaara - 2

Some more pictures of Zaara and Uma ...

Watch Zaara in Uma's arms, while Uma talks to Shebeen and Shahana. Observe how Zaara tries to follow the conversation going around.

Zaara on Shebeen's back

Zaara chewing on Saurav's fingers. Zaara is teething and loves to chew on almost anything. Uma shot this from her mobile. Could not fix the orientation though.

Our visit to Amma

On July 11, 2007, Amma was at NYC. Amma's NYC website is here.

We visited her on the same day. Photographs were not allowed. The only pictures we could take were of ourselves.

We purchased a Tulsi sapling for our home, and a piece of sandalwood for a friend. With Amma's blessings, we returned home.

Outside the center, holding the Tulasi sapling, and sacred ash on our forehead ...

The Tulsi plant at our home