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

Ahshaan and Zaara

Ahshaan and Zaara - sweet kids

Zaara sleeps off while shopping

Zaara's teething and loves to chew on anything :-)

Zaara ...

Evening walk at Kennedy Park, Sayreville, NJ

Last evening, 7/5, we found some unexpected time for a walk. A couple of video captures of the water birds at the park --->

4th of July at Philly

Uma and I drove down to Philly to try and catch the 4th of July Parade, and fireworks. A few missed exits and we were late for the parade. However, a few pictures from the Parade --->

These pictures were taken near the Franklin Institute Science Museum.

We then walked the Ben Franklin Parkway towards the Museum of Art.

Me and Uma

When the festivities started, we could only capture a short low-res video.

And then Nature started its fireworks - rain and thunder. We just had to return back.