Picture perfect

The other day, one afternoon, I was bored and so I was looking at old  photos and I came across this family photo of ours. At once, memories came rushing in, how we took this photograph and my effort behind this.

         It's every home maker's dream to have a beautiful family portrait. This photograph is perfect, isn't it? Everyone is looking at the camera, wonderfully smiling and have perfectly dressed up. You may think that isn't a big deal, but to me it was. My daughters with their perfect hair and my hubby smiling, that's good looking! He never does that, and so, I am glad to have a record of it ha ha just kidding :) 

       When I suggested the idea of hanging a blow up of our family picture in our living room, everyone happily welcomed the idea, but no one was ready to come to the studio to take the picture .Everyone was mouthing some reason or the other, "Maa! I have to study," "Maa! I have plans with my friends," "Honey, I have work" (always elusive this ready made reply.) So to just gather them was a big task. The first one who was convinced was my younger daughter. Then it was my hubby's turn, he agreed  to come along only in terms that we can return in one hour and then, my elder daughter had one more condition. She was in her friends house and she agreed to come only if she was allowed to go back there after the photo shoot. Okay, done! I agreed to everyone and we proceeded to Photo Zone. Thank God, it wasn't crowded that day, and we had the photo shoot without any disturbance, but it was a Herculean task for the photographer .

      Our family is filled with great posers, but when it comes to taking a group photo, everyone of us were looking at different directions, and when we were made to look at the camera, we were not smiling, and the photographers main task was to make my hubby smile. Out of the 20 pictures taken, this was the only picture in which he was smiling. Voila! We got the picture! We then framed it and it is still hanging in our living room for years.
     Now it is the highlight of the room! Everyone is at awe at the picture and questions about the whereabouts of it.My hubby jumps out with a reply telling them  how much it cost and and how we ended with the wonderful idea of framing it big to the size of the wall. My daughter also chips in about the place Photo Zone and how the photographer takes wonderful pictures. I sit quietly watching them pom poming. I've been so close to yelling, "But remember how hard it was for me to take you there?" so many times, but I kept my mouth shut, after all, they are my family, aren't they?

Best days gone through

JAN 1 2014

                New year dawned with a cool breeze and drizzle in Chennai. My facebook wall was flooded with new year wishes and my mobile phone had been constantly ringing with whatsapp wishes. Thanks to all the kind hearted ones. Great mood has been set to welcome 2014. All the hype and hulla bulla created by the TV, media and friends _all settled down in the evening. I was quietly ruminating over the gone 2013. Not bad, 2013 has been good to me. It gave me some wonderful friends, lovely experiences and happy memories.

               

                 2013 was the year in which my daughter Aruna was selected for the German Exchange Program in her school. She started learning German language from the month of January. The weekend course continued for four months. For a while I have been telling her to learn a foreign language, which she had been ignoring. Now by God's grace, she began learning German. And by the end of the Academic year, around the last week of April, she flew to Germany and came back in May first week.

Click here to see what she has to say about her trip.

               The program is such as our children go there and experience the day to day life and culture of the Germans and their exchange partners come here and live and learn our culture. It is interesting,isn't it? The tour was set in October. The German teacher was the brain behind the program called for all the  parents and made it clear to us that it was joint experience. It was with parents' co-operation, she could make  their visit a success. So we had regular meetings and planned about how to make things work out. All the enthusiastic parents became my friends.I became very happy since I always loved company.

                    The day came...the beautiful, lovely girl called Lena came to our home..She was such a darling. We enjoyed her presence each and every second. Days flew like anything. It was like the visit came to an end within the blink of an eye. My elder daughter Neeraja became more attached to her than Aruna. She taught some bollywood dance moves to Lena which she loved very much. I couldn't control myself on the day when she left, the whole family was in tears. I don't know whether God will grace us with an opportunity to meet her again! However I will never forget her.

             Two more happy incidents were when I met my friends. I went to Salem to meet the most adorable, lovely,wonderful, and beautiful friend. Mahes, and on my birthday Thendral, who is double times what I said of Mahes, surprised me with her visit on my birthday. On these two occasions, I was beaming with joy  the whole time.

         I have always had an ambition to become a journalist. So, one day, just like that, I wrote an article for Deccan Chronicle and it had gotten published!

Oh my goodness! I got a lot of encouragement about this and one more good thing- I started blogging. So, thank you 2013  for offering me such wonderful experiences, and one word, 2014, "be as good as our predecessor. If you are still more better and generous providing with more interesting things to do in my life, then it is no problem :P"