Week # 6 - Wedding Anniversary weekend

17th - 23rd May 2008

On 17 May, we completed 29 years of happy married life. It happened to be a Saturday and all the friends of Sai (Raja, Harsha, Anu and Teja) were present along with him.Divakar could not come due to some pressing engagement. Stephanie and her mother were also there to congratulate us. We were meeting Stephanie’s mother Betty for the first time. A very cheerful lady who straightaway became very friendly with us. She is working in the Novato Fire Department.

Latha had made some excellent lunch .Potato curry, Brinjal curry, Cucumber Pachadi Sambhar and Rasam and Paal Payasam .Sai opened up a bottle of champagne. Sai’s friends, in fact all of us, including Stephanie thoroughly enjoyed the Lunch. Sai & Stephanie, gave us a digital camera as a present which can also take video .It was too good a gift. Sai’s friends gave us two candle holders – beautiful and elegant. The Greeting Cards given by them were simply wonderful and touching.

But what made the occasion so very happy and thrilling was that we were with our son for the first time, after 10 years, on our Wedding Anniversary. After lunch, we all went to the Golden Gate Garden and roamed around another part of the garden .This part had trees and plants which belonged to an era 2000 to 3000 years ago. Amazing as to how these people maintain such things. We had good fun, cracking jokes and by and large enjoying ourselves in each other’s company.

The Garden itself is very beautiful and no entry fee at that .After roaming around the Garden, we all went to the Ghirardelli ice cream shop. The place was so crowded. This big parlor has been in existence for more than 100 years. The ice cream was simply out of the world. It was a wonderful experience. We saw one or two Indian families too enjoying themselves. Overall an emotional and a very happy day – a day which we will cherish for the rest of our lives.

Went for “Sandwich Seva” on 18th Sunday. But we came back, as the San Francisco marathon was “on” on that day .Came to know through the local radio station, while on the move, in the car. The Golden Gate Bridge linking us to SFO would be jammed with participants and it would not have been possible for us to come back till late in the afternoon.And so we decided to return home.

We had also been invited by Dr Narayan Raju, the Honorary Consul General of Fiji the same day, and we had to go there too. Went there after lunch. From Raju’s house we could see planes taking off and landing at the San Francisco airport closeby. Became nostalgic and remembered as to how we had landed in the same airport just a month or so back, completely lost! And how we had settled down in SFO within such a short time! Was wondering as to how quickly time passes. Time and tide wait for none indeed. All due to Sai’s immense love for us and nothing else!

All of those who had come, for the party, a dozen of them, of our age group,were gents only except for Latha. A majority of them were Fiji citizens of Indian origin, now settled down in San Francisco and some youngsters belonging to Hyderabad on some software project work! All were very fond of Bollywood and Bollywood songs! Dr Raju had called a Fiji Indian singer, Mr. Singh, who sang beautifully all old Hindi songs .He had CDs which gave the orchestral music in the background (karaoke with amplifier system) and he sang along with it. Sai and I also sang two songs along with the recorded orchestra. Incidentally Mr. Singh is an amateur singer who has been giving stage performances and is doing this more as a hobby and is really not interested in making money for himself, although he can, he is so good.

Every body was so loving and the atmosphere so positive and the music was so enchanting that I was reminded of Swami ,as the singer sang the songs with so much of soul in it. In fact I wanted to sing some bhajans if only these simple folks knew them. This in spite of a lot of non vegetarian snacks and drinks all around us. Here was this group of unknown strangers who were simply showering their love on us.

Because we vegetarians had nothing to eat, Dr Raju requested Latha to prepare some “small onion” sambhar and helped her to make the same, with so much love and care. He is meeting us for the first time and he never made us feel as if we were strangers to the crowd – and that too vegetarian, non drinking. But ultimately we left without taking anything except for some dried fruits, as it was getting late and we had a long drive back home.

In Dr Raju’s place I saw Swami’s teachings in action:

Start the day with Love
Fill the day with Love
Spend the day with love
End the day with Love
For God is Love
And Love is God

Went for Bhajans to Pavan’s place this time . Learning some nice English bhajans. Sai dropped us and went away on some work and came back to pick us up.We made “Greeting Cards” a service project for the underprivileged , after the bhajan.

A very memorable happy week indeed.