Poem by Kalyani

In memory of my dad's birthday, my sister Kalyani wrote this beautiful poem.

Namaste! Welcome to my blog!

This blog is dedicated in memory of my dad who passed away on February 27th, 2008. I wanted to keep his memories alive. I created this blog to invite our family and friends to share with us any good memories they had with my dad.

Please take a few moments to write your happiest or most heart warming memories that you recall about my dad in this guest book. Thanks for your time.

These are the few of my dad's favourite things ....

• My Mom of course makes it to the top of the list.
  My dad always said that he was lucky to have her since she always took very good care of him till the end.

• Grand Children.
  There is no denying that he loved all his eight grand children. He would do whatever they asked him to do, like playing board games, taking them to the park, playing ball games, singing to them, helping them sleep and the list goes on and on .... The grand children loved him too. I'm very fortunate that my dad got to see Harshul, the youngest of them all.

• Meditation classes.
  My dad was a member of Brahma Kumaris Spiritual organization for more than 25 years of his life. He enjoyed it immensely.


• Singing Songs.
  My dad had such melodious voice. He loved to sing all the time. He used to sing a lot of Telugu movie songs (especially the Ghantasala ones). In fact he was learning a Hindi (baba) song to sing on stage for Rakhi celebrations at his Brahma Kumaris institution.


• Mathematics.
  My dad's love for Mathematics passed on to all of us. He taught us all Math and made it look very easy. In fact when 2 of my sister's were visiting him, he said I'm very happy 50% of my daughters are here, instead of saying 2 of my children are here. That is how much we used math in our everyday terminology.


• Cricket.
  He loved to watch one day internationals. He even got to see a few of 20/20 games which is the latest trend in Indian Cricket. We feel sad that he did not get to watch any of the IPL matches. Else I'm sure he would have supported Bangalore Royal Challengers.


• Tennis and Soccer.
  He would be on top of the latest happenings in the Tennis world. He was usually supporting Federer in the recent matches. I remember him watching Soccer matches at odd hours at night.


• Sudoku.
  The numbers game. He too got the Sudoku fever. As soon as he got the newspaper, the first thing he would do is solve Sudoku. Later I showed him the daily sudoku on Yahoo games and he started doing the online version.


• Mahjong.
  This is another Japanese board game of tile matching. He enjoyed playing this a lot on the computer. I'm not sure what his best timing was, but I'm sure it was under 5 minutes.


• Music.
  He learnt to play Banjo (a musical instrument) in his 40's. He loved to play key board and piano. My Mom tells us that he learnt to play Piano by watching his sister during her Harmonium classes. He never got any formal piano lessons. In fact the last time he played piano was at my friends place. He played a Hindi movie song, "yeh apana dil to awara".


• Smile.
  He loved to smile. Whenever I visualize my dad, I always remember his smiling face.
  

• Roasted Peanuts.
  He loved to munch these any time of the day, especially in the afternoons.

The list just goes on .... As I remember more I shall add to the list.

Stand Up To Cancer

On september 5th there is a big television event to raise money for cancer research. This is our chance to do something to make a difference for cancer research. You can find all the details at their website. So tune in September 5th at 8 p.m. to ABC, NBC or CBS to watch this special event.

I especially liked the idea of launching a star in honour of someone diagnosed with cancer.

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Wow what an inspiration to all of us to live our lives to the fullest. At the time of this lecture Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was given a very limited time for his survival by his doctors. In spite of all that when you hear him in this lecture you forget the fact that he is suffering with a life threatening ailment. After losing my dad recently, it felt good to watch this video.

Here is the link to his speech .....

Randy Pausch Last Lecture