Ancestor feeding..

One thing I always look forward to in Chennai is feeding the crows before we start eating. It is not enough to put the food out on the ledge.. you call out to them and wait to see them eat and then you eat.

The crows are considered as the spirit of our ancestors.. or so they tell me. Given my ancestors were all vegetarian and these crows aren't I would not take it literally. It is a beautiful concept though.. keep the scavenger birds around you well fed.. 

All said and done, I am happy we are still feeding crows. 

you can hear a bunch of kids talking in an American accent in the background.. this custom is definitely lost in our family after the current generation.

There are a lot of traditions. If we go into why they were setup and adapt them to today, there is no problem in accepting the simplicity of it or beauty of it. The issue is taking it literally and going all or nothing on these customs. 

There were lots of philosophical debates on customs, traditions in 48 hours spent in last trip than all previous trips put together. We kept it short and sweet. These discussions never end well for anyone. 

The crows are dwindling given the hot weather and water scarcity. Based on my limited sampling that is the conclusion. Not sure if the bird statisticians concur. Hope these crows migrate to another area and where they do, they find people who treat them as their ancestors and feed them every morning. 

They are on time, every time! 

A parallel track..

While I have been doing things with San and Jr. , the little one has been busy in her own way.. 

She had her annual violin recital with Andre Music studio, where she studies outside the school orchestra. This year they performed with two other schools at the Trinon theater in Downtown San Jose. 

She loves playing the Violin and that makes me so happy to see her play. Sometimes she gets that dreamy look in her eyes that says she is lost in the music and I feel that my job as a dad is at least half done as long as my kids have music in their lives!

Two photos that pretty much captured the event for me.. 

She got to receive the award for the group and I was happy to capture that smile. She has a beautiful smile, but it is so rare to capture it.. it is like that flower that blooms once every 12 years.. have to keep watching for it..

The recording of the event is very long.. here are a few snippets of the different pieces they played, some with the studio and others with all studios.. 

It is my sincere hope that she keeps playing, if not for others, at least for herself. 

She recently asked me sarcastically "like you play the guitar for yourself?" and I said "I dont have time to play the guitar these days, but if I want to, I can pick it up and start playing!" which was said in haste.. it will take me some time to get back to where I left off..  

hopefully she keeps playing without a hiatus.

Even a rainbow might feel under dressed

This weekend we celebrated Holi in Union city with friends. Many years ago, we made this a local event in a park in Cupertino.. but that was just the 15-18 of our close gathering.. last three years we decided to join a much bigger crowd of a few thousand people and it is a lot more fun!

As usual I get to take pictures of the group and send to everyone. I love editing photos of the happy faces after coming home as much as jumping up and down with colors everywhere! 

and then there are the kids.. just amazing.. innocent.. putting colors on themselves and everyone.

I had put some of this on FB already, but given my FB acts up and no one knows what will happen over time, posting some of that in the blog as well. 

One thing that is amazing is that playing Holi with strangers or friends and family works the same. San and jr. went into the crowd to meet our friends. As I walked into the crowd with a heavy camera bag on one shoulder and a camera on my hand ( I had to protect the lens from being powdered!!) a kid came running out of nowhere and hit hit head on my lens.. By the time I checked to make sure he was fine, he ran into the crowd. Now I was lost.. trying to stand on tippy toes to see if there was any chance of locating the tallest person in our group.. while doing that a group of strangers asked me if they could put color on me. I said yes and they promptly colored me! Then they shared their colors with me to put it back on them. 

At this point I would not have recognized myself anyway and when I finally found our group, they were all giving me the look that said "so, you have already been playing Holi with someone else all this time!" . 

Also the group is totally international and inter racial. Probably there were people from every country in the world there.. not to mention pet dogs. Even the dogs were colored and they seemed to be enjoying it! 

Some pictures from the celebration..

A picture of the kids taking a selfie.. it is my favorite shot of the entire album.. I would like to see that actual picture. They never smiled like that when posing for me.. but their smiles on the selfie must be priceless!! 

Also made a composite of all the recent Holi celebrations.. Missed the little one the last few years. She always ends up with a conflict of sorts on these days. Next year I have begged her to come celebrate with us...

Finally, a video with snippets that were recorded partly with iPhone and partly with the 5D Mark ii... that shows how grand this was!

The bay area is truly an amazing place.. We get to celebrate everything in style! 

Happy Holi to everyone! May your life be colorful and bright !!