Here is Dad's diary. I will add photos (starting with Srirangam) and colorful comments in parentheses.



(View from the Rock: Srirangam on the left and Thiruvanaikaval on the right.)

Dec 30 (Tue):

Venkat called around 7:30 a.m. He had just arrived from Bangalore in an overnight bus. The fact that he had come to Trichy to see us was a very pleasant surprise. My own theory is that Thulasi had asked him to come so that he could serve as an interpreter between me and her (since my command of Tamil had sunk pretty low in her estimation). He came to the hotel around 9 and we all went to Thulasi’s house. We spent the day there. Thulasi and I had to take care of some paperwork needed to facilitate the sale of the Woriur house. (Frankly, I don’t think it is going to happen – ever!). The whole situation is exactly like the first chapter in “Bleak House” by Charles Dickens, where the legal proceedings regarding the property of a deceased person never gets settled and is dragged on for generations until the whole property is consumed by the legal costs. In our case, the law is not clear about who should consent to the sale of the house and what the documents are. It appears that a power of attorney (authorizing Kalyanam to sell the house) will be needed by just about everyone including my children as well as Kalyanam’s. If things get delayed, then even Bapu’s and Chandran’s sons will have to give clearance!

Thulasi is in very good shape (she is now 72) and walks everywhere. She probably could benefit from a hip replacement, but she just takes homeopathic medicines for her pain. She uses the phone a lot. She belongs to a ladies’ club. Her command of Hindi was good enough for her and Kalyani to carry on a conversation. (Thulasi studied Hindi a lot when she was young and we were somewhat surprised that she still maintained such fluency; Jayanthi later explained to us that Thulasi’s fluency was because of her talking to (Jayanthi’s husband) Prajit when she visits them in Hyderabad.) My Tamil was fine except when I was struggling with the grammatical structure at times. Thulasi told us that Kalyanam had been calling her almost every day during the preceding three weeks to discuss all the paperwork needed in connection with the sale of the Woriur house. Kalyanam uses his cell phone for his calls and the connection was often bad and she could not always understand what he was saying. When he told her that we were planning to stay at Hotel Breeze in Trichy, she couldn’t understand him and when he spelled the word “breeze”, she only picked up the four letters r-e-e-z. So, she contacted several acquaintances (who travel a lot) and finally figured out the name of the hotel. She had a lot to talk about and it was as if we had been away from each other only a few days. Venkat and Jayanthi are very fond of her and she spends several months a year in their houses.

Venkat, Kalyani and I went to the Woriur house. There is one woman, Radha, living there. She is the one who was taking care of Alli’s husband and then Alli over the last dozen years or so. I assume that she will vacate the house if ever the house gets sold and she will need some financial help to find a different place to live. The house was far from clean and the upstairs room had a dank smell. The swing (which used to be in the living room) was stored there. My mother had left it to Mom, since she enjoyed it and admired it so much. We cannot bring it here, of course. Venkat expressed a strong interest in having it and so I said he could have it. I did feel very nostalgic as I toured the house. The possibility that it will be torn down by the buyer and replaced by a high-rise building or a mansion bothers me. The house next door is now a huge mansion with only a young couple living there!

Venkat went back to Bangalore that night. He stopped by our hotel on his way to the bus-stand (which was very close to the hotel). He is not doing free-lance work any more but works for a small company.

Dec 31 (Wed):


(Friendly waiter with fantastic coffee in Srirangam. I found that in my s.l.(sans luggage) state people in the south took me for a northerner. This was very nice, as it freed me from a lot of unwanted attention. This waiter, when I (correctly!) ordered two coffees in Tamil--Dad went to the bathroom, another privilege of maleness in India--translated my order into Hindi.)

Kalyani and I took an “auto” (the three-wheeler) to Srirangam and then we went to Kannan’s house in Thiruvanaikaval (a small town between Trichy and Srirangam). He has a very nice house (two floors and a terrace) and a car. His wife Rajee prepared us an excellent traditional lunch. Thulasi came over at lunch time. Again, she and I had to take care of some paperwork in Trichy. We went to the temple in Thiruvanaikaval, which is not as big or as famous as the Srirangam temple, but in many ways more attractive. Rajee is very active in the temple (it is only a few hundred yards from their house); she takes food and beverages to people who perform bhajans there, for example. Because of this, we were given VIP treatment: free admission, no queues to wait in and entry into the inner sanctum ahead of everyone else. Their son, Karthik, got married last year (May) and he lives in the U. S. near Virginia. Their daughter, Meera, is 24 years old, has a Master’s degree in Social Work, lives at home and teaches at a college in Trichy. She wants to work toward a Ph. D. but her parents want her to get married.

Incidentally, I am not reporting the details of certain conversations involving family members, which took place because it won’t be wise to put them in writing. I will have to wait to divulge the details in face-to-face meetings.

Then we all came back to Trichy. Kannan took us shopping for clothes. The stores are a mob scene; the whole Indian population is out shopping! Except during the evening hours, traffic in Trichy is not too bad.

Our hotel was having a big New Year’s Eve bash (loud music and all) but Kalyani and I were in bed by 9 and sound asleep by 9:15!

Jan 1 (Thu):

Kalyani and I went into town and up to the top of Rock Fort: more than 250 steps. And the steps in India are generally quite a bit steeper than here: usually 6 to 9 inches high. The fact that I was able to get to the temple at the top without having a heart attack has received more publicity and acclaim than Sir Edmund Hillary’s scaling Mount Everest. I guess that because of all the reports about my heart problems and knee replacements, people were expecting a frail old guy who needed a wheel chair.