MY FAMILY!!!!

This was supposed to be one of my earliest posts on my blog, but for no reason I kept delaying it. Anyways better late than never!:-)

This is about the most important thing in my life, which has shaped me for whatever I am now, My Family. With no exaggeration I can proudly say that this is the best family (slightly larger than others, hehe) in the world. I feel the luckiest person on earth to be a part of this “SVLUVG” family (to be read as ‘yes, we love jee/ G for Gayatri’). Now let me talk about every member of this great family individually.

In SVLUVG order, let me write about the lifeline of our family. S- Savithri that is my mom! How can I ever stop talking about her!?! I not only love her deeply but more than that respect and admire her for the woman she is. So strong, so talented, so enthusiastic about life, always level-headed, so humble, so inncocent and child-like yet very mature, she simply balances both her office and family amazingly. We can never even think handling anything without her. At her age (going to be 57, big age difference I know, but I have three elder sisters) she is more enthusiastic than all the teenagers alive. I can with no doubt say that if challenged to race with any teenager; my atheletic mom would be the one who will win!! She is always full of energy, ask her to participate even in something she might not have even heard about, she would participate heartily, put all her energy to it and practice continuously till she perfects it. I remember the yearly hindi-divas in her office, where she would participate in everything right from hindi-poetry recitation to hindi-song competitions despite her poor hindi. And then will recite her poems (my hindi course book poems) or learn a song from somewhere and sing it, all through the day. And the days when she was transferred to Ujjain, she would daily travel for two hours and after coming back she would enthusiastically dance till 12 during navaratris and it would be me in the end who will force her to come home. Plus she is incredibly brilliant! You need not teach her anything at all, she will grasp everything before you know it. And yes, she loves boasting about it to my innocent pavam dad! Not to forget an unbeatable memory. She remembers every single date and phone-number that could be of any use!

She is the best mom in the world and never asks anything from us in return. Bad daughters as we are, we shout and yell at her all the time about the silliest of things. Still she would never shout back and on the other hand will simply fulfill our craziest of demands without complaining at all (though sharing her worries with Makhijani auntie can be excused, hehe). She is overloaded with worries and troubles in her life. As it is her office is so tiring, after that she sometimes has to run to the hospital at 2 in the night(my dad being a heart-patient), come to manipal to get me admitted to college and check whether everything is proper, go to my sister’s place for her delivery and then also make arrangements for my other sister’s marriage! We simply expect her to do everything for everybody! And when we go back home, we consider ourselves to be the queen’s of the world in large and order her around, expecting her to make delicious food for us (by the way, she is a wonderful cook) and plainly forgetting that she also has a hectic office-life.

Ohhk let me stop here or else even the entire space in internet will not be enough to write on. And I still have five more incredible people in my life to write about!!!

To continue with the next person in my SVLUVG is my daaaaaad. He is a proud “IITian” who loves talking high about his daughters to anybody who agrees to listen. He is simply sweeeet with his usual chant of “ongu amma ennu tithina” thousand times a day, his rigorous walks for more than three hours daily, his pain-staking sessions of free-cell everyday, his calls in every two hours, his latest craze for forwarded mails and high-tech mobiles and his high-pitched recital of the song “muthaitiru…”. He is lost in his own world making flailing attempts to get in synch with the world. He repeats the same jokes everytime and surprisingly laughs as hard as he would have for the first time. He simply loves kids but connects to them strangely which often scares them away!

I remember the times when he was transferred to Bhopal and I would visit him during my summer vacations, he would daily buy me ice-creams from top-in-town and as many chocolates as I wanted.

If I know him well, the best thing that he would surely be pleased with, would be to relax with the cooler on and to have someone walking on his legs and massaging them {I could not think of a better word :-(}

He is the silent supporter of our family who subtly looks after everbody and provides us with everything we need. All these years he has never bought anything for himself but simply saved every single penny to fulfill our desires and to make our future secure! He is the best example of all the loving dads the banking and insurance companies advertise about!

Now comes my eldest sister Lakshmi or as I call her “lakshmikka”. She is a genius, unbeatable in everything. Anybody who knows her well can never stop praising her to glory! She has the mind of a computer and can easily top any exam without even putting efforts. She is also wonderful cook (I think that is in our blood. Everybody cooks so well, except me:-( )

She is the one who is most attached to the family. She would be genuinely concerned for everybody and looks into every detail, consider every aspect, pros and cons about every single thing related to us. She is a typical Cancerian and is a very loving mother! Even at the age of 15, she was the one who took care of me more than my mother. I have heard that whenever anybody would praise any other kid infront of her, she would become all possessive and say, “apni gayu koi kam thodi hai!” She is completely a family-person and would do anything for her family (who else would reject the calls from all IIMs to get married?!?!?) Plus she is so simple, never dresses up, no make-up at all and would walk everywhere in simple slippers.

To sum it up, I can say, she is the ideal daughter, ideal wife, ideal mother, ideal sister and ideal person as a whole. You can never relate her to anything that is wrong. People get distracted but she has incredible control over herself and can never do anything that is bad.

Hmm… let me proceed with my next sister, Vidya (vidikka). She was the one I spent most time with, in my childhood. As a kid, I used to call her cleanliness-freak which she is actually! But more than that, she has an amazing personality. She carries herself so well, always well-dressed with a cute-dimpled smile! She easily wins people’s trust and can talk amiably to any type of person.

She loves reading books (which she enculcated in me earlier) and has a brilliant vocabulary! When she was in Indore she made me talk to her only in English because of which I was very fluent at it. But as she shifted to a different place for her studies, I gradually lost touch with my command on English (sigh). She was the one who used to give me food everyday when I came tired from school and forcefully made me drink milk two times a day! She taught me almost all the shlokas I know today and I can never forget the days when we both would sing together on the vehicle while driving to any place. And it is only because of her that I am such a sleepy-head now. Earlier she would force me to sleep every afternoon when I was hyperactive. Now all the energy is gone off me and only the habit of sleeping has remained. I miss the lovely dal-makhani and cakes she used to make!!

Now only remains my youngest elder sister, Umakka better known in manipal as my angel-sister living in Bangalore mainly because she is my financial support here! She is cute, she is lively, she is child-like and at the same time she is responsible, hard-working, perfectionist and a bit moody too. As a kid, she used to waste all her time in front of the mirror, talking to herself. She only taught me to make soap-bubbles and identify the sound lizards make. She used to take me to my dance classes in her cycle three times a week (she would come directly from her school which was far-away and with the remaining energy dance in the class). And she loved telling us with intricate details the dreams she saw daily. She was the only one in our family who would study hard in school and college, because of which she has owned herself a brilliant academic record too! She loves shopping, but not for herself, for me! She is very calm and balanced and hardly loses temper. She listens to every silly thing you have to say patiently. Tell her all your problems and she will always be there to help you out. And she loves doing the creative stuff, all kinds of paintings and knitting. When we used to go to Bhopal for our vacations she would make me walk all the way down to New-Market and buy all the material required for different kinds of paintings (emboss, sand, jardosi) and soft toys. And one significant thing about her is that in every phtograph of hers she looks totally different. One would find it hard to believe it’s the same person in all the photos. But all her photos are so interesting. Always a new expression in every photo with an exciting adventure to back it up!

In all I can say, with everybody showering their love and affection on me I consider myself very lucky to have such a great family. Love you all! Thanks for always being there.

P.S. I forgot to mention that Umakka has a funny habit of talking in her sleep!