Anna's Wedding Snaps - Day -1 Snaps

We reached Vijayawada for the wedding from Chennai on Saturday morning (18th) with the train getting delayed (as usual!). This snap is right after we reached the venue.

(L to R): Anna, Chalapathi Uncle (Anna's Father-In-Law) and Dad.

Later in the afternoon and through the evening ....

We had a function - Edhurukollam and these snaps were taken by Raventh & Manasa leading to the function.

with dad...


with mom....


with sundari aamma (Amma's 3rd Elder Sister) and Chachu (Amma's younger sister)...


with sisters: Manasa (Pink) and Madhuri (Orange)...


more snaps to follow ...

Anna's Wedding - Post 1 (Pre-marraige Chennai Cermony!)

Here we go., snaps from anna's wedding ... let me try and cover as many people that participated in the wedding as possible. If someone feels that his snap has been missed, send me a holler and i shall add the same.

Date: 16-Feb-2006
Venue: Home

Groom & his aide:

Before the wedding, there is a ceremony where the "groom" is ordained to be one. An interesting fact, that i learnt is that the groom needs to have parayani from this day onwards till the wedding day.

What is parayani? Why do you think, anna and myself are holding our trousers high. Parayani is turmeric paste applied to the feet with some designs in vermillion paste.

Spot the Difference:

That's Kiran Vodhia with Tanushree and Vijaya Vodhina with Teja - with each other's kids swapped for the snap.

"Blind Side" - Nice read, nothing less - nothing more!

Michael Lewis shot to fame in the late 80s with his book on the stock market - Liars Poker. He also revolutionized baseball with his book - Moneyball in early 2000s.

If you think "The Blind Side" will revolutionize american football, the same way - he is atleast 15 years late and the book is not going to add any new insights to the way the game was transformed by free agency. The closest that american football has in conjuction to transformation is the growth of statistical analysis in the game and the growth of websites like Football Outsiders.

However the book is worth reading once for the simple reason that it summarizes the growing importance of the left tackle position - the most unglamorous but highly paid role in football as well as making the biography of Michael Oher interesting.

While the books on succesful athletes can be found plenty a dime, it is purely superb move to publish a book on a player who is making child-steps in college football and is not likely to hit the NFL draft till 2008.

Bye Bye Cricket (?)

As of 11:29, i have decided to liquidate my interests in cricket and move away (Thatz how a stock-broker would have said it!). As a life-long Indian cricket fan, walking away is the only option out for me. Following various sporting traditions like Thorpe (Aussie Swimming) and Tres (English Cricket), i have decided not to invest any more passion, effort, faith in the game of cricket.

Nope, i am not giving up on Indian Cricketers or my passion for the test match cricket. I am just walking (sulking!) away from the repeated negative coverage from the Indian media. The overbearing media has just gone two steps too many in trying to beat the cricketers and with the politicians joining the band wagon, i guess it was too cramped in there and i have respectfully given way, so that one more overbearing i-know-more-than-everyone-else guy can get on board to trash everyone linked to Indian Cricket.

Just a few examples, we have had the media critics having a field day against Greg Chappell and the humble parliamentarians have joined in critizing Greg. If they had so much pride in India, maybe they will pass the Women's reservation bill and the Whistleblower's protection bill in the winter Session. This is the same Greg who not too long ago was admired for pushing India's most succesful captian - Sourav Ganguly out of the side.

And now, the posterboy for media in the GC-SG spat, Rahul Dravid is coming under fire as well. Various critics are having a field day indirectly questioning Rahul dravid on his captaincy and there is another whole set of people, who have said that Ganguly had the desire to win and Rahul Dravid lacks the same.

Poor Md. Kaif - his home was vandalized during India's poor show in initial part of WC 2003 and the same repeats now.

And the least i say about the so-called fans, the better. I think there needs to be a display of Class - something the fans have missed when the team falls short. As from a quotation, the right to support a winner rests with only those who can accept defeat, most of India's fans only want to utilize Cricket as a distraction from real life & with the economy doing great, there is nothing much worse than that.

And with all this, i have come to a conclusion: The media always likes the Vice-Captain and have decided to always smack the captain for all india's mistakes. I am in no-way happy with the team's performance, but it is not the end of the world to me. (Remember Lance Klusener who is quoted after the nail-biting elimination from WC 1999: Nobody died today & hence why all this fuss).

I am no arm-chair captain/coach or a monday morning quarterback.

MY team will recover from their shortcomings and will do well in the future and while i don't know when and where, that is the least of my worries. They have entertained in the past and they will entertain in the future and i am happy knowing & accepting them as what they are.

Satyendra Dubey

Satyendra Dubey epitomizes the true value that every Indian should religiously adhere to. He had Mahatmas dream-come-true personality - a villager who fought his way to India's best education (IIT Kanpur), chose a public service job and wanted to aid India in its dream for becoming a super-power by working at its grassroots.

It is appaling that the government has shown little dedication to the cause of Satyendra Dubey - be it in bringing his killers to justice or showing sincerity in getting a whistleblowers regulation in place, though there are plans to introduce one in the winter session of parliament (3 years after his death)

Please do visit the SK Dubey Foundation, by clicking here

For those who have little idea of SK Dubey - here is a summary: SK Dubey hails from Bihar Village, gets selected to one of India's best Engg colleges (IIT Kanpur), passes out with academic honors, takes up job in india's public service instead of pursuing options in US (like a lot of Indian Enggs) and was posted with the National Highways dept as project manager. When he bought corruption to the notice of his higher officials, his identity was leaked inspite of requests and was murdered a little later in 2003.

A detailed brief of his profile can be found here.

NDTV aired a profile of Satyendra Dubey last night and it was quite moving. I realised that while we are jostling with day-to-day issues, here is a role model for Indian youth and he hardly gets the attention he deserves.

Even yesterday, he had to compete with MPs taking offense to Cricket Coaches remark, Sanjay Dutt's visit to temple before verdict & Abhishek - Aish tryst in Varanasi. It is sad that India has lost perspective of a fallen hero in pursuit of trivial news about Cricket & Cinema!

Some Random Sports Thoughts

One more siesta and any confidence that i had in my discipline is completely dead. I am back in the blog, after i joined Orkut and a few people had a few nice things to tell me of my blog. I am hoping to blog twice a week and lets see how much i can keep up my word.

Out at home, my Brother - Sailesh and his wife (Radha Vodhina) are back in Chennai after their 5 month stay in Minneapolis, MN. Been a lot of fun, since they arrived on saturday.

On to the random 'sports' thoughts:

1. It is a sad day when we have 24 year swimming champions retire. When Ian Thorpe pulled out of the swimming circuit - the whole sport is lesser without him. That he dominated the sport, is an understatement. He destroyed his opposition and the lack of any competitors destroyed his competitive spirit. What next - Australian Cricket pulling out of test cricket and the dominant Roger Federer leaving tennis for lack of competition.

2. First it was Roger and now the NE Pats. The New England Patriots demolished the Green Bay Packers 35 - 0 and boy, it was tough for meek opponents this week. Maybe it is time that Brett Favre retires and allows the Packers to move on.

3. Nature helped India avoid the above fate by sending torrential showers in the rained-out Ind-SA ODI match.

4. Been following a lot of NFL action that i find it hard to spend time on some of my traditional sport. Damn the NFL season, it is just too hectic!

PS: I started making a pic blog of anna's wedding. Will post it soon!