Hard at Work

Here's Geetha, Giri and Sangametra one evening, each busy writing, drawing, doodling, and then, raised their heads up for short while to catch their breath, enough for me to take a picture.

Reunion III

Seen Nang, Hari and Hoong; cousins and uncle. You will notice that Hari and Seen Nang like being seen together at our family gatherings. Lots to talk about, these guys.


Nik, David and Geetha: there wasn't much for them to eat at the dinner - being vegetarians and all - but Nik seems quite full and fed, gulping down questions, news, answers, etc... it was a non-stop whirling churning. This was time out!


Pok Meng and Pok Lai, 5th Uncle's beautiful daughters.


Little Women: Pui Yan, Pui Yi, and Sangametra. Isn't it amazing how much Sangametra looks like her cousins?!


Nik and Hoong. See if you can find any similarities here.

First Day at School

It's the first day of school and Hari and Giri are in their school uniform. Hari is in Form Four this year, after getting rather good results for his PMR with 3 As and 4 Bs. He is a school prefect.
Giri goes to Standard One. He is quite excited about school and looks quite smart in his new uniform.


Below: Giri and Geetha get ready for school. One thing for sure, Giri loves the idea of being independent, doing things like buying snacks from the canteen and making friends straight away with some of his new classmates

Looking Back a Little

This is how Geetha looks like nowadays. She has been teaching Odissi dance all these years but recently she started performing again.

In July this year, we went to Coimbatore, India, to pay our respects at the shrine of our spiritual guru Swami Shantanand Saraswathi. He passed on last year in July. It is very peaceful at the shrine. The shiny black stone in the centre atop the white square marble block symbolises the resting place of our Swamiji who was interred right there in the ground last year. A bluish greenish grey egg-like stone on top of the black stone is the Shantalingam. This consecrated stone marks Swamiji's presence and essence. It is here that daily worship is performed, morning, noon, and night.

Giri and Sangametra always find occasion to pose for a photograph. Right now, they both enjoy painting and drawing. They have started going for Tamil classes. Geetha wants to learn Mandarin. We intend to get the kids and ourselves to learn as many languages as possible.

In Coimbatore, we visited with some close friends who live in the vicinity of the shrine. The shrine there is called Shivanjali. It is a small community in which all of our Temple of Fine Arts projects are located. In the background, dressed in orange robes are Swami Tyageshananda and Girija Ma. Their daughter Swarnalatha is with us as well.