the ushering of 2007 and our sordid drive to St Louis

It was the last night he closing scenes of 2007 and the brightening of 2008. The last day was spent nicely and I caught the pics of everyone. Anu came a bit late in the evening and she brought a wine bottle. Anu had still arrived and Ravi was at home. He was given job of breaking the coconut and slicing it to pieces for later powdering it in the Sumeet Mixie. Well he started doing it. He brought adi and kiru into the garage and gave them cycles. The first photo caught him in action on the coconut stuff. Well if you see the photo, one would just not understand his action in the garage. As usual, Adi was full of questions and Ravi was finding it difficult to answer his repertoire of questions. Kiratana and adi joined in with her cycles. Adi refused to ride the cycle kiru was riding his rider being that it was for babies and not big chaps like him. Kiru could not argue and gave up and stuck to her cycle like a good girl. Ravi still did not relish being supervised by these children hanging around him. He gave up and marched inside giving the pieces to Ram for further powdering. Later adi and kiru also went into the kitchen. They partook the coconut water and the small pieces. Kiru liked the coconut pieces and helped herself two more pieces. By that time, Anu had come from office and handed over two big gas balloons to kiru and Adi. All the people trooped into the living room. The children kept the balloons afloat and played first with Ravi and later with Asha. Anu changed herself by that time and they trooped out into the formal drawing room. Adi brought out all the pillows from the sofas and cobbled himself a hut. Anu not to be down played along with him. They clobbered themselves with pillows. Adi was clobbered by Anu and the onlookers were Asha and Ram. Kiru handled the Christmas tree kept near by. The Christmas tree was lighted up and was fully lighted. Kiru showed the blue and red laces and everybody enjoyed it. Later kiru perked up her courage and sidled herself on Anu. Anu gave her a big lecture and all of us enjoyed it.
Later Ravi organized himself in the garage for the big lights. The first lights were the sticks that give off stars. Asha was the first person to light the sticks. Ravi joined her immediately. Not to be undone Anu lighted three more sticks and went about whirling the sticks. I took some photographs with 10 sec click operation. The photos come out well. It picks the twirling movement of the sticks but the people are not focused properly. The twirling movement can be seen straightaway and the scenes are caught like Diwali pics. After sometime ram and kiru joined in. Kiru was not scarred but had to be dissuaded from lighting more of them. Ram and kiran in lighting these sticks helped Kiru. Asha and ram were ecstatic. However, the small brave person adi was not that brave. He kept on crying. Kiru was not much scared. Adi had to be comforted by Kiran and Asha. He was just scared to touch the sticks. After lot of cajoling, he did pick up the courage to handle one that is lighted. Adi handled the last of the sticks. In the mean time, Ravi opened the garrage wide and going out into the open started lighting the flowers pots. They kindled well and gave many stars as they died down. By this time, Adi and Kiru left their fears and went on lighting the sticks. I took some photographs. In some photographs, one can see Adi crying but later he was lighting the sticks with gusto. The last of these sticks were given to the kids to burn them out and they did. I was all the time shooing photographs and I got one chance of being photographed burning the sticks. Some of the flowerpots just sputtered and some gave brilliant color all over. Some lighted up with fits and starts. The last of the sticks were spent in making round lights in the air. With every burst of flowerpot, we welcomed the yr 2008 and bid good-bye to 2007.
After the flower festival, we all went in to celebrate 2008 in style. As said earlier, Anu had brought a champagne bottle. I was given the honor to open the bottle and say a few words. I opened the bottle with style but the cork just gave a small whoosh and some sound. So in came 2008. Anu collected some five wine glasses. We poured the champagne into the bottles up to the brim .Adi and kiru were given cokes in wine glasses. One can see kiru merrily drinking the wine and literally enjoying it. All of us, ram, Ravi, asha, anu, kiran and me picked our bottles and said hurrah to 2008, welcoming the prosperous 2008, and wishing all of us a very prosperous year 2008! Adi and kiru looked on and joined us in the melee and raucous laugher. I also managed to get the photograph with auto click. It was a great scene and hilarious. So ended 2007 with a kick start of 2008.
With the curtains down on 2007 and beginning 0f 2008 the asha & co set out the next day. We had planned to go to Saint Louis but we wanted to start early at 0500 hrs mil time. Therefore, I got up at 0230 hrs, finished my 3sss fast, and prayed to god to give us strength etc for the journey. Ram got up at 0330 hrs and finished her daily stuff. She was ready by 0430 hrs. Asha /adi/kiran were ready by 0510 hrs. We had tea etc but no eats. We took a photograph. The temperature was 23 deg Fahrenheit. It was abs cold. I took Ravi’s coat. We started well. As usual, adi slept off fast. He leaned on to me and then on to ram. He just kept sleeping and bouncing off us at back seat. Asha was awake for some time. She sat at front seat. She kept correcting him as he drove. Soon we were doing fast time and driving at 70. After some time, Asha slept off. Soon ram also slept off, she started snoring. I did not sleep. I looked at the outside scenery. I clicked some photos but they did not come off well. Therefore, I also started sleeping. Asha put her feet up on the front desk. The poor driver kiran kept good driving at 70 sharp. Soon we reached Tennessee Mountains -the Smokey mounts. The sun shining and hitting the blue and azure mounts was very refreshing. I took some photos as the sun arose on the eastern side. Some views were just spectacular. One of good shots was the small clouds as they were floating in the blue azure sky. I took some more shots as the mountains were disappearing fast. We reached the plains fast. Well it was time for breakfast. I woke them up and we soon had a sandwich each. We were kinda satisfied. However, by then we had reached Nashville already.
Asha took over the driving and we entered the temple portals. Kiran was still not sleepy. We took some shots of ram and me. I also took some photographs of kiran and family. By that, time adi was wide-awake. We found that no photographs were allowed inside the premises. We went inside and took of our shoes and our winter clothing but we retained our socks. It was terribly cold but the sun was brilliant and it took some of the wintry bite. We had come earlier with kiran and asha. The main deity was ganesha in black stone. The priests were very nice. We allowed inside the main deity for prayers. The other gods were Shiva and Venateswara. We also found navagraha in full splendor. It was great to go around the navagrahas seven times like in India. The crowd was largely Indian and South Indians. One boy came up and gave his stone for keep’s sake. He talked in Telugu and his mother guide him in teleugu. It was nice of the boy to be so friendly. We came out after fifteen minutes. Kiran bought five ladooos for five$. We came out started back with asha on the wheel.
I distinctly remembered that the backdrop of the temple in the front was just lovely. We were in a hurry because the cold was awful still I took a shot of the background. We were still grubby and we entered a deli on the way. We took sandwiches and good tea etc… adi had woken up and as usual was full of questions. He asked a lot of them to asha and settled down to his meal. We mad good progress and again slept off for some tome. We reached Saint Louis by 1600 hrs say twelve hours of good driving. The cold was awful but the house was warm enough. We took bath and did some puja. Asha and kiran were dog tired to cook for us. They ordered the general food pasta etc. she ordered a big pie and we all ate the stuff. Two big pieces were kept for me but I could eat only one. I ate up that piece the next day. We thanked kiran and asha fro the drive and they thanked us for reminding us to go for the Nashvielle ganapathi temple.
That was that day. The shots of Tennessee were worth the effort.