19th Aug: Another BBQ, and this time it is Washington.

A small gathering , where all of us gave each other enough attention!!! Montu da was the official chef , with Shabnam doing the marinate. Mom helping with the salads, while I manage the show!!!:-)

Meeting Janaki ( still upset that Jim wasn’t here) after a good 20 years , was fantastic. We just picked up from where we had left , didn’t fell that we hadn’t met for so many years!!! She took us for a lovely pre-lunch at TGIF, where ,to Mom’s absolute delight we discussed about the ashram and its teachings. And it was Strike One, when Janaki said , she had been to Ganeshpuri for a picnic, as a 13yr old & met a Swami in Silence at an ashram there, who’s presence was so over powering & serene, that she was tempted to go there again, but things didn’t fall into place & she never did. How uncanny is it, that Janaki has met Baba Muktananda ….. stranger than fiction life is when things like this happen!!!

Met Neela, friend of Shabnam, a complete fun person & someone who broke my record…. She has changed 14 school’s vis a vis to my 9 schools!!!!

And then was meeting Mohit, after 27years. Beauty being, I don’t even remember ever speaking with him in DC. But meeting him, with Shalini & son , Shaurya, not for a minute did I feel that I was meeting them for the first time types!!! Conversation flowed beautifully & Mom, took an instant liking for Shalini ( after all adrak walli chai jo banaya Shalini ne!!).

Shaurya & I, had a few one second games of Chess, where he just had to win all the games. Then he decided, the Chess box was the alligator’s mouth, which would eat all the fish aka the pieces ….. what an amazing imaginative mind these kids have!!!  And all that he ate was …. Typical desi style , biscuit chai main duba ke …. How perfect!!!

Anecdotes:

Montu da, as a student in Amrika, tried his had at cooking for a few guests & made Cabbage ki sabzi. It was only later when , a neighbor ate the sabzi, was he told that he had made Lettuce ki sabzi!!!!

Shabnam, when she went for the very first time shopping books, etc for Mithun at Staples, she went around asking where the Rubber was!!!!;-)

And now for a reverse one:

Neela’s friend, born & bought up outside India, went shopping at a shop in Bombay. Once through, he was ready to go, when the sales person said ‘ Come Back ‘ & before he could here ‘Again’ …. He had done an about turn & went back to the sales person, wondering why he had been called!!!

Highlight… my brain cant seem to function the amrikan way. Everything here is ulta pulta … be it the switch, the door knob, the driving, the wotever … dimag sunn ho chala hai!!! Driving here is way out , will kill us all, since half the time I am telling Shabnam she is driving on the wrong side & have nearly got ourselves killed coz , we are looking at the wrong side when we cross the road!!!!