My father in laws 100th BDay celebrations

Centenary celebrations of late Sri  Sumaithangi Krishnaswamy Iyengar

It was decided that a small family celebration would suffice to  celebrate my husband’s father on  what would have been his 100dth birthday had he lived on. As such his star birthday fell on Nov 22^nd and as normal custom Sri Krishnaswamy’s children wanted to have Parayanam , as he would have loved the same.

So  parayanam it was.  Rangarajan went about arranging the vadyars for the parayanam and I as ususal called for our Man Friday the cook Venu. Venu has never ditched us at any time so I was very confident he would turn up. As it was Amavasai,c we hesitated to invite the parayana karas to eat but all of them agreed to have lunch with us and grace the occasion.

And the menu was—vazhakkai pulipu karamadhu, poosani kai kootu, more kuzhambu,rasam without thakkali, akkara adisal, thayir vadai, beans paruppu usili and a kara urulai kizhangu for the youngsters and appalam from Andavan ashram too.

I had everything ready for Venu…like the paruppu ,rice for akkara adisal, coconut scraped, Urulai kizhangu boiled, beans cut…..Ulundhu soaked….so I had the ground prepared for him.

Prema manni brought a yummmy mysore pak and Kausalya akka the eldest daughter brought a Kasi halwa made from pumpkin grown in her house with cashew from her garden…..which was all the more special, despite her age and her ailments her Affection was evident from her halwa……

I made Omapodi and packed it all in ziplock covers  to be distributed to everyone  who came.

Now about the visitors….Suniti and Sunanda came from Bangalore …..Sukanya and Rajesh came from Mylapore ,Charath and Vidya came from Adayar.

The vadyars came promptly at 8.30 and started the parayanam…which included Navamani malai and Mummani kovai…these being the favourite of the deceased sister Vaidehi. In all this I must mention that Mrs Krishnaswami enthusiastically took part ,insisted on giving gifts to every one of her family right down to the latest born. She is 94.

Parayanam over, lunch served by Venu ,with many Ahhhs and oohhhhhs, all done and then it was funtime.

Mr Narasimhan the eldest son, brought a CD he made from old photos ,and we gathered around the TV and young and old enjoyed this session most….we got to see old photos of the family and the older generations.

Coffee time and then everyone back to pavilion and sighhhhhh   cleaning time.

A very satisfying celebration indeed..........