Christmas celebrations at Amethyst

On a cool blue evening, as the moon watched from the sky, Deepak got into character on the amphi-theatre. As Deepak assumed his role and let the limelight sink in, the light to the amphitheater went off. Solution was immediate. The light that faces the pool shall face the amphitheatre now.The audience arrived in sweaters and numbers and early.6:30 was the announced time and people had already arrived by 6:15.Deepak addressed the house - Friends,Neighbors,Countrymen.Light had been taken care of.Now,Sound cried for attention.The mike would not behave.Did Deepak shy away from the theater and say - 'Sorry folks, there is some problem with the mike'.No he did not. He bypassed technology and addressed his friends loudly so that everyone could hear him and be part of this evening.
All this while, Santa Claus was sitting with his left ankle on the right knee forming the digit 4 in the reading room reading 'Rajastan Patrika' refining his perceptions on the way things are and the way things should be.For Rakesh, the path was clear. He was to leave the room , take a right and walk down into the crowd when the bells start ringing jingle jingle.
Shiju and Deva fumbled around with the amplifier and got the first dance song playing. Athulya and her friends Krithika and Prajakta added more meaning to the song , the amphitheater and the evening as they effortlessly and gracefully danced themselves into the song.Now, it was turn for the smart and dressed up boys to take the stage. First , they sang praise to the Lord followed by an energetic rendering of the jingle-bells.Now,it was the turn of the ladies of Amethyst to sing a christmas song. It was easy to make out how much practice had gone into the skit that came next , thanks to the able guidance of Sangeetha and Priya. Reminds one of the old school days which is where most of us would have last played a skit.
The stage itself was set up beautifully under the art direction of Clayton and Sanju who setup a beautiful crib. Christmas tree was also setup. Bobby was the in-charge for the illumination.
As the feel good increased in the crowd, Deepak announced the chief guest of the evening - none other than the Santa Claus himself. A group of reindeers were waiting near the beautiful green , dressed in blue and white eagerly looking forward to welcome Santa and waiting with apprehension and a little impatience for the moment to come.Time would not stop and the jingle bells CD would not play either. Santa decided to wave his hands to the crowd and walk himself down, albeit without having the jingle bells CD initiate his arrival. As the crowd of children brought in Santa uncle with love and hope , as the dressed-up club house watched the events unfold, jingle bells started ringing. Crowd waved and greeted Santa shouting.Festivity filled the air.Everyone was standing up now and the line between the stage and gallery was quickly fading . The entire amphitheater was now a stage to exhilaration as everyone's beloved Santa Uncle opened his trolley bag of chocolates. As snow fell , as crowds cheered, as children hovered around Santa, as everyone shouted, as Santa set the dance floor on fire , the stars smiled from the heavens.
Eyes had feasted the sights, ears had feasted the sounds, now it was time to feast the taste buds. Clayton served the highlight of the evening - homemade wine , Abhilash was distributing plum cake , Shiju and Girijesh distributed fruity and Sachin the eggless cake too. Meanwhile , kids were excitedly waiting for an opportunity to get themselves photographed with Santa. Hari , with tripod and all looked good and ready to give the press a run for the money. The ice had melted big time and one could see the same hand lead the wine to the mouth time and again.
I am not very sure whether there was as much excitement when India won the world cup.
Folks ,it is time for all of you to go back to your homes and wait for Santa.
So far, you just needed a stationary camera watching the amphitheater to feel the joy of the XMas celebrations at Amethyst. To take further pleasure , you would need to follow Santa as he pays personal visits to each of the Amethyst homes. Don't worry - you would also be accompanied with a nice carol group(Boby,Abhilash,Sanju,Preethy,Siji)that would make any Amethystian proud. A reindeer named Pranav had in the meanwhile turned himself too into a Santa , a Santa to match the eye level of the children at Amethyst.
Santa presented glittering wrapped gifts to children whose parents had paid Santa in advance. Nothing as beautiful as a beaming smile on a child who has just got a gift from a fable.As the night turned darker , as the sleep became heavier , children cried when Santa's calling bell cracked their sleep. Santa magic and chocolates quickly changed their mood and the children were smiling now, happy to receive Santa uncle.Santa also had a great time receiving chocolates/juice offered from various homes!Prasanth had brought chocolates from his recent trip to Germany which he distributed to the Santa group.
As the procession was progressing, Lakshmi,Siji,Susmitha,Shilpa and Bindu were sorting gifts for the yet-to-visit homes.Venu/Pratap was all the while with the group taking in pictures.As excited were the children at the chocolates , so excited were the parents for the moments. As parents collected memories, the efforts and the initiative of the organizers of the event , the hours of practice of the coral group, the dance group had paid off and as per financial analysts, the value of Amethyst property shot up by 3 percent during the event.
As we struggle with settling down in Atlanta from the last two months, Amethyst is the one thing that keeps calling us back. All the more so with grand events like this one!

First week in Atlanta

    Just to jot our experience so far in Atlanta.We arrived this Saturday and today is a thursday.Things have been improving - Yesterday, Jacob helped setup a VOIP call with Divya's parents back in India, two days earlier Brijesh had lended his office cell for me to call home , Tuesday, I had received my relocation allowance cheque and had opened my bank account and am no longer someone with neither a debit/credit card nor even a hundred dollars on me.And yes, joining the office on Monday was great as there were quite a few folks here whom I knew already and they did extend a warm welcome.The Induction session was also very friendly.

       On the work front, all my team-mates(Pramod,Sreekanth,Preethi,Debasmitha,Chaz) have been very cooperative and have been helping me setup my work environment.I have also to some extent started fulfilling my tasks.Had a call with India team as well and spoke with Anoop.I feel pretty comfortable on the work front as I am doing the same tasks as I had been doing in India.My daughter had been pretty ill initially but has been getting better consistently.Here again, my manager Mahesh has been very helpful and quickly linked me to Prashant who in turn had pro-actively mailed me the route map to the nearest doctor in case required.

        We are put up at residence Inn and this offers a complimentary breakfast and a happy hour early evening which translates as dinner.I have liked the number of options available at breakfast and have been trying my hand at everything.Looks like I have been challenging my digestion though and intend to mellow down a bit on the non-veg items. Divya has been preparing me chappathi lunches that I eat with Sandeep/Mahesh/Mouly at office.Residence Inn also offers cab to and from office which sort of dictates your day routine.You need to catch the cab at nine, so you have breakfast at 8:30 , you leave your room by 8:20 , iron your clothes , dress up Niya , wake up Niya , pack lunch for office , make chappathis for lunch , take your bath , wake up , sleep , setup a wakeup call.Then you have a day at office, you set a reminder for your return cab, reach room , dress up Niya for dinner , go to the breakout area for your early dinner , come back home by 730 , spend a couple of hours of unplanned time on tv/net/phone and go to sleep.

          Amit Kumar Panjiyar, my office mate has been kind enough to take me places while we do  not have a car.The first trip had been to the Indian store - Shivam to make good the rice that had been taken away at the airport.Unfortunately, that trip was done on a Monday when the shop is off.So we returned back to the farmer's market from where Divya chose her groceries while I carried a sleeping Niya.Amit was our first guest at our room.The next day, he again took me to the bank of america where I opened an account.Yesterday, we went again to the Indian store to get the rice and also to the Micro store to get a headphone with mike to call home.

       So that is how we have been surviving - things look better definitely from the first day we arrived here with the bother of our child's illness and the general haplessness.But yes, things need to improve a lot as well - we are not in the driver's seat yet. It was also good to have been able talk to quite a few friends here in the US - Jacob, David , Aslam and also Divya's cousin Sheebachechi/Prakashettan who have extended a very supportive hand , a hand that we might soon have have to hold :)

Onam 2011 Celebrations at Amethyst

Why does one see a good number of ladies outside their amethyst homes on the midnight of 18th Sep,2011?

Jagruti effortlessly accomodated various inputs as she drew the pookkalam design for the forth block,Divya held

the chalk to the string and drew the first major circle,Bindu was all bother as she tried to make sure that no mistakes were made.Two groups of ladies were at the conference hall burning midnight oil to separate out the petals for their respective teams.It was clear that tomorrow's pookkalam competition is far from a casual affair.

The next day(September 18th,2011), around 11 AM, My father told me : "I can see some men standing outside without their shirts on.Looks like the percussionists have arrived."As I walked towards the amphtitheatre , I heard the first beat.Chendakkar had started to perform.

The D-moment had arrived.Shared apprehension as the crowd numbers/ enthusiasm did not seem to have yet coupled

with the drum efforts.Just then Devarajan arrived with the Maveli.

Maveli looked grand.Hopes must have rose as the apprehension had disappeared.Now the drums became

meaningful as the Maveli sat grandly on the stage.Now there was a reasonable crowd too.Maveli led the crowd procession

to the pookkalam on the first block.First block reverberated the grandeur of the drum beats.Hours of tenor

and spirited determination from the ladies of first-second blocks had translated into a beautiful pookkalam.

Maveli-led procession then walked around the driveway.As I trickled through the crowd to take photos of Maveli,

it was very clear that the procession had indeed gained significantly in number from where the possibly baseless

earlier apprehension had seen.Prasanna embodied Maveli so fully that there were atleast a few surreal moments

where I felt like the real Maveli was indeed visiting Amethyst to see how his praja here is doing.Drum beats and chisels continued to shine as the procession reached the pookkalam on the forth block.

Now it was the turn of the forth block to become grand.Creativity in design and color from the

concerted group of ladies in the third-forth blocks had materialized in the pookkalam as shades of lilac and red

danced on your retina.The thick crowd, the outstanding percussion, the colorful pookkalam, the Maveli grandeur, the

traditionally dressed ladies,gents, the traditional look of the percussion group, everything - everything felt great.

Maveli now pulled the crowd like a pied piper into the open ground and rested himself in the shade of a tree

as the drummers entertained him with their enchanting performance.Once the procession had gathered completely

on to the ground, Girijesh gave a small address on the background of Onam.Following this, it was beautiful to

watch small faces brighten up as the generous Maveli distributed sweets to the children.

By this time,The percussionists had lost their stage.Again an apprehension hit.Can the momentum set by the

chenda group be regained in time before the crowd starts to dissolve?It was time now for a fifteen meter long rope

to answer that question.It gave the right answer over and over as men,women and children battled in best of threes

in the tug-of-war game.Everybody had fun.Good thorough fun.Maveli presented the winners for mens' round and ladies'

round with a whole plantain stem of bananas each where as the kids were presented with chocolates.Now came the time to announce the results of the neck-to-neck race for the pookkalam.Venu as judge presented his opinions and let Maveli announce the winners.The surprise of adjudging both teams as winners was an acceptable one to all - there would surely have been a lot of disappointment otherwise.An embruing controversy fizzled off..

Now, it was nearing the time for the feast.I went back to the hall to see that things were mostly in order except

for a shortage of chairs easily solved using chairs in the reading room and billiards room.The spacious conference hall

hosted around eighty people a time as they relished a traditional kerala-style feast.As the hall continued to go on to

host a total two hundred people,I went back home to play host to my visiting friend.

After dropping my friend, as I walked towards the clubhouse, looking for some remaining din from the event,I felt

that Amethyst had suddenly reduced itself to a super-luxury apartment complex with excellent amenities and lot

of space.

"Later towards the day, after long heart-to-heart conversations with Shiju and Devaraj, I realized that Amethyst

was no longer just a super-luxury apartment complex with excellent amenities and lot of space."