I wish we have more family meets, at lest for the
seniors to meet and recall their younger days. The younger generation do
not have time to talk to elder or their family members, but has plenty of time
to send messages to unknown people.
Digumarthi Hanumantha rao
DAMERLA FAMILY MEET HELD AT PUNE - 13TH - 15TH JAN 2013
After
being in cold storage for over seven years the Damerla family meet
finally came off during the three days of Sankranti this year, 2013, in
Pune at Daamini, home of Nani and Sesh. It ended up mostly as the
senior citizens meet. The younger lot in their 20s and 30s were all too
busy earning their living. For some with jobs, festival days are never
off as their customers want to buy things on auspicious days. One
shining exception is Sandy, who chose to take leave.
The “family” was enlarged to include every one willing to connect with the family name. Most came on Jan 13th, Bhogi day morning and left on the 15th evening. 13th
lunch was good fun with all in, except for Mallimadugula Prasad and
Subhadra who came late in the evening from Mumbai where they went for a
quick visit to their daughter Neha. She works for Femina, and was so
busy working and interviewing film stars she hardly spent any time with
her parents and could not come to Pune with them as her
interview with Deepika Padukone was incomplete and the deadline was
looming large on her head. That’s one example of how busy the younger
lot are! The elders have pain here and pain there and the bacchas have
jobs to keep them away from family meets.
That evening we had bhogi manta
and invited Rani's sambandhin and two other couples related to us - one
is Parker's cousin and the other is Sesh's cousin to join and share the
fun. The bhogi manta was great, even for our domestic help and
the gardener and more so for the under ten Rahil and Meghna, Swapna’s
son and Madhu’s daughter. These two kids had more excitement when they
joined in cutting Balu’s birthday cake, an event which they took over
with enthusiasm and eagerness which only they can come up with at their
delightful age.
With
two neighbours across the street from Daamini lending bedrooms it was
almost like staying together and helped in spending most of the waking
hours together.
The
next morning we took our own time lingering over breakfast and left at
10 in a chartered bus for the 70 km ride to Lavasa, a brand new town
planned well and built well - it will continue being built - in a
picturesque valley. We had a super lunch, saw a video presentation on
the town and went on a boat ride. The whole town is a private affair -
no government, no municipality - so even the boats are state of the art,
like everything else, including the intra-city bus stops made of
glass. We got back as dusk was falling, it falls a bit late in Pune as
the earth needs a little more time to chase the sun in the western part
of the country. As some people were scheduled to leave the next day
before dinner, we had a celebratory Sankranti dinner with champagne and
made
more noise than the previous night.
For most of us the fun ended after lunch on Kanuma
day. Everybody wanted a typical Marathi meal and Venky proclaimed his
intention to host it. So we all happily trooped out to a place called
Mayur and had a great meal. As it happened it has some Gujarathi touch
also, because Swapna decided that pure Marathi khana places are not good
enough. No matter what, there is no way the girls can be kept away
from shopping. They all went to buy off the town while the stags went
their own way to do what men are good at doing – make your guess.
V R Damerla (Nani)
Pune
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