It was time to get back to old normal. This weekend I attended two get togethers. The first one was the family participation dinner of Rotary Club Madras South at the spacious open air Pool side of Hyatt Regency on Saturday. What a joy it was to meet Southerners and their families, numbering over 100, after nearly 18 months. The second one involved my walking friends- the small group which meets for filter coffee every morni ng at Velu`s coffee shop at Bessy. Nagappan and Bala jointly hosted a birthday lunch at the Presidency Club where the spouses also joined. It was also a morning of fun and frolics. With `American` Jagdeesh ( he had worked in American Embassy for 35 years as the chief Librarian) starting the entertainment with a lovely song on the elephant god, followed by the 90 years old German Iyer belting our German songs and German jokes. 84 years old Mrs Vasantha, wife of Iyer mama set the ball rolling on behalf of the ladies with a pleasing Carnatic number. Inspired by this senior most couple we had 80 years old `Kuchi` Narayan and `Vengala Kuralon ( Sound ) Veerappan cracking jokes. The real discovery were Krishnamoorthy and Nagappan. While Krish came across as a good social singer Nagappan belted out a naughty Tamil song which his wife Chitra referred to as a family song. After the cake cutting ceremony by the birthday babies, the party ended with a delicious lunch preceded by `fellowsip` The success of the party was when some ladies in the group wanted to know when the next party is scheduled. Pray the dreaded Covid is permanently behind us so that we can have more such get togethers!
