Gangtok Trip – Day 2 – On The Train to Kolkata
April 12, 2009, 5.30 am, Day 2:
I suppose it is the uncomfortable berths but I always wake up very early in trains. The fact that most people are asleep and I can brush my teeth without cheerleaders also seems important somehow.
Anyway, here I am, up nice and early, teeth as clean as they will get on a train. Everybody else is asleep. The sun is up though the drawn curtains don't let in much light. I have always had a fascination for staring out the window of a speedilng train, a pleasure that my kids don't seem to know exists. My daughter, Mamli, would rather read a book and my son, Bablu, would rather play a game on my mobile or watch a movie on it. I suppose they just aren't used to the fun part of travelling yet. I did a lot of travelling with my parents and sister when I was a child but between Padmaja's and my job, we don't get to take a vacation often.
So much for pleasant early morning thoughts!
Here is today's first photo, taken through the window of the train with my Sony Ericsson P1i in burst mode and then resized on the phone.

Photo taken from Falakunama Express early in the morning.
Mamli & Bablu's Birthday Party – March 22, 2009
Mamli & Bablu celebrated their 10th and 5th birthdays respectively with a small party at home. And this is the first time they didn't have home made cakes for their birthday parties. Mamli no longer has girls her age in our apartment complex. All her old friends have moved away, either out of Hyderabad or to other areas in the city. She had a class mate a good friend as her only "friend" in the party. On the other hand Bablu has tons of boys his age. He had a whole horde of squealing boys over. They practically brought the house down ![]()
We also had Anu Das, an old friend from Rourkela, visit us today. Anu arrived before lunch and stayed till the end of the party.
A few photographs (see the full album on Mo Chitra, our family photo gallery):

The Boys, at least some of them...

Mamli's Cake

Mamli cutting her cake

Bablu's Cake

Bablu cutting his cake

Mamli and her friend

The kids enjoying cake and snacks

Padmaja & Anu
Anupam Sachan's Birthday
Anupan Sachan is a Project Leader on our QA Team (Oracle E-Business Suite Application Technology Group) and we celebrated her birthday at work today. Rather belated but we celebrated it
Some photos of the event:
Gautam, Padmaja & Rohan – circa 1998 (After Marriage)
My latest project is scanning old photographs to upload to my photo site, Mo Chitra. I found the photo below in a stack at Bhubaneswar. It was taken by my father-in-law, Sudhakar Padhi in March 1998 near Rourkela.
I am on the left of Padmaja, with Rohan, my brother-in-law, on her right. I just can't believe how skinny we all were
Click for full size image
Sonu's Marriage – More Photos (Shobhan's Albums)
Some more of Sonu's marriage. These were taken by Shobhan, the eldest son of my 5th maternal uncle.
- Album 1
- Album 2 - Shobhan took these photos using his mobile phone which sports a 3.2 megapixel camera.
- Album 3
Thanks Shobhan.



