Khannas

This is Simran and Vivian from this summer at the Belmont - a nice grocery store in Wakefield, Rhode Island. I agreed to Vivian's pleas to let her walk across the parking lot to a Starbuck's with Simran and get herself something to drink. Non-caffeinated. When they returned to the Belmont I forgot to check what she had bought. Being around Simran makes Vivian feel very grown up.

Simran was about a year older than Vivian is now when Arjun was killed. I didn't see much of her before then. Even when she was around, I didn't really pay attention. Then Arjun died. A few months later Vivian was born and I became introduced to parenthood. And I looked at Simran with more interest as she grew.

Yesterday Simran and I got tea at the Steeping Room. Simran has turned into a confident and intelligent young adult somewhere along the way. And she is heading off for college abroad tomorrow. Good luck Simran and your father would be very proud, just as I am sure your mother is.

But, as one young Khanna leaves Austin, another one arrives. Arjun's nephew is going to "gaming school" at UT. When Vidhvat was about 17 and Vivian was a year and a half old and we met his family for lunch at the Delhi Golf Club, Vivian famously rested her chin on her hands and looked Vidhvat over and said, quite loudly, "What a man".

Here's a rare photo of the next generation at Torchy's Taco from last weekend. Evan isn't morose. He just has his photo face on.  

Dresserology

There are many ways to predict one's future. In ancient Rome, haruspicy was used (study of an animal's entrails) to warn Caesar about the Ides of March. Tea leaves, bumps on your head, your poop, your bottom, as well as more traditional methods like reading your palm have been and are often used.

I am proposing a new one. A study of a person's dresser. The top photo is of Evan's dresser. The bottom one is of Vivian's.

I predict that years from now Evan will have a clean desktop. And Vivian won't be able to find her car keys frequently.

Old Monk

On August 13, Manju (aka Mummy, Rajeeta's mother) turned 80. To celebrate, after cake Vivian and Evan put up a little show with some help from the ladies. The music they selected was "Mother Earth" - a new agey favorite that Vivian and Evan often dance to when at the Shah's.

No formal choreography or preparation preceded the dance. Evan spontaneously draped himself in this scarf and sat down in the middle of the carpet just like that and the others danced around him while he assiduously maintained his little Buddha pose.

I should worry more about this little one.

(thanks to Preeti Masi for the photo)

Tito

Vivian can spend all day listening to someone else read to her, but she is not naturally inclined to read except when it's past bedtime and she uses the feeble glow of her nightlight to read another few pages of a Cam Jansen mystery.

Even more so with Spanish. But that hasn't stopped Jo from buying up every Spanish book at or around Vivian's reading level - which arrive via Amazon in the mail daily. Once recent delivery was a beautifully illustrated book on Tito Puente. Each page had a couple of paragraphs in English and then the same thing in Spanish. We were at Carol's on Sunday morning and Jo asked Vivian to read for a few minutes before her cousins arrived from church. No go. Even some tears.

So we switched tacks. "How about a play? You and your cousins can act out Tito's life and you can read the Spanish portions of those pages by way of explanation." 

She agreed with some enthusiasm. So this is them later. They are doing a mambo dance. Vivian has borrowed a shirt from Carol's closet because it must be what she thinks women wear when they dance the mambo. And she got Grace and Kai and Evan (with a wooden spoon and a frying pan, as in the book) to help her enact the life of Tito.