month after Ammu's wedding? Well, quite a lot actually because I spent some time in frozen Europe trying to drum up some business and then it was time to get our offsite reunion of the school going in Pondicherry. Once that was out of the way it was about the Christmas and new year and getting a new business division operational - this is the new Algal Biotechnology Division of Aban that I was required to set up - had to convince a young US returned Phycologist to take up the challenge and once he was on board it was about finding people to get a team together. In the meantime Ashwin was going through his Submarine Qualifying Exams in Mumbai which is a gruelling 10 day affair where 10 senior submariners orally test the under-training submariners for their knowledge of those denizens of the deep. To cut a long story short, Ashwin cleared the exams rather well and has since been inducted in to the elite submarine arm of the Indian Navy. He wears that dolphin badge with a sense of pride and I hope he will excel in his duties as a Submariner. Ammu in the meanwhile has finally found herself a job in 'Umeed' an NGO that specialises in teaching Autistic special children. This was something she always wanted to do, so she is all excited about her new job! We, Sudha and I, are happy for her because she now gets to do what she always wanted to do without quite having to get herself a B Ed in Special Education. Ofcourse, she will have to regist
er for a B Ed some time down the line but when she does she will have an invaluable cache of practical knowledge on handling these special children. Ammu continues to surprise me when it comes to her marriage and her husband - the two of them are so alike in their likes and dislikes that they understand each other better than I do my wife of 28 years! Good on her I would say and good on Arun too because he has shown tremendous patience and understanding in managing a sometimes temperamental wife! Last week I managed to get around to taking a couple of days off to head out to Kottayam and spend time with Mum - she was pleased as punch to have Sudha and I over for the those two days. It was a thoroughly relaxing time spent in Kottayam. From there we headed off to Calicut by train to meet with Sanil and Viji, friends from school, who were driving from Calicut to the Nilgiris the next day to attend the Executive Committee meeting of the school alumni association in Coonoor. That was fun too. January 2011 went by like a shot and here we are in February!
