At Kochi.

Got up at a half past 4, let Lekha go about her chores and then went about mine. In the meanwhile, the lighting of the lamp in the puja room, the partial opening of the house with the Wednesday morning hymns in full flow and the 'arathi' were performed. Despite having got up at that early time, we could finally hit the highway only by a quarter past 7.

The following things also happened :-

* the railway level cross gate, at Guruvayur, was closed * the Paliyekkara toll gate was managed well as there was hardly any wait * broke our momentum for rest room break, polishing off the sandwiches prepared by Lekha, a little beyond Chalakudi.

We reached Bhima by about a half past 10. Rema and Padmakumar were already there and together, we picked up some ornaments for Achu's marriage. In between, during the break, we had a nice vegetarian lunch in the hotel across and returned to wind up our purchases, thus far.

We, then, went across to the naval base, to get myself briefed about the steps to be taken to apply for the new 64 kb ECHS card for Lekha and me. Radha had given me a good briefing as to how to go about it. On return, I went Dr Satish Bhat's clinic to pick up a medicine whose dosage had been increased.

We got back at my sister's place by 4, had a boisterous high tea and then, without much ado, my brother-in-law and I sat down to upload my application on line for the 64 kb card. There were a whole lot of difficulties faced while uploading the form but we finally, we made it thanks to an efficient Padmakumar.

It was, again, a boisterous dinner after which we got down to finalise the list for Achu's wedding and the menus for the post-wedding reception out here - during the afternoon and in the evening of the 9th of May - at Kochi. Steps to go about it were also discussed and that will be achieved over the course of the next three weeks. It would give us a fair idea as to what would be the actual number of guests that would fetch up. Their food and lodging were gone through but will require many more hours of fine tuning!

It was a hectic day. Was really thrilled to get calls from Kala (She's in Michigan with her children, who are working there) and Paulina (From Coimbatore. Sad to hear that she is a spinster!). They were in the staff of INS Agrani when I was there in the mid-'80s.

Tailpiece.

Quite a satisfying day, having accomplished all that we set out to achieve.