Desi style and Pardesi style wedding

On 29-DEC-2007, Aruna akka/Murthy bava rallied the gang and got the troops ready early in the morning for the initial phase of the desi style wedding.

All of us, dressed up in traditional Indian attire headed towards the Balaji temple in Riverdale, GA for the proceedings. We had prasaadam for lunch (pulihora, curd-rice and pongal - pongal the best of the three)

Desi Wedding

The next day, Sunday 30-DEC-2007, we attended the pardesi style wedding in the afternoon at a presbyterian church in Duluth, GA. It was a unique wedding in its own way. A true mixture of appropriate portions of both the cultures (Western and Eastern.)

The bride and the groom came up with an excellent idea of intertwining the important phases of a Hindu wedding with that of a Christian wedding. We thoroughly enjoyed this creative spin to a new kind of wedding.

Pardesi Wedding

Rehearsal dinner

Padma bhabhi made lovely breakfast (medhu vada and sambar) and all of us had a heavy meal. Immediate family went for the rehearsal while we lazed around after a heavy breakfast.

Towards the evening we got ready for the rehearsal dinner. The dress code was business casual for gentleman and desi/pardesi for the ladies.

No alcohol was served at the rehearsal dinner and that upset a few of the stags. After returning from the rehearsal dinner we got some "flavored" liquids to control the commotion.

Rehearsal Dinner

Trip to downtown Atlanta

We woke up late after a late nighter. I booked tickets online to visit Georgia Aquarium and Coca-cola museum. We had a quick lunch and left for our tour of Atlanta downtown.

We spent about an hour or so at the Coca-cola museum first and then went to spend the next couple of hours at the Georgia Aquarium. I would highly recommend spending at least 4 hours at the Georgia Aquarium. It is definitely worth a trip or two.

We came back home exhausted and spent the rest of the evening with the family. Mehendi and Karaoke are the main events of the night, in addition to the routine savoring of the colored liquids.

The highlight of the evening was the "samoohika lungar" - community dining

Coke and Aquarium

Stone mountain in Lilburn

After a good brunch we stepped out to see Stone Mountain Park in Lilburn home of Stone Mountain - a 1 trillion pound, rock formation from volcanic eruption 3 million years ago.

We went up to the top of the mountain on a cable car. From the top of the mountain we trekked 1 mile down from the other side of the mountain and back to the top to get down to the base camp on the cable car.

Southern states are not immune to cold weather this time of the year. It was cold in the evening and we reached home at about 5:30pm, had hot cup of tea. Other relatives started pouring in - pick up from airport, dinner settings and sleeping arrangements.

We had a pizza dinner with Steven and his parents, followed by Happy Birthday to Ramanesh Bhayya.

Stone Mountain Park

Christmas in Atlanta

After a late night, long tour of the town we came back home, slept and woke up late - to a Christmas carol by Metallica.

Santa put some gifts under the Christmas tree for all of us - Steve and Pummy had the honors of distributing the gifts to everyone.

We had a fresh round of family picture time (one of the many more to come). We had a "baithak" (sitting at night), played couple of rounds of carom board games and hit the bed very late.

Christmas in Atlanta

Atlanta, here we come

After spending a couple of days at Tega Cay, SC we continued our journey towards Atlanta, GA. We reached Lilburn, GA at around 2:15pm (24-DEC-2007.) I met my extended family after about 14 years and boy! it was an awesome feeling - reminded me of my childhood times.

We received a warm welcome from Akka and Bava. We had a big (late) lunch, then in the evening the "gentlmen" went out on a tour of the town.

AtlantaTrip

ThaygaKay

We reached Tega Cay, SC (read it as ThaygaKay) by 2:00pm Saturday (22-DEC-2007). Ganesh and Bindu received us and treated us with a full meals (sambar + appadum - paapad - deep fried, not microwaved + curd made out of whole milk)

This city Tega Cay, is spectacular in every way - stretching a vast 5 square miles, has a golf course, a natural lake (Wylie), about 200 houses (all upscale, half a million types), a fire dept and a "blue ribbon" (Gold Hill) elementary school. Thats all there is to that city (or a town, or a village, or a place...) Tega Cay is surrounded by satellite towns - ThayguThaa, ThaygaNoo, Thaygu.

Ganesh showed us Charlotte downtown (Bank of America and Wachovia headquarters), went shopping at the largest mall in America - concord mills mall and we spent the next day (a rainy day) at home - cooked delicious food and watched a comedy movie.

TegaCay-Ganesh Himabindu