Tirupati

Through every season, quiet morning, and shared milestone, one thing remains constant. You are heart of our home and light in my life. Happy Star Birthday to our Star Aparna

Over years, expressing how much you mean to me has been recurring tradition, yet no single post or set of words ever feels quite enough. Looking back at every message, wish, and tribute written for you, clear pattern emerges. It is story of gratitude, deep partnership, and total devotion, with fair share of me agreeing with you just to save time. 😂😛Just to make it different, I chose to write this for star birthday and not the Gregorian calendar birthday

Life moves fast, Aparna, but you bring grounding warmth to everything you touch. Whether it is your laughter (though it is too rare, very rare) that instantly brightens room, your quiet resilience during tough times, or selfless care you extend to everyone around you, you make life look effortless and full of grace. How you manage to keep entire house running smoothly while keeping me in check remains one of life’s great mysteries.

We could not be more different on surface. Our quirks, reactions, and way we view world often stand in total contrast. Where one brings calm logic, other brings spontaneous spark, and where one wants to plan everything down to minute, other is just happy to tag along. Yet beneath those contrasting personalities lies shared foundation that ties us together so effortlessly. We find common ground in sacred spaces and simple joys. Above all, our deep love for traveling together to temples, soaking in divine atmosphere, and cherishing every single moment spent in those holy spaces, like our recent memorable trip to Tirupati for your birthday, is bond that grounds us completely. Though I must admit, walking at your speed through temple queues is true test of my devotion.

Our home and lives are anchored by your boundless capacity to nurture. As mother to Vishnu and Divya, you have given them strength, wisdom, and unwavering foundation. But your maternal warmth does not stop with our own. Over years, you have embraced whole legion of manasik children, serving as their strict yet deeply loving guiding light. You hold high standards, push them to excel, and correct them when needed, often with just single sharp glance that strikes loving fear into all of us. Yet you always wrap them in genuine affection and care. To watch you lead, guide, and love so many lives is true sight to behold.

**Yet another of our Pilgrimage Tour with All of us**

Marriage is not just about sharing home, it is about sharing journey. Standing side by side with you, Aparna, has been greatest privilege. You are my confidante, my biggest supporter, my chief critic (this is something that is perfected by you, happens about everything and every time), and my best friend. With you, every success feels twice as sweet, and every challenge feels manageable, mostly because you usually have solution ready before I even finish worrying (I say this since I love humour).

Today is not just another birthday. It is moment to pause and celebrate incredible woman you are, your kindness, your strength, and endless joy you bring into my world.

May this year bring you as much comfort, peace, and happiness as you tirelessly give to everyone around you. May your dreams continue to take flight, and may we keep creating beautiful memories together, along with endless debates over who is actually in charge.

Our family story has grown richer with time, but it feels truly complete today in joyful, infectious presence of our grandson, Anay. With him in our arms, children besides and you with us, life is whole.

**Happy Birthday Ajji – Govinda Govinda**

Happy Birthday, Aparna. Today & always, here is to you.

Dedicating this song to depict spirit of traveling together, navigating life hand-in-hand, and enjoying journey through all its twists and turns

Here is to endless temple trips, shared laughter, and beautiful life we continue to build together.

As we complete 26 years of this blissful journey of togetherness – a journey that we began as 23 year olds, with joy in our heart and hopes in our minds, someone asked me why I write (by now the customary) blogs acknowledging her gracious (for me grateful) presence. I have so many reasons to do that.

Definitely not for this!!!

Firstly, I got to acknowledge that she deserves much more than whatever even the best of my words and language that I possess can ever express and secondly, considering the alternative – a Card – Sorry! that would be a pathetic replacement to what I want to really say (also there is not enough space on it to write these or for photographs). This is also done to let the world know that this journey is possible even in these days. Finally, I also write to remind some folks who would have forgotten that it is a special day for us, to wish and bless us to continue this journey into eternity.

“Only spiritual elevation can take away loneliness, not soul mates” said, Founder of Art of Living and our Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar ji. Yet He blessed us all along to make it easy for me to elevate myself spiritually taking away my loneliness but also ensured that soul mate made it even more easier.

Those who know us would congratulate me, but they would agree and credit Aparna for this wonderful journey – that could well be an example of what & how it is supposed to be – Woman who is fixed, robust and capable of restoring any fallen ones around her. Someone who with lot of sacrifice, unknown to all of us, ensured that “Life is a celebration” not just for the immediately family but to the extended family (Let me assure you that it is definitely not a small one). This was evident just 2 days ago, on the Ugadi day – Painstakingly prepared fares, everything home made with a touch of love (that can never come when eating out) – egging us to do this or do that to ensure that guests simply feel WOW and want more! This has been the feature everyday of the 26 years that Aparna has embellished my life.

I am sure children wouldn’t disagree that life, without her constant but extremely caring and loving nagging, would never been the same. How much ever they are grown, they are still the 1-5 year olds in her eyes and thoughts. Without being overbearing, her care is simply overpowering. Same with her colleagues at work. I am yet to hear someone saying anything “not good” about this wonderful soul, who took up the huge challenge to live with me for 26 long years, bearing all my idiosyncracies (especially when it comes to food) and still working to continue this journey into eternity.

Then we have the extended family – Sindhu, Swathi, Iti, Asha, Meghana, Arun, Raghu, Yathin, Vidya, Giri, Binoy, Nagesh, Leela, Parinith, Rijina and this list goes on… who also bear the brunt of her love and care.

Sindhu, Vishnu, Aparna, Swati, Me, Iti and Divya On Ugadi Day

Vidya, Vishnu, Aparna, Me, Yathin, Giri and Divya On Ugadi Day

For those who want to know how it works! This journey comes with lots of ups and downs. My confession upfront! It is definitely she who goes more than half way to make it work. It is more “up” for her than me. It is more down for me than her. So all credits to her there! There are many things that we may not see eye to eye, that keeps cropping up again and again. We chose to work around those differences, accept those differences and lived with them. After a couple of years, we both gave up our attempts to change the other (though we haven’t stopped trying, we don’t insist that the other person changes to meet our expectations). This concept of marriage is what amazed our friends from Germany (Ulrich, Steffen, Tobias and many others) who worked in our office (Crompton Greaves Limited) as interns, during the initial years of our marriage. I had only one thing to tell them – In India, we don’t change our spouses – we change ourselves. Not so easy but we grow up seeing our parents making extreme degree of surrender of one’s compromisable principles, mindset and also beliefs to keep a marriage going and keep it blissful. I added, “We got to work to make it Work“

A few months later in a contemplative mood, she asked how is it that our relationship of absolute opposite working – we only looked at each other, grinned and then picked up another argument to keep this relationship firing. It got to be a miracle. Did we believe in miracle? No! We don’t just believe, we rely on it (as Sri Sri spoke during one of His discourse). Our journey is a living example. And I would be claiming false credit if I say it is because of me. Thanks my Dear! For making all those philosophy work in our case.

Happy Anniversary, dearest Aparna. You are simply the best. As I wrote in one of the earlier pieces, “You Complete Me”

Loads and Loads of love!

Decided to gift ourselves a Pilgrimage Trip to Tirupati to express our gratitude to the Lord for this amazing present. Sharing some pictures of the journey so far