Our Very Own Star in The Cosmos

Dearest Akshay, One with the Universe. Time and Space seem to stand still in this beautiful image that Shekhar created to mark his first anniversary.

A Sky Lantern for Akshay

12.12.12 - a once in a lifetime date for the world. For us it is our dearest Akshay's first anniversary. Prayers, meditations and food for the orphans marked the first year of Akshay's journey in the other world. One of the last things Akshay did was to hand over a packet of food to a poor and hungry man.  We hope he is getting our messages and prayers, through the lamps we have lit, the lanterns we have sent up and the flowers we have offered. It is hard to not feel sad and cheated by Death.

Someone has said, 'There can be nothing more rude than Death. It barges in when you are right in the middle of something and doesn't bother to wipe its feet.'

How true!

Point of Light

Last Monday of Karthik month. A beautiful diya rangoli depicting the Supreme Soul and a Raj Yoga meditation for Akshay

Archy Takes a Bow on His Birthday

December 9 was Archy's birthday, a day Akshay had looked forward to last year. This year Archy took part in a dog show at Bahrain and won the first prize in the small dog category. What a wonderful gift! Don't miss the certificate. Akshay would have been so happy and proud of him. Here are Mom and Archy for you Akshay. Take a bow Archy! Bow wow!

Prayers and Meditations

Starting December 8, we are spending four days in prayers and meditations to mark Akshay's first anniversary on December 12, 2012. A special Trayambaka homam will be performed in Bahrain today. The year has flown past. Sweet memories of times spent with Akshay have lessened the heartache somewhat.

Tennyson has described the state of grief beautifully-
I sometimes hold it half a sin,
to put in words the grief I feel
For words, like Nature half reveal,
and half conceal the Soul within

This year the weather is unusually warm for December and the jasmines are in full bloom are making it feel like summer. There is absolutely no chill in the air, and that usual winter craving for plum cakes and stuff is just not there. They say it is El Nino effect - nah I think it is El Akshay. Nature responds to tragedies in her own way!

Bulbul's Nest

This bulbul was nesting in Vaishali during Akshay's visit to India in July 2011. With his mother away at the training he was feeling rather lonely and I had narrated the bulbul's story to him to cheer him up and sent him a few pictures too.

 

Knots and Crosses with Traditional Toys

Playing knots and crosses with Kondapalli toys

 

Had gifted a similar set of the game to five year old Akshay. He loved the 'little men'!

 

 

A Precious Keepsake

Six year old Akhsay had given me six of these precious ticket coupons that he won at the Forum Mall game arcade. On a visit to Bangalore in 2007, we had visited the Xtreme Zone. Akshay was happy making a stone castle for his little 'men' that he had brought along - least interested in the Xtreme activities of the place. On the way back we thought we should have saved ourselves the trouble and made it to Cubbon Park instead.

Tongue Twisters

I had some fun sharing these tongue twisters with Akshay

******
If two witches would watch two watches

Which witch would watch witch watch?

****
One One was a race horse
Two Two was one too
When One One won one race
Two Two won one too!!

Crunchy ripe guavas

"I'm hungry for a snack" Akshay would say between meals.Fresh fruit was a ready snack that Akshay loved. A plate of crunchy ripe guavas would be hijacked immediately. One year end get together at Gannavaram was quite memorable. Suchit was at his whackiest, teaching Akshay all the mad things only an older brother can teach a younger one. Specially the mad parodies of Telugu ads which Akshay learnt dutifully and repeated. Everyone was laughing till their sides hurt.

Coming back to his love of all things fresh, he loved raw cucumber just as much. On one visit to Bangalore, Akshay stuffed himself with cucumber at lunchtime, first he finished off the cucumber in his plate- then went for the cucumber in my plate, and nanima's plate, then smiled so sweetly.

With School Friends

That's Akhsay in front of his school with his friends

Jack-o'-lanterns

Today's interactive Google doodle for Halloween. Akshay would have loved it, especially the skeleton at the door and the blue one eyed octopus. As a child he never liked soft toys but preferred the spooky stuff. Suchit had a small skeleton key chain that glows in the dark and Akshay would love playing with it.

Egyptian Hieratic script

This is Akshay's date of birth using Egyptian numbers - 25 March 2001. Ancient Egyptians used this interesting numbering system. Symbols were simply repeated to represent a value. Two single strokes make 2 and five strokes are 5. The pacman plant like symbol is for 1000, and two of these make 2000. Add one to that and you get 2001.

This numeral system uses the Hieratic script.

Akshay had visited Egypt and worked on a pyramids project for school.

Dinotopia

Kotasaurus Yamanpalliensis

On his last visit to Hyderabad in July 2011, we took Akshay to the Birla Science Museum. He was thrilled to see the dinosaureum and enjoyed the other interactive exhibits.

In the picture above is the restructured body of the Kotasaurus at the museum. They  lived nearly 208 to 188 million years ago ( in the early Jurassic period)  in and around central and south India. This dinosaur was a herbivore, nearly 30 feet long. Its remains were found in India in 1988.

Below is the front elevation of the science museum

Intergalactic hunters and evil aliens

As an eight year old Akshay identified himself with Ben 10,  the solo superhero who vanquished intergalactic bounty hunters and evil aliens. He had a good collection Ben 10 games and would sketch the logo in his free time.

Funny pictures, fond memories

When it came to emails for Akshay, it was strictly fun and fun only. I would send these funny pictures to Akshay and he would love them. I remember what he said on a visit to Hyderabad, "Have you got some more of those funny pictures, you have so many of them. I want them." Posted here are a few that Akshay loved. This is to mark his ninth month.

Touch down on Mars

Curiosity has been sending curious pictures from Bradbury Landing on Mars. These are being interpreted in even more curious ways by scientists. Akshay would have found this amusing. One of his dreams was to be an astronomer and strangely enough he had written a poem on Mars a year back. He would use Arial Black for his poems and use Word art for the title and his name at the bottom.

Mars 

Mars is such a rocky planet.

If there were aliens on Mars

I would make friends with them

and claim Mars for Canada.

Americans will come and see

that Canada has already claimed

Mars.

On the way home

Eight months have passed. On the way back from school one day Akshay took some pictures of the Bahrain skyline.

Mother's Special

Akshay's school essay on his mother

     

My Loving Mom

 Every day when I come home from school, my mom gives me a big hug and there is always a surprise waiting for me. My mom has brown hair, black eyes and wears specks. She acts confidently and intelligently in any situation. She is friendly and greets everybody with a smile. She is fun loving too and we have a great time together.

      My mom speaks confidently and clearly all the time. She can give a speech in front of a huge audience too!! She speaks cheerfully too and everybody loves to listen to her. One day there was a surprise waiting for me which was better than anything in the world; there was a white, fluffy dog waiting for me. I love my mom and I hope when I grow up I will be close to her as much as I am close to her now.

Bon petit

Akshay would have finished his grade five this summer. We have seen his score keeping skills in games and sports. He displayed the same interest in studies and kept close track of his academic progress in the Excel sheet progress card with remarks like - same , progress, decrease.
He was particularly good at mental math and French.

Feels like yesterday

Feels like yesterday...it's already six months

Akshay's birth star was Dhanishta.They say this star is governed by Vasu, the God of the Flute. This star is known to bring symphony into the lives of others. He sure did bring a lot of music into all our lives. But his song was gone before we could learn the tune.

He used to be shy as a small child of about four or five. We would go to receive him at the Begumpet airport. On spotting us he would make eye contact and smile sweetly and hide behind his mother with his head down. That was only briefly till he was scooped up into our arms and hugged and kissed.

Dhanishta borns are known to have an inherent musical ability and athletic skills. We all have seen his skill in Taekwondo and heard him play Beethoven.

 On his holiday in India he would love spending time at home, busy with his Gameboy, the cartoons and sports channels. He loved Nanima's 'shakkar paras'. On a visit in 2010, Nanima had made a special 'Tricolour' paratha for him.
He was a confident child, mature beyond his age. You can see it in his eyes.

A cosy room

Akshay's room in his Bahrain home, where a few of his friends gathered to remember him

Five months on...Here's poem that Akshay wrote on stars one night - about two years back

 

 

Stars 

Why do stars stay up

so high. Don’t they feel

 cold at night? I wish they

could ever come down.

But for now lets enjoy

the stars in their rightful

place.  At least we can see

them in the nice shining night.

By 

Akshay

This is a poster Akshay made in school for an Anti Bullying project, just a month before he left us. It got selected as a finalist in the competition and was sent to the US. His school has branches all over the world.

Akshay  was studying in class 5 at The international School of Choueifat, Manama.

The hand print in the poster is Akshay's own hand. He placed his hand on the poster and outlined it.

If you can't read it, it must be Google!

This is today's Google doodle dedicated to a master of pop
art Keith Haring. There is reason why I put it on the blog. Like me Akshay used to love these Google doodles and had copied the whole lot of them from my laptop in July 2011 on his visit to Hyderabad. He enjoyed going through the collection. Some of these doodles are such that when viewed in isolation you cannot read it or make out what it is.I remember one comment Akshay made -
"If you can't read it, it must be Google", he said.
His remark came to my mind today when I saw this one. Here is one more for your collection Akshay.

Akshay, Nanima and a Day of Carroms

Akshay, Nanima and a day of carroms

First week of August 2008. Akshay and Nanima spent almost the whole day playing carroms at Vaishali in Hyderabad. Akshay diligently kept the score card.

Raaga ratna

Nanima sings for Akshay on You Tube.
A garland of melodies from grandmother.
April 21 is Nanima's first anniversary.
 

Sleep away, little angel

Sleep away little angel,
You took the bridge of light that night and walked into the Land of Sunshine
Fourth month today.

At the Ashram

Moved a few things around on the blog. Still trying to figure out things. This is the new look.

MARCH 21 2012

It has been three months since Akshay left us.