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BluD

BluDada is what I've always known him as, from a blue bus he used to drive when we lived in Nagpur. My dad's younger brother, who from whenever I can remember has been in Germany. He is a priest there, tho now retired.

This photograph is a from our visit to Goa when he took me back in time to show n tell me all about their childhood. I was trying to get to know a lil about my dad through him. He limped up  a steep hill and down to the Chapora river to show me where they learnt swimming and caught fish with lines made out of coconut leaf stems.

But that's not what I started writing this for. I go tomorrow to Germany to see him. He's getting older n slower now and says he won't come to India again. I'm sad about that. I am taking a Samsung Galaxy Tab for him - a tablet phone so he can call and use the net from his room itself, without needing to climb down to his office. The excitement I feel for him is just like I had felt when he got me a really cool pair of roller skates or the first portable radio he got us. I cannot wait to see his face...

As a kid, we'd go up to Nagpur to spend Christmas with my dad's family. Bundled up for the cold, I'd wait impatiently for him to set up his slide projector. My first glimpses of Europe! I packed all those slides I found many years later when the ancestral house was sold...and the projector too :) I have his photography diary too where'd he made meticulous notes about his exposures. And the delightful little behind the lens filters.

I guess I'm just going to say thanks!