Rajesh Turns 60!
Sixty years. Countless stories. One fun evening.
Join us for a celebration of Rajesh turning 60: a little magic, a lot of laughter and plenty of catching up.
Meet, greet & hang out
6–6:30 p.m.How well do you know the bride & groom?
6:30–7 p.m.Magic show
7–8 p.m.Your presence means the world to us - don't belittle us with any smaller gift.
The cast
A short life story,
for the latecomers to the show.
It begins
Kamala and Rajagopalan have a son on 1965. They name him Rajesh, after the hero of Aradhana, hoping he will follow in those steps.
Alas, our hero is hopeless at drama and acting, and no better at mechanics. He can only rote learn - we will eventually find out that he becomes a doctor.
Thanjavur Medical College
- Kamala wants him to stay close to home - so Thanjavur Medical College, not Chennai!
- When she knew ragging was a possibility, the house moved from Salem to Thanjavur!
- Day scholars get ragged - so an Ind Suzuki bike was bought to race him home, and the training to scurry from college turned him into the fastest biker in Thanjavur - a title no one has contested so far!
Who was cupid for this match?
He - Gen X to the bone. The kind that just works quietly, has a “whatever acceptable” mindset. Less preferences, fewer protests against the parents.
She — “a live wire”. A resident in the labour ward, on call the night before the wedding - still found time to marry the next day.
No love, no familiarity, no live-ins - a strange recipe of acceptance, adjustments and a will to make things work
Gen X commitment: 32 years, countless adjustments — and still signing up for the sequel!
The firstborn - not long after
Two months later the young bride played truant from residency, claiming sick. They made her do a pregnancy test - and turned the lie into a truth.
Avasarakoduku Aashish arrived ahead of schedule, in 1995.
His every yawn was documented and three entire albums devoted to a boy lying completely still!!! They call it 'first baby syndrome' - no joke.
After two months of perfecting diaper changes and infant photography, the new mum sat her exams - someone suddenly approved her attendance, oblivious of her maternity leave, a week before her exams!
The paper was punishingly long, and she was the only candidate to finish it, as she did not know enough. She was also the only one who passed!
Now she does fertility, and insists:
having a baby before an exam is a fool proof way to pass it!
Abinaya arrives
Second child - everything relaxes! Less camera, the baby book has four lines and then stops - forever.
While objects were sterilised for the first child, by 1998 we figure out that the hydrochloric acid in the stomach can dissolve everything. Nobody panics at a temperature, everything is handed down, and so is a measured quantity of remaining patience. She grew like a wild garden weed - untended, unnoticed. There are more photographs of the 1995 sofa than of Abinaya's first birthday.
In exchange, second children get away with everything. Most would make the trade again.
The greener pastures
Rajesh is working in Dubai. Then Hema is offered a job in Singapore. He drops everything and follows her.
In return, She followed him to Sydney for a fellowship later
The travelling kitchen
No work trip was taken alone. Aashish and Abinaya attended every gynae conference - and so did an electric cooker.
Vegetarian food in those countries meant boiled vegetables and an apology; baby food meant nothing! So the rice cooker went first into the suitcase, and four people ate puliyodarai in places where their food was not on offer.
Rumour has it that the son went on the modern western holidays, and the daughter went to the ones where you offboard the plane onto a bus that drives you to the terminal.
Abinaya marries Raghunathan
Abi and Raghu liked each other after the introduction - but we hadn't checked if the stars aligned yet.
But fret not, we ran through a dozen astrologers until someone said yes. The astrologer quest stops immediately.
What a son-in-law meant for Rajesh: tracking the daily share price of every company Raghu has ever worked for. Raghu would receive Tesla stock articles, employee memos, and market updates - before he even found out internally.
Poor man got these like the Indian good-morning WhatsApps - daily, unsolicited, unstoppable.
Aashish marries Niruktha
Aashish is awarded a fellowship and wants to go to Ghana to serve. The family manipulates him into serving in an equally backward corner of India.
This flight miraculously transits at Bangalore, and he meets the prospective Niruktha, who had an evening to spare. The boy and the girl, tired of constant nagging by their families, said yes to each other.
Now Rajesh indulges in his favourite pastime - constant advice, to a wider audience: two sons and two daughters.
Ram arrives
Abinaya and Raghunathan hand over a grandson. Rajesh becomes Thatha.
He then changes more diapers in one year than in the previous fifty-eight. The 1995 edition did not do diapers. The Thatha edition volunteers.
Sixty, and still the same Rajesh
The years have added stories, children, a grandson but some things will never change.
Now it is time to gather the friends who have been part of the journey, swap the stories we can tell in public, and celebrate Rajesh turning 60.