Pandey Parivar

Introducing Pandey parivar- We have a big family as evident from the picture here. Its big and still growing. At present we are 18 of us altogether. Mr and Mrs RV Pandey hail from Allahabad. They migrated to Bombay in search of a better future and settled there. At heart they are still very much a UP-ite. They still speak the UP dialect at home and with family. We are 5 brothers- Rajkumar, Rajesh, Bhushan, Mukund and Siddharth. We grew up in Bombay, went to school there and followed different career dreams and now we are all well settled. Although, career has taken us away and we are all settled in different parts of india and world now, still a much stronger bond has tied us very strongly to our home in Mulund Bombay, Ambekrupa Building, Flat #1. Pappaji bought this flat and I was the only one to be born there. He toiled hard throughout his life to provide the best for his sons. Mummyji and her constant encouragement and motivation has been the propelling force for all the kids. Although we are very different from each other, Mummyji is the only strong bond that has held all the brothers together. I am very proud of the family, love and affection runs in everybody's blood. We face all troubles together and when the dark clouds pass, we celebrate together.
The family is definitely not complete without the Bhabhi's and the kids.
Let me introduce each one of them separately, its going to be more fun that way:
Raju Bhaisaab: He is the eldest and the most revered of the brothers. A brilliant student, a genius Neurologist (he is an MD, PhD in neuroscience) and a star son. He finished his medical degree in Gandhi Medical College in Bombay. He received a scholarship from the Govt of India to pursue a PhD in Moscow. Its a rare honor and he deserved every bit of it. In doing so, not only did he earn the respect of his friends and colleagues but the whole family as well. So far so that, even Mummyji calls his son as Daktarsaab. He married Mrs. Olga Pandey from Russia, a truly remarkable woman. She was born and raised in Russia, and was educated as a doctor there. After marriage she gave up everything, settled in Delhi, sacrificed her career (Indian govt doesnt recognize a Russian MD now) and is doing a fantastic job in raising their two kids. And the kids........................Param and Ira. They are just 2 opposite poles. Ira is an epitome of feminity, while Param is a "monster". Highly energetic, full of mischief, fun and frolic and a real delight. Ira, you talk to her, and you can't help but recognize how innocent and beautiful she is as a person. Both are star students like their parents. But not just that, they are also excelling in swimming, tennis, and thousands of other activities.

Saju Bhaisaab: He is my second brother. All my childhood memories are attached to him. He was the real badebhaiya to me. Even as a kid, he would assist Mummyji in all her daily chores. Mummyji would be helpless without him. I remember, his task was to fetch me from school everyday when i was a kid. So when everybody is waiting for their parents or househelp to show up, I would be eagerly waiting for Saju bhaiya. I would dash to him, as soon as he was visible and then literally eat his head with all the school stories all the way. Now that I have to do the same thing with my nieces and nephews, my heart goes out to him and I can't help but praise his gift of endurance.
He is one of the bravest man I have ever seen in my life. He was doing very well as a sales executive for a Pharmaceutical giant. He was the youngest to become a regional sales manager in the company and to receive a number of accolades. But he didnt stop there. He never wanted to work for someone else. So at a very young age, he quit his flourishing job and decided to open a pharmaceutical company of his own. Ofcourse, he received tremendous support from another member of my family, his wife and my second bhabhi, Shaila. Together, they worked hard day in and day out and established their firm. Over the years, their hard work paid off and its a big Pharmaceutical company now. They have two kids, my two nephews with whom I spent most of my time in India, Ajinkya and Agnesh. Ajinkya was like a buddy, mostly because of lesser age difference. He is grown up now and just finished his 12th boards exam. He will probably become an engineer like myself. Agnesh, he is in 6th standard now, full of innocent questions and like me, very emotional. He has a nickname too...... Baniya, even as a kid, he was very conscious about spending.

Bhushan: Must be wandering, why I am not refering to him as bhaisaab. That's because, he was the first one among my brothers to become my buddy. A gifted singer and a dedicated teacher, Bhushan taught all of us how to enjoy life. He is closest to Pappaji and from him, we believe, Bhushan inherited the love for nature, biology and rural UP. He always seeks for opportunities to escape to the serene and peaceful locales of "gaon" and genuinely thinks of improving life there. Bhushan has always fascinated me with his ability to work hard, effortlessly and without complain. Typically his day would start much before anybody else's and end after everybody else's as well. Its very hard to get a glimpse of him. I still remember, during my india visits I used to share rides with him (when he is on his way to work) just to spend some time with him. He is well complimented by Rachana Bhabhi. While Bhushan keeps long hours at work, at home Rachana Bhabhi strives hard to not make his absence felt. She plays the role of a wife, a mother, a daughter-in-law and a daughter with amazing elan. Now let me introduce a very important member of the family. She is an 8-year old, may be only 4ft tall, but a real Dicatator-please welcome our Dishuli, aka Diksha, Dishu, Dikku. She is a real sweetheart, full of mischief but a very affectionate sister. Like her father, a gifted artist and extremely camera friendly. I wont be surprised if she choses a proffession in Arts and I know she will excel.


Mukund: Bhai!!!!!!!! Mukund and myself are like two sides of a coin. Totally opposite to each other, but still very close. Mukund................now that I look back, he was always there for me and the family. All through our childhood he was one tough competition, we would fight endlessly, argue endlessly, and always strive to prove who's the best. As a kid, I always complained that everybody would favor him while I had only Mummyji on my side....that was so unfair. But now that I observe him executing all his responsibilities with amazing skill, I know now why he was everyone's favorite. Bhai...... maybe I will never be able to tell you in person.....but you have been a real inspiration and a role model. Mukund believes in living life king size. A man of tremendous potential, Mukund always believed in giving his 100% to the task at hand. Wherever he went and whatever he did, he left his mark. The thing I adore the most is his principle- "Earn more to give more". Even as a student he would take time out from his extremely busy schedule to spend time with little kids in a local orphanage "Asra". Even till date, he donates generously to every cause. Let me take this opportunity to introduce a very important member of our family, whose endless love and support continues to play a huge role in Bhai's overall success. Yes, please welcome, Priya Bhabhi. Being a very ebullient personality, she is the heart of every family get-togethers. A perfectionist to the T, she would take care of even the smallest detail. She works tirelessly the whole day and executes her multiple roles with aplomb. Bhai and Bhabhi was recently gifted by a little baby boy, Om. Om is a little bundle of joy, an extremely charming one-year old. Its an unequivocal fact that Om resembles me a lot.
Bhai and his family are planning a trip to US soon...I am really looking forward to it.

The RAY family

Smile EVERYONE!!!! Please welcome the Ray-family to the blog. Baba Ma visited us in August 2005. It was a short stay, only 2 months, but it was fun. It was the first time Sid had his in-laws over, he played the son-in-law role with elan. Ma has seen Sid just once before, during our wedding, so she was super excited to meet her only "JAMAI-babu". Baba was just happy to be with his daughter.
The trip started off with many unhappy incidents-first Didua passed away suddenly, then we had a burglary at our residence in calcutta and finally Guruma's demise. But we picked up the strands gradually and decided to make the best of the situation. Although, it took a while for Ma Baba to recover, but thanks to Sid's warmth and joviality, they adjusted to USA. Ofcourse it took a 6hr long drive to the Universal Studios and a funny stint by Charlie Chaplin to bring the long lost smile back on their faces. This was the first time I saw them really happy in years. So this picture, will be very close to me for the rest of my life.
Overall, it was a gazzillion fun!! The first long weekend we got, Sid drove us down to LA. We stayed in LA Sheraton, which was a mindboggling experience for Ma Baba. The hotel rooms were beautiful, you could see the shining lights of LA throughout the night from the 32nd floor. The next morning we went to see the Universal Studios. We went to all the rides that were allowed for the elderlies. 15minutes in to the park and Baba was beaming with excitement. He kept on asking for more like a kid. I owe a lot to Shrek for cheering my Ma up..........everytime the characters were spitting or sneezing, she would shrink back in her seat in repulsion...........funny... even my always skeptical Ma fell to the gimmicks of Walt Disney.
We finally wrapped up our trip to the Studio towards late evening. The plan for the next day was very ambitious, we had to see the whole of west LA before returning to Bay area. Sid drove us around Beverly hills, Rodeo Drive, Kodak Studio, UCLA and Sunset Blvd. I was just happy to be able to give some happy memories to my parents. We have faced a lot of challenges in life and have been through a lot, its time for us to enjoy!!! And that's exactly what we did...........although an overdose of RAYs was ruffling Sid up, but he was super co-operative and together we had lots of fun!!! Wait......this is not enough..........we did other trips too......notably the GRAND Canyon..........will share that with you in my next blog...cheers

Introducing Papa-Ji

Meet head of our family- Shri R V Pandey.
In the background you can see our lusicous green bageecha in Allahabad (Prayag) along with Omy. More soon... 

Ek Chummach Daal se Ek Katori Custard tak....

Well if you guys are wondering what Omy's pic doing here, let's just say that I like putting his pics. in all my blogs. And I am sure you would enjoy seeing him instead of seeing picture of 'Ek Chummuch Daal..'. Well today morning during our sunday brunch, I was in mood for dieting and Sunetra was determined to finish all leftovers.... so the story begins...
After trying my best to finish all weeks leftovers, somehow my stomach could not take last chummuch of Daal, which Sunetra did not want to waste. So instead of throwing away dal she insisted on finishing it...finishing it means- dumping in my stomach. See here stomach is like a premium garbage can-- if you throw food in this can, u wont feel the guilt of wasting food. Well either you can try to be on dieting or you can be a premium garbage can, well today I wanted to be the former.
After having a lot of discussion about this chummuch of dal(discussion is euphemism for something we all know), Sunetra ended up throwing it, and I ended up hearing all day that how wasteful I could be at times.
Ironically, in the evening when we came back after having so much fight for dieting, we ended up having awesome Custard and finished our Sunday supper on a very healthy note or atleast tried to. 

Prakruti Resort

Sunetra --- Prakruti Resort was one of my most memorable trips in life. This was my first trip with the Pandey family-mummyji, pappaji, mukund bhaiya and family, bhushan bhaiya and family and Siddharth. Unfortunately, because of exams Saju bhaiya and family couldnt join us this time......needless to say, we missed them dearly throughout the trip. So we started off on a bright Saturday afternoon in big bro's Toyota Innova (an awesome car). Priyadidi and Omi got the rear-most seat to themselves. Myself, Siddharth and Mukund bhaiya were in the middle seat while mummyji took the frontseat-leading the group. As the car cruised down the Konkan sea-coast, we were surprised to see how beautiful India is. We couldnt help but draw a comparison with USA. Although the roads were narrower, traffic was rowdy, poverty stared you in the eye everywhere, but in stark contrast, it seemed like nature has showered all her love and riches on India. The trees were overloaded with green folliage, wild flowers were in bloom everywhere, the deep blue sea merged effortlessly with the clear blue sky in the horizon.
It was eternal!!

Omi- was a bundle of joy. We are convinced that he will be a real outdoor guy when he grows up. Whenever his mom took an effort to put him to sleep, he would throw a hysteric feat. But the moment he sat on his Siddhu Chacha's lap staring out in the open, he was happy. We reached the resort towards late lunch. There was a buffet waiting. So we dropped our luggages and went straight for the food. After snack, myself Didi, Omi and mummyji sat on the swing and relaxed-we shared stories from our past, played antakshari and simply enjoyed. We were waiting for the other car-bhushan bhaiya, rachnadidi and our beloved Dishuli was on their way to join us along with Pappaji. They got lost a couple of times and by the time they made it to the resort, it was late evening, and time for dinner. We took evening strolls around the resort, went back and showered in our rooms and dressed up for the evening. The evening surprise was the disco floor with the DJ playing the current Bollywood hits. Honestly this was my 2nd or 3rd disco, and I love dancing. Before dinner we went and watched people dance their heart out on the floor, but the Pandey family stayed back-we were afraid of being non-traditional.
The first one to break all rules was Mukund bhaiya, he forayed into the dance floor with little Dishu in tow and the two of them just rocked. Next Siddhu followed with Omi on his shoulders and joined the little Pandey group was quickly becoming star attraction. With her whole family on the dance floor, it was difficult to keep Priyadidi away from the lights from long. Anyways her feet were already shuffling from the moment we approached the floor. So she finally broke the barrier and stormed into the floor as the loudspeakers boomed with "Kajrare". From then, there was no looking back for the rest of us-mummyji, myself and rachnadidi just dumped all our belongings on Bhushan bhaiya and quickly joined the group on the floor.
Although, all our efforts to get Pappaji and Bhushan bhaiya to groove to the beat didnt work out, but they were super co-operative in capturing our every moves in the camcorder and cameras.You can enjoy the photos/videos as soon as they are available. We danced all night that day, when we returned to our rooms that night it was already 2:30 in the night. We returned the next day after a round of golf at the resort and a delicious brunch buffet.

We made a lot of memories and built a lot of bonds in this trip. I have been raised as a single child.....the Pandey family showed me the true meaning of "family". Mukund bhaiya deserves special thanks for arranging the trip and ofcourse the Dishu-Omi duet for providing us with constant entertainment.