Best. Present.

Last week, my sister Kuv sent me the best present ever.



A gorgeous photo album! But wait! There's more! Open it!



That's a baby picture of my mum on the left, and a family portrait of my mum, HER mum, and my Aunty Ruth. There are pages and pages more: photos of them, photos of dad, photos of us as babies and through the "awkward years" (if you ask me really nicely, I might just the awkward ones up. Although I suppose you already got a taste of it.)

Last Christmas, when our family had a reunion (the first time we had all been in the same room in seven years - my parents, my sisters and myself), we spent hours pouring over all the photo albums. Kuv tediously picked out the ones we liked, scanned them and emailed them to herself. I thought I would never get to see them. Think again.

Best. Pressie. Ever.

I thought you might like to see where I came from. Here's my mum. I *believe* this was her proposal photo, sent to all the handsome single suitors in town, so they would ride to her house on a white steed and challenge rival suitors to a duel in her name... well, maybe not the last part, but this was the photo that caught Dad's eye I think. And no wonder. Look at those lips!



I remember Mum telling me that she never felt pretty growing up, because people made such a fuss over her sisters. I wish I could punch those people in the face because Mum is so beautiful in this photo.

And then, there was my Dad, with his full head (and chest!) of hair, and his hazel eyes. As I may have told you before, Indians go CRAZY for coloured eyes. I shake my fist at the heavens quite often, wondering why I didn't inherit his eyes. MAN! Doesn't he look like a South Indian film star in this picture?



So the two of them fell in love, Dad asked her to marry him a few WEEKS later, and then they were engaged for about a year, as Dad took off to the Middle East to find his fortune. They wrote each other gorgeous letters, tons of them, each one numbered, so they'd know if they had missed one in the mail. Sweet, huh?

Then I arrived on the scene. With a full head of hair.



Mum said the hospital nurses wondered if I was a Filipino baby.



Kuv came along a couple of years later. Here she is modeling her get-out-of-bed look. So saucy!



Here I am showing off before my first concert ever. We had to do the birdie dance, (the chicken dance?) which is why I'm crouching.



And finally, Crish made her grand entrance...



...striking a pose her oldest sister (me) had struck eleven years earlier!



Thanks Kuv! What a perfect way to look back at the last 30 years. I treasure it.

-x-
aarti