Becky’s birthday!! And there I was 320 kilometers away and all alone at home when i should have been standing at her doorstep with flowers and gifts and whisked her away for lunch, a movie and more!! But God made the day reallllly special.At the stroke of midnight we were on the phone and I wished her and then sang a song I’d written for her! She loved it. She went to work in the morning and then went home to spend the evening with Appa and Amma. I’d couriered some gifts to her and my parents had bought some cake etc. I loved the way she sounded so excited over the phone. They went shopping and bought her a…

It happened without the least warning. Just as we finished Grand Rounds and were walking towards the library Dr. Winston (my colleague pediatrician) told me that he was leaving and today would be his last working day. He was moving to a Hospital at Perambalur with his wife. It took a long time for me to digest the news. That would mean that I would be alone and on call every day (Dr. Winston had done that for 3 years so it wasnt too worrying). What concerned me more was that I would find it very difficult to take leave for my wedding shopping and my marriage. I was also concerned that once Becky and I shifted in together after…

There’s no way I can actually make a post about what all I did for Becky today. Even a guy like me can actually do some romantic stuff and it all fell in place in an amazing way. Even though we were more than 300 kilometers away, she loved it and that was more than what I could have hoped for…. and here’s my verdict – Expressing your love does not always need expensive gifts and intimate physical closeness; 300 Km away and not even 20$ was all it took to sweep my valentine off her feet!! And as you can guess the flowers on the right were just a small part of what I gave Becky today!!

So we got up early and piled into the Temp Traveller to drop off S at the airport. She said goodbye and then pushed the trolley alone to the counter while we craned our heads to keep seeing her. Then almost like in slow motion we saw her being sent off from the counter and walking towards us. Our hearts sank as she told us that there was an ECNR stamp missing and hence she wasnt allowed to leave! This couldnt be happening!!! We desperately prayed and tried everything to try to bypass this procedure, but it wasnt possible. The only way was for her to miss her flight and goto the ECNR office and get the job done. We…

Finally a plan fell into my mind and I managed to leave Vellore by 8.30 AM and reach Chennai by 12 noon. After a quick lunch I planned to goto Beckys clinic and surprise her!! S and J offered to drop me as they were going to visit his sister close to Beckys house. Halfway through the journey Becky seemed to get a whiff of the surprise but S and J managed to quickly adapt the plan and they said they were coming to see her on the way. I kept calling and pretending I had just left to Chennai. I got off on the street before her house and J and S went in to see her. She was…

Finally at around 4 PM we managed to get the charts and the addresses! Yippee!!I quickly scanned through the charts and pulled up the data I needed. I’d already printed the letters and the data entry questionaire and once I was done with the charts, I started writing the names and sticking addresses. In the back of my mind I was scheming as to whether I could go off to Chennai early tomorrow and surprise Becky and also join the dinner S and J had planned for both our families.Ideas, lotsa work and some scheming…. exciting way to finish the day!

I managed to meet up with colleagues, friends, my professors etc and also had to wait a lot and discussed some thesis stuff with Dr. Anil and Dr. Jana. Made some progress, but still a lot of work to do.I have to get about 75 charts, get addresses, review the charts and enter some data. I hope I can finish off quickly as that would give me time to gom to Chennai before I go off to Trichy.Praying hard…….

After a loooong all-night chat with Becky on the phone, I left in the morning to Vellore to try and finish off some work on my thesis. After reaching Vellore I found that Dr. Anils daughter had had an appendicectomy the previous night and so I couldnt really meet him. I started working on getting the charts out and there was just a looooong wait once the letter was given. I felt frustrated, but just had to hold on…. I hope in the next couple of days I can work out what I need to get done. Everything is going slowly and it’s taking me some patience – need an extra dose of it.

Another day… and I had to say bye to Becky. J and S dropped us off at her home and then went away to visit J’s sister and that left Becky and me together with her cousins etc. We spent some quality time together. I’m realising how precious Becky is to me! J, S, Becky and I then did a quick regrouping at Coffee Day before I finally had to re-drop her off at home and then tuck myself into the car alone in the back seat and get back home. That familiar lump in my throat and emotions rushed in again……

We’d planned as a large family (Rosses, Tituses and the Pauls) to sing a special number in church today – “Everlasting God”. We’d done a little practice on Friday but there was a lot of room for improvement. BEcky hadnt yet practiced with us and so we met up in church a little earlier and all of us practiced the song a couple of times. Beckys brother PEter also managed to join us.Well, after a little goof up with the announcement slide and after the bass guitar conked out we sang our hearts out and really enjoyed it because the song was so beautiful and appropriate to happenings in the last few weeks. I played the drums (after a very…