Note from Shoba: I thought this email of Pads to our family email list shows her characteristic twinkle in the eye and could be included in the humour part of the tribute. So charming she was, our darling girl! I also found it so sweet how in her typical self-deprecating fashion she shares with us the fact that she was awarded a certificate by a local group for her story. Read on. )...

5 Aug 2001 08:32:31 +0530

Mum, am absolutely proud of you, your letters are getting longer too. Either you're finding the letters on the keyboard more easily, or else you've so much to say that you don't mind the bother. Probably both? Besides, there's no way you could possibly make as many mistakes as the Modern Choice gang!!

You are making me feel guilty for not writing more, so let's see what my news is. The fact is that mum and dad get all my news, meagre as it is, fresh each day, so I have little to say unless something momentous happens, which it isn't doing. Yesterday, I got a registered letter, all in Kannada, with a large glossy certificate, all Greek (Kannada!) to me.

It is a consolation prize that I've won with my Ant story - a foundation set up by the admirers of one Mr. Beechi something, a humourist and Kannada teacher. This was a competition meant particularly for teachers in schools and colleges in Karnataka, and both Kannada and English stories were solicited for it. So there we are, I now have an imposing looking certificate that I can't read. I will frame it on the wall and tell other Kannada illiterates that I won the first prize, hee, hee. Maybe I can even tell Kannada fanatics that I wrote the story in Kannada!

Keshav is doing well, the rest of us too. It's kind of drizzly daily, we have a lot of work on the farm, and enquiries from prospective paying guests from the US and UK. Mostly academic types taking breaks, also organic gardening enthusiasts, etc. Our kind of folks, so should be enjoyable.

Kareem, with my direction and Mathew's assistance on product finishing, is doing some miniature paintings - gouache on silk, birds, butterflies and the like.

My quilt is growing slowly. Nothing else. We are eating lots of exotic salads. I plan to keep salad makings in the frig, so when I get the nibbling feeling, I can nibble on that, that way I should be able to control my weight. My bottom now has all the makings of a good matronly South.Indian one, my jeans are again unwearable, aargh. Luckily Ushchech has loaded me up with her salwar outfits, so I am very well dressed indeed these days.

Much love from us all,

Paddu.