(This banner is designed by Arasan. He designed it for a souvenir, but it also decorates this blog post, rightfully so)

6 of the IR friends met at New Jersey a couple of weeks back. This is a long awaited trip mainly because this is the first one with all our families. Though we have met some of the better-halves of others none of our families have met in the past. So it was interesting to see how all familes and a few bachelors will gel together. The occasion : Barani and myself got married recently.

The hero of the trip : Siddarth.


Fri : When we arrived in Newark everything went according to plan. My flight was an hour late, subbu's 1/2 hour early. Arasan expected all these. So he had delays included in the schedule :-) (atleast that is what he said when barani and bals came to pick both me and subbu together !)

The hero was sleeping happily when we arrived at Barani's place. As we didn't want to disturb him me, subbu and barani started to King's place where arasan and our dear friend D Jack were waiting. Villain entry : barani's ph rings. it is his manager calling him at the obscene time possible - fri night 1.00. So barani had to be locked in King's bedroom as we celebrated the reunion with our friend dear jack. It was 4.00 when all of us were reminded we were no more bachelors and that some of our wives will give us a wakeup call at 7.00. So hurried to bed. King's excellent side dishes deserve a special mention. When all these party was going on Dams and Vanitha was picked up and allowed to sleep (courtesy : bals).

Sat : So as per schedule we started from King's place with just a 2 hr delay and reached barani's place. Ladies were already busy with lunch. Hero was up and was in a great mood.

A special note about our Hero's preferences
Food he doesn't like : Milk, paruppu satham, otherwise anything that is baby food.
Food he likes : thattai murukku, bagel with Heinz ketch up, egg and cheese, cheese from pizza top, paruppu vadai, jumbo cookie from dunkin donut. otherwise anything that is not baby food.

A typical indian grandma would have gone crazy if she knew we fed our hero with all these !

But that is what happens when you bring your kid to a place where there are irresponsible bachelors and newly weds :-). So what did we do for the whole morning. Simple : nothing.

Sat there, talked, discussed, conversed and talked. In between prema, sri, vanitha and mahesh delivered paruppu vadai and coffee in schedule. after which we sat there, talked, discussed, conversed and then talked :-).

Again the ladies were right on time to finish the lunch preparation. So we had lunch and relaxed after the hardwork in the morning session. It was time for some comedy. So we decided to watch barani's marriage video. This guy is surely popular in Vellore. He had a cutout (a real one like those for rajini) for his marriage. After all the fun someone reminded us we need to see some places in NJ.

So we started like this,


drove for an hour to see the fall colors and to reach the Dunkin donuts in the other side of NJ, had coffee


and drove back !

Some of the married guys decided it is high time we change gears for day 1 as it was already 8 in the night we needed to show some results to our managers as the deadline of EOD was approaching. So we went for bowling :-).

When we went home dinner was there waiting for us cooked and ready.(courtesy : mahesh) People decided it is time for more comedy in the proceedings. So they watched my marriage video while having dinner.

Then barani, me, arasan, subbu and dams started to King's place as our dear friend D jack was left all alone for the day. Inspite of our friend's company arasan kept an alarm for 6.30 am. Believe me. I thought it was to get up. But I realized later that it was to sleep. So we talked, conversed and relaxed again. Arasan was surely in some form.

Sun : As per schedule we started with a 3 hr delay to NY.

The villain resurfaced : Barani's manager. he had a concall to attend. Still we were on schedule as there wasn't anything like that.

Had breakfast in dunkin donuts. ( guess we can declare them as official sponsors)

The first place to go was WTC ground zero.


and then to the liberty statue. Our hero was in great mood. He decided to keep himself updated and read information week in the waiting time.



But proved he still needs to learn when he got himself caught like this


So here is a view of all the families.

the bachelor


The other bachelor was busy behind the cameras. So I don't have a photo of him in my album but copied it from his own album.



We then went to central park where all the newly weds were presented with their marriage gifts. Then we headed to Pongal the south indian restaurant. The food was good.

The 2 days ended with Dams' Bday celebration at night 12.

That was 2 days of great fun and relaxation. Great organization of the trip by barani and arasan. To be exact non organization (in terms of schedule) and organization(in terms of food, acco, travel etc), as throwing all the schedules out of the window and playing it by the ear worked perfectly this time.

ET lists 15 movies to watch before you are 30. Some of my all time favorites like Life is beautiful, The Godfather are in the list. American Pie/Pretty woman also made the list ! Before 30 - sure. Must watch - I don't know, I won't recommend these 2 as must watch movies. Still the collection is good.