Name: Prajna
Dear All
It is Prajna again. My last message was in end May. I am sorry I could not write all these days. We all had our biennial family tonsure - myself, Vishy, Deepa, m-i-l and f-i-l - at Tirumala in early Aug. It was a kalyanakatta tonsure. For me it was the fourth tonsure in Tirumala in less than a year. I enjoyed it as much as on the previous three occasions. And the decision was to try immediately to get into family way. The rider from m-i-l was that till I am proved three months, every week I should get my head clipper shaved fully. A very welcome decision for me.
And I did just that. Getting the electric clipper run all over my head has been an unforgettable experience. It has been a hilarious thing for our young employees to see their Special Officer, that too a young lady, always bald for the last four months. Today was my last day of clipper shave. And how can I forgo the clipper experience? So from January, I will sport a ' Sowmya' type military cut like the one that I had in April and m-i-l has permitted me to have it as my standard cut. She has also permitted me to deliver my child in end May with a nice bald head. I plan to get the barber to my house to clipper shave my head a day prior to getting admitted for delivery.
Deepa has grown sufficient hair since August and is back to her short boy cut - clippered close on back and sides. My m-i-l also is getting a boy cut similar to Deepa since October. My mother has decided never again to grow her hair beyond a boy cut. So she is continuing with it - clippered to quarter inch length on sides and back to a height of one inch above the ears and about one and half inch on top.
Pranati used to have a monthly boy cut like Deepa till November. She wanted to enjoy a Tirupati gundu once more. So yesterday she went alone to Tirupati and returned fully bald. She will not cut her hair till her marriage is settled which may not happen for about a year. By then she will have about a foot long hair - enough for a pony. Any change in decision will be taken at that time.
On the flip side, I have been barred from consuming any alcohol. Between March and July I have developed such a good taste for it that I wonder whether I am the same Prajna who was a strict teetotaler before marriage in spite of being under lot of peer pressure in an MNC. In the bi-weekly private drinks party at home I envy m-i-l and Deepa who consume it non-chalantly (of course in strict limits) leaving me to be satisfied with fruit juice. A week before our family tonsure in August was the last day of my alcohol. Even during the stay at my mom' s house for a month for Ashadh, Vishy used to come to take me out twice a week for drinks, under instructions from my m-i-l. The earliest I can touch it again is when my baby is 9 months old - when I will stop suckling it. That will be March 2013.