My Stockholm Diary - 22

At Jaya and Vijay home

On August 9, we visited Uppsala again for a dinner engagement with Jaya and Vijay Gupta,  close family friends of Naresh. They have a newly built villa in the out skirts of the city in the lap of nature. It was totally pleasant to be in the lush green lawns duly manicured with care. Both Jaya and Vijay were hospitable and reverential, as usual.

Pallavii tieing Rakhi to Arvind (my grand children)

Yesterday, August 10, was a busy day. The Rakhi ceremony was held at home. Naresh invited Poonam and Inderpal Singh (Poonam is the Rakhi sister of Naresh) and another common friend Sukhi and Jaspal (Nippy) Sabharwal (Sukhi is the Rakhi sister of Inderpal) to a brunch of Cholle Puree and exchange Rakhi Greetings. Good Indian sweets were relished at the Rakhi ceremony. Apart from excellent hot meal, Anju made delicious Besan Burfi at home. Rakhi is a good festival of emotions and merry making and wishing to the dear ones all the best in the years to come. My thoughts flew back to India and Austria to be with my own sisters. It was a wonderful feeling.

At Sukhi & Nippy home

The Rakhi celebrations continued over a grill party in the afternoon followed by a dinner thoughtfully hosted by Sukhi and Nippy at their home. They had invited Farida and Mushtak Ahmed (Farida is the Rakhi sister of Nippy) for the Rakhi ceremony and us to join them in the festivity. Mushtak Ahmed is an acclaimed story writer and a poet who writes under the name of ´Sain Succha´. We relished sweets (Khoya Burfi) from Lahore and  good Jalebis. Nippy is a good Chef and enjoys cooking. The assorted grills of Murg Haryalli, nicely marinated fish, assorted vegetables and good drinks to gulp these down made the evening  enjoyable. at the open deck of the house. The Latifas (jokes) of Farida and Mushtak freshened and lighted the atmosphere. The Teenpati interlude in between the grill and Masalla Gost dinner was  relaxing. Sukhy´s home made Ras-Malai served as dessert was delicious. Both Sukhi and Nippy are, as usual, excellent and gracious hosts of such good parties.