hey, that guy's stealing our car. the nerve!

that house has been on sale for ages...

new england house rumoured to be built atop an old indian burial ground...

After unpacking and re-assembling enough items to make the house liveable, my family has abandoned the confines of the ExecuStay suites to actually start living there... I'm sure their nostalgic memories of the neutral tones and pre-fabricated decor of their "smartly appointed living accommodations for stays of 30 days or longer" are already fading. The computer is up and running and the cable modem has been procured, so it shouldn't be long until my Dad takes over the reins here again. I am going down to Connecticut this Friday to check out the new digs. Stay tuned for the first installment of themukherjees.com from scenic southern Connecticut!

Add two new red things to the list of Mukherjee stuff. One of them is Mom's new phone (red faceplate) that still plays snake, but Sanjoy says its tougher because of the smaller buttons and screen. The other is a new car, an Acura 3.2 tl in "firepepper red"...that comes with seat warmers, etc. Who needs seat warmers in balmy New England?


Tomorrow all of our stuff from Toronto will be arriving in Connecticut and the move in is scheduled for Saturday, I think. In an odd segue from the material to the spiritual...tomorrow also happens to be the holiest day of Kumbh Mela, one of the holiest festivals of the Indian religious calendar. According to my Mom (who heard it on NPR) by the end of Kumbh Mela almost seventy million people will have bathed in the waters of the Ganges and two thirds of those will enter the waters tomorrow!

The festival, which has been celebrated for centuries, is held every twelve years in the city of Allahabad in the northern Indian province of Uttar Pradesh. Allahabad is one of three such sacred locations in India. In today's Globe, John Stackhouse described the origin of the holiness of Allahabad and the other locations: "The locations are based on the ancient Hindu creation story of a divine struggle over an urn containing the nectar of immortality. As gods and demons fought for the urn, drops of the nectar fell into the waters below, where mortals could wash away their sins and perhaps gain freedom from a cycle of reincarnations."

Dad says "Every time I visit the house, I get to like it more. There are a couple of big boulders around the back of the house and there's a stone wall at one side of the property. And then on the side of the house there is a little hill about half the height of the house. There are big oak trees near the house. I think that the trees around the property are all...they're all very tall...and I think they're all oak. On the way from the school to our house there are some massive oak trees, must be two, three hundred years old. Today, when we were coming back it was snowing a little bit and everything looked very pretty."

In other news the old house has been sold. That kind of marks the end of an era. We moved there in the summer of 1988. I started that fall in high school and lived there up until '93 when I went to university, but I'd always be back there in the summer. And even after I started working in Ottawa I felt like that house was home. So I'm kind of in the air, is my apartment home? Or is home a house in Connecticut that I haven't even seen yet?

Sanjoy has this nugget from Will Ferguson's Bastards and Boneheads:

The Canadian mint has rated and ranked several of Canada's Prime Ministers in terms of their buying power. Borden - $100. King - $50. MacDonald - $10. Laurier - $5. But you can see the flaw in this system. If we continue in descending degrees of monetary worth we will soon end up with the Joe Clark penny, the John Turner half penny and the Kim Campbell one eighth of one half penny divided by four.

Down in Connecticut it turns out that the city doesn't provide garbage collection. Instead you have to hire a private hauler to come and get it for you: five dollars per week for garbage and 3.50 for blue box.

See the free market works! Oh, did I mention that there's only one hauler to choose from?

Dad, Mom and Sanjoy are settling in down in CT. On Saturday, they went to a cool music store in Woodbridge (where they'll be living soon) to buy a violin for Sanjoy's music class in school. In true American style it is located next to a gigantic wine and spirits superstore. Today Sanjoy called his good friend Eric back in Toronto. Turns out that the MO is for Eric and Cameron to go to Cameron's house over lunch for snacking and gaming. But despite this development, the news is that Sanjoy's class is missing him... Tomorrow Sanjoy is off of school because of Martin Luther King Day...my Mom on the other hand still has to go to work. Seems like BMS doesn't celebrate that particular holiday. Another discovery was a huge cinema, also in the area, where they saw Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (released in the US on January 12th). Jayanti Mukherjee says: "It was superb!" Also on Sunday, they all wished my grandfather a happy 85th birthday back in India. Happy Birthday Dadu!

The big event tomorrow is taking possession of 120 Peckhill Road, Woodbridge, CT: the new Mukherjees HQ! They have to go down to the house and do a walkthrough with the real estate agent which is yet another strange American custom. After that they'll do all the paperwork and take ownership.

Sanjoy says: "hello. yeah. shhhhh. whaaaat? pretty tired. [zzzzzz]"
Mom says: "One day during the first week we were here, it snowed a lot and it covered all the ground and the trees and the snow was kind of sticking to the trees. Next to the building where I work, just outside the building there was this deer looking at us and it was motionless and it looked just as if it were in a picture postcard. I wish I had a camera!"
Dad says: "I didn't want a comfy chair. I wanted a kayak or a canoe!"

I took off to Niagara Falls this weekend to visit Tanya and got to witness an interesting bit of North American culture known as the bridal show. While I stood in awe at the size and might of the wedding industry, Tanya capably navigated the throngs harvesting a bountiful crop of pamphlets and business cards while her sister entered us in every draw in sight. Expect junk mail.

Stupid American Questions: Sanjoy's math teacher in Connecticut asked him if he knew what the Academy Awards were...and also whether he knew what cavities were. Dad is taking Sanjoy to school every morning, and reports that it is a pretty drive. He also arranged for cable, electricity and telephone service for the new house today. It looks like the American branch of the family is becoming a bunch of homebodies. They wake up at 6.30 AM and are in bed by 11 o'clock. They've also been eating most of their meals at home and not going out for dinner. They're missing news of Canada, but hopefully things will improve once they get their computer out of storage.

Well, its been a pretty hectic week. On the 28th and 29th, the contents of the house were packed up and moved and we spent the rest of the week at the Toronto Airport Marriott. With all our belongings gone (except for a couple of superballs and a copy of Asimov's "The End of Eternity"), the house didn't feel much like a home any more.

I got to spend time with Tanya, Brad, Dave and Bart in the last few days. I went with Dave and Bart and some other friends to have an insanely filling Polish meal at Polonez on Roncesvalles. Sanjoy spent a few days at Eric's playing Diablo II, Midtown Madness 2 and Nox. My parents ran a ton of errands (in the midst of a snowstorm), but also managed to squeeze in some time to say their goodbyes to the neighbours.

On New Years Eve, we met with Tanya's family for dinner downtown, and then went over to her uncle's place to see in the New Year. Happy Third Millenium! Yesterday we had a traditional Canadian meal (Swiss Chalet), ran some errands down on Gerrard Street (are there Indians in New Haven?) and the whole family went to see Castaway.

This morning, after waking at the crack of dawn we all went to Pearson and said our goodbyes quickly. And so three quarters of the Mukherjee clan were off to start their new life in the United States of America! Mark the day on your calendar. They just called me and they've arrived safe and sound, and have set up in their temporary accomodations in North Haven, CT. Tomorrow, both Mom and Sanjoy start at their new job and school, respectively.

So, until Dad gets the computer up and running I'll try to keep things up to date on theMukherjees.com.