I posted here not too long ago about my cousin Vinay and his battle with Leukemia and his subsequent search for a bone marrow match. Well, he found his match and is undergoing the transplant this week. Please pray for him.

Meanwhile, while Vinay found a match, there are tons of other people who are still looking for theirs. Please visit HelpVinay.org to learn more about how you can help.

So a month goes by without a blog post here and one would think that I would experience the blogging version of the DTs. But quite the contrary, work, personal stuff (see the post about my cousin and spread the word please!) have both meant juggling several balls in the air at the same time and well, blogging simply has had to take a back seat for some time.

Coming up (I swear it) will be a short exhibit of Aarti Sandhu's montages (at least that's what I am calling them). They are nothing short of stupendous and well, a bit quirky too.

Krishna M. Sadashivam and I have traded emails and he will be the first interviewee for the long heralded Tiffinbox 20/20, where I ask questions (some interesting, some banal) and receive answers that are, well, you'll see.

So, those two things are coming up the pipe shortly. So do keep coming back here to visit, to read, to learn something new or to comment. I love comments, so please do leave a comment or two.

UPDATE: Please vist Help Vinay, a blog set up specially for Vinay's cause!

UDATE II: According to Manish [see comments for this post] if you are an ethnic minority here in the US, your registration is FREE if you go through this site – http://www.aadp.org/pages/register.php

Folks, I have asked before and I ask again. This time it is hitting me much closer to home. My home.

My cousin Vinay Chakravarthy is fighting the good fight. Diagnosed with leukemia some months back, he has had a relapse despite several chemotherapy sessions. The next logical step is a bone marrow transplant. This is where you could play a pivotal part. But you have to step up.

Become a hero. I implore your good consciences to register yourself and your family members with the National Marrow Donor Program … NOW!

Time is of the essence. Vinay needs a match within the next six weeks. Please furnish the following information to the registry and be specific that you want your “HLA” type to be cross-checked with that of Vinay Chakravarthy's (information the registry should have in their data base.)

To find out more about South Asians and bone marrow transplants visit SAMAR or South Asian Marrow Association Of Recruiters.

If you have any further questions, please contact me.

For the past three weeks [I can mention it in public now], I have been serving on a jury. It was a criminal case. It had me sapped emotionally and physically. The process was long and may have seemed unnecessarily drawn out, but I understand and accept it is a function of a true democracy.

I am still in a state of shock about the events, about the victims and about the guy we six jurors sent away for … well, ever. It isn't a capital case and I am not sure I can even discuss it openly here until the sentencing, but we felt we did our duty to society in a fair and efficient manner. One menace to society is now out of the system.

So if I haven't posted here on a regular basis, you now know why. Coming up within days is some very cool art work by Arti Sandhu, an Indian textile artist in New Zealand now moving to Chicago to teach Fashion Design.

We finally received our suitcases – four days after we arrived. The humid weather here prompts you to take at least a couple of showers a day and not having clothes to wear is a real PITA. The wedding we came to attend was a blur, partially due to our jet lag and in part also due to the fact that we simply didn't hae the right clothes to fit into the scene. I looked totally out of place in my flip-flops and four-day old jeans which were starting to walk on their own, if you know what I mean.

The folks at British Airways turned out to be the good guys. I had called them morons before and quite rightly so. The guy who took our information down had told us to call their offices the next day. Delirious from a flight full of screaming kids I couldn't remember what day it was. We flew in on a Saturday and the British Airways offices were of course closed on Sunday. Very sneaky, I thought. But we persisted and kept calling until my wife suggested we call the airport directly and talk to customer service there. We were politely told that their offices were only open on Monday and that too from 9.30 a.m. If we hadn't heard from them by 8 a.m., we were told, then our bags were not there yet. Sigh.

The bags had arrived. British Airways had wrapped them in a plastic bag and sealed it with a tamper-proof lock. I was happy to see that they had taken at least those precautions. But getting the boxes out of Customs was a trip and a half. I must have signed at least six non-descript documents. I was so sick of not having our stuff with us that I didn't bother reading any of it. I was asked by the Customs Agent about what I had in our bags. “Diapers,” I told him. Sure enough when the bags were X-rayed the agent at the machine pointed at the rows of diapers not knowing what to make of them. “Diapers,” I told her. She nodded knowingly and let the bags through.

Apart from the stifling heat, the “power cuts”, the rush of people and the mosquito bites, our 15-month old seems to be doing very well. We are thoroughly enjoying the company of family and friends and the sumptuous and frequent meals. We are off to Bangalore tomorrow for a few days.

More on my impressions of Madras [now, Chennai] in my next post. Some things have changed. Yet, it's mostly the same.