The Return of Deepa ( Part 1 of 3)

(For previous adventures of Deepa, please refer to October 2010 onwards)

Deepa was volunteering at the temple again. She had decreased her hours significantly and was happy to see new faces there. It meant she had to do less running around herself but the new volunteers also inspired a renewed vigor in her. Deepa was especially excited about the imminent Pongal celebration. It had been the idea of 21 year old twin sisters Suman and Sonal.

"It says on Wikipedia that Pongal is a harvest festival.How about we revive the holiday and tie it in with Thanksgiving" suggested Suman reading off her IPhone.

"It will mean so much more to the temple youth." completed Sonal.

The twins' excitement was infectious. Deepa embraced the idea and the three of them began preparing speeches and presentations. An aunty donated some traditional sarees. A set of earthenware pots were found on Ebay. This would be for the offering of sweet saffron rice at the closing of the ceremony. The temple chef had offered to prepare a veritable feast. There would be sambars and dosas, pooris, chaat and mango lassi.

Deepa was confident that they had gone through the minutiae and was doing a run-through of the program with the entire events committee. They sat in a circle around her on the temple floor.

"Dr Sharma will say a few words about the new temple library and then Sonal- you will give an update on this year's events. The Swami will bless the congregation and then Suman- you and I will give some background about Pongal. Do you have the Powerpoint ready?"

Suman nodded and was about to add a detail about her choice of bhajan when a symphony of electronic twangs drowned her out. It was the increasingly familiar sound of an email alert. Who was sending her entire committee an email?

Deepa was hoping her audience would ignore their devices for a few minutes longer but she was curious too. It might be an important memo from the caterer of the event, or from their guest speaker. She peered down at the phone in her handbag and screwed up her eyes really tightly to see who the sender of the email was.

MrsSharma@gmail.com

Her again.