Dear family and friends,
The month of May has so far been one of celebration, bereavement, remembrance, family closeness, career progress and preparing for this summer’s events.
In the early May bank holiday weekend, Heena and I spent 3 days in Brighton to celebrate her birthday, where we feasted at several of Brighton’s many vegetarian / vegan restaurants. If you’re going to Brighton, I highly recommended the vegetarian restaurant Terre à Terre.
We held bhakti (devotional prayers) on Saturday 16th May in memory of Heena’s father who passed away 9 years ago and in memory of Heena’s kaka (father’s brother) who passed away 6 years ago, and a sadadi /prathna sabha (prayer meeting) on Saturday 23rd May for our dear nanima (my mum’s mum) who passed away in Nairobi earlier this month.
On Monday 25th May, a few of the family got together to write kankotris / invitations for my brother Sawan’s wedding which is taking place in August. It was a productive day, and with the recent bereavements in the family, it was wonderful to have the warmth of the family come together.
Preparation is coming along well for the session titled “Revealing the Gremlins” which I’ll be presenting at the Young Jains International Convention this July. It’s about recognising the barriers we face when working towards our goals, and explores what karma is really about. If you want to know more about this, you can read an introduction to the session ‘Revealing the Gremlins’ .
The convention is taking place on the weekend of 17th to 19th July in London, and is open to all ages (aimed mostly at age 16 to 35 and beyond, although there’s a special kids convention taking place alongside it). Do register to attend if it sounds interesting – the cost is heavily subsidised, and registration includes delicious Jain vegan meals! Let me know if you’d like to know more, or see www.youngjains.org.uk/convention for details.
Public speaking is also becoming an important element in my career, where last week I was invited to a conference to speak about digital marketing strategies to a room full of university marketing and communications professionals. This is really important for me because my role at Chameleon Net focuses on building relationships with existing clients and attracting more clients from the higher education sector. I received some very constructive feedback from the session I presented, which will help to make me a better public speaker over time.
Next month, Heena and I will be celebrating six months being married (and incidentally a year since I proposed to her). It’ll consist of more preparation towards the Young Jains Convention in July and Sawan’s wedding in August. Of course, June is also the month in which I’ll be growing a year older / wiser!
As you can see, the next few months will be quite action-packed, so thanks to all who have been patient with me about arranging to spend some quality one-on-one time together – this will happen September 2009 onwards…
With love,
Suraj