Your favourite Family magazine which completed 8 years in December 2009, is back after a gap of three months. I am happy to announce the 56th issue of the family Newsletter. As in the last three issues, there is a Tamil section (தமிழ்ப் பக்கங்கள்).

This issue is mainly devoted to Australia with two articles by me and one by Prasad on Australia. I had been writing regular mails on our stay and tours in Australia. I have written the final mail Hello from Sydney (covering our activities from 5th Jan to 16th Jan 2010) with about 20 photos. I have also started writing about my impressions about Australia of the trip in an article titled Australian Medley - A photo essay. The first part is appearing in this issue. Prasad has sent Travel Diary: Cairns to Sydney - The Bruce Highway Dash. This is about the road journey by Prasad and Rupal from Cairns to Sydney. This article is also in two parts and the first part is appearing in this issue. There are three other contributors from the family - Mukund, Radha and Kausalya. Actually there is one more contributor in Kannan (Narasimhan). But I'm unable to publish his article now as I have not been able to get the poems in Kamba Ramayanam from the Net. The site from where I was taking them has now closed down and I couldn't find any other free site. So I shall upload his article after reaching Chennai when I can type the poems myself. Mukund is back after many years. His article Life and Business Lessons from Mr. Shah is very interesting and strikes a chord with me as I hold a similar view. Radha has written Perfect corner, an interesting piece about her mother. I am reproducing Kausalya's article In the land of five rivers about her visit to Amritsar.

The Tamil section contains a few interesting articles. I had mentioned earlier that one of the best current writers in Tamil is S.Ramakrishnan. I am a regular visitor to his site. He has reproduced the talk by Chellammal Bharathi, wife of Bharathiar. It is a moving and slightly tragic piece which everyone must read. I am reproducing this piece titled என் கணவர் - திருமதி. செல்லம்மாள் பாரதி. I regularly read a lot of Tamil sites. One of them called மாதவிப் பந்தல் (I do not know the name of the writer) is a very intersting site and contains humorous articles about religion. As a tribute to Andal, there was an article titled ஆடிப்பூரம்: ஆண்டாள் கல்யாணப் போட்டியில் வென்ற ஆண்மகன் யார்? This describes an imaginary swayamvaram of Andal in an interesting manner. I hope you like it. There are also two interesting news items from Kalkandu magazine.

I got an interesting mail on The lessons from 3 idiots. I am reproducing this in the section 'FROM THE NET' . This section also contains two short but sweet pieces - Faith and Excellence..

I am reproducing a Tamil crossword (with hints for solving) compiled by Amritha and me for Kurukkum, Nedukkum, a Yahoo group devoted to Tamil cryptic crosswords. All the other usual features, viz. Memories are made of these, Important family events, Brain Teasers and Cryptoquip are there.

Enjoy the Newsletter and do write about it.

*** Newsletter congratulates Shoba, Anand (and Sriram, Pushpa and Mr.Parthasarathy) on the expected addition to their family in a few months. Here are some suggestions for NAMES OF GIRLS and NAMES OF BOYS