Last winter lunch at the home of friendly (and loaded!) old-timers

Chandeliers in the bathroom, marble flooring, a grand piano dwarfed by the size of the rooms, a home theater in the basement, a shallow pool with a Buddha bust on one end that was a house warming gift from the daughter and husband of Oldies, a large 7-year-old grand kid who offers you a ride of the estate on his beach buggy and points out to the least affluent vehicle in the garage -- the Mahindra Scorpio -- and says, "that one is for vegetable shopping".

The hosts of the lunch, have in the last decade, hit the jackpot, thanks to a boom in the construction industry. What remains, and this I hear from multiple sources, things like affability and humility and generosity and zero chip on shoulder.

Looking at his friend's grand kid, my father says he's reminded of a scene in Richie Rich where he has to recite a piece on poverty. And the genius goes: The driver was poor, the gardener was poor, the maids were poor, the security guards were poor, the nannies were poor...till the teacher tells him good lord,, sit back down Richie Rich!

I had a great time taking photos of lunch yesterday. Hosts: friends of my parents from 38 years ago, when they were newlywed youngsters in the army and twice neighbours with a single wire as fence to separate the houses. They were laughing yesterday at the memory of borrowing two-two-three-three onions from each other and barging into each others homes. No formality, nothing.







Except that the tense bothers me, this picture belongs in My Parents Were Awesome.