Glad tidings

No I haven’t forgotten my blog-space.  Always been there in the back of my head.  So many stuff I wanted to share in this space.  I took on more than I could chew and had my fingers in many pies.   Oh, I should admit, Life has been interesting after all.

There have been great milestones I have crossed, ticked off items in my bucket list, done stuff I never thought I would ever ever do and I am on a roll.

I want to actually start off from November where I got into Theatre – yesssss.. you heard it right.  I participated in a Theatre workshop that was conducted by EVAM, (My friend TMK is part of this Theatre company and it suited my schedules).  The workshop itself was 2 days long and the batch had to work on  putting up a public show, and the participants had to do everything right from booking an auditorium, arranging light and sound, stage set up, marketing and PR, sales and of course act in the play.  We had audience who paid for our show, and we had a full house at Alliance Francaise theater hall at Chennai.  Our group called ourselves Theatre brats and our play was titled “ 7 Tales at 7”.   We as a group put up 7 short plays at 7 pm on 9^th of December last year.  Woo- Woo!!!  Today when I look back it sounds like outlandish dream. Ahh that reminds me there were some more dream come true moments.

If my life was not already hectic, this whole thing just complicated it further.  With a full time job, managing a house, and a whole lot of commitments including  catechism classes at church and other volunteering activities I am into, going for play rehearsals every day, was a challenge.   Looking back, I guess I could manage it, and we had a magnificent  show day. 

I want to tell you all the little things I enjoyed during the workshop, the rehearsals and the show day.  One day I will. 

The babes, my girlfriends and I had a nice trip this year to the mesmerizing land of gods, Bali.  We all fell heavily for Bali, the temples, the Gods, the unsophisticated loving people, the serene village settings,  the vast blue oceans and even the ghastly looking  Ogoh-Ogoh’s.  I know you wont know what an Ogoh Ogoh is, but I promise to explain.

But before I tell you my unending stories, let me wish you all a happy new year and good tidings for the rest of the year. ( I must be the only crazy soul, who wishes people happy new year mid April  :-) )

Coffee Conversations

My blog friend Rekha who blogs at Soul Searching days  had done a blog marathon recently and she had done a post which is titled “ If I were having coffee with you…”

It looked like a nice idea to steal and here I go with her permission. :-) 

• After all the mental turmoil and misunderstanding, my friend and I had a nice long chat.  We, okay I, started off very defensively, but we graciously accepted our mistakes and that in itself brought in a lot of sanity.  Most importantly we were willing to listen to each other. When something as precious as Trust breaks, it is difficult to put it all back together all over again  but I guess we both after a long after thought and a month of pain and agony,  took a first step in healing.  World looks much better now.
• The advent season has started – this is the season to have fun and be Jolly.   Holidays are coming up and I will get to see family.
• Due to the demise of our Chief Minister Dr.JJ, famously portrayed as Iron lady, our Marathon has been postponed. I was so eagerly waiting for it, this is a real dampener, but on the other side, we get more time to practice and improve our time.
• That brings me to a change in perspective that I am noticing right now about our late Chief Minister.  The world( including me)  that painted her as someone who was Greedy, arrogant and narcissistic now writes a Hagiography in her memory.  Reverence for the Dead ?
• There is something that I wanted to write, but somehow could not bring myself to put down in so much words.  J has moved to Cochin, on an assignment from his organisation for the next two years, the brunt of which I bear on my lone weak shoulders.  While it is challenging to live apart after all these years, it is a difficult way to realize the value the other person added in your life, which we probably had got used to, over a period of time.  Distance makes the heart go fonder. Yeah.
• Usually the first Sunday of Advent is when we put up our Christmas tree, but since the head of the house, has to come in and join the ritual, I have postponed it to this weekend and hooray this week, when J comes over,  the tree will be up, wreaths will adorn the door and the stars will announce the season.  The hubby is not very interested in the ritual, but family traditions need to be sustained right?
• While everyone is worried about the drought and the lack of rains, the pitter patter of the little rains that we have received so far does bring in a painful memory of the past and it does remind me of the last year's deluge when we had around 10 feet of water “INSIDE” our home.
•  A friend of yore, and someone who had started off with me as a Fresher in the early 90’s, now settled in Trump land, is in town.  We have been in touch with each other all this while and we will all get to see him this weekend at home.  Isn’t that nice?
• The “No shave November” is over.  So, I asked my Sonny boy, Would you please care to shave and look civilized? And his reply was this, Ma, this is “Don’t Care December".

SSo folks, whats news at your end?  Enjoying the festive / holiday season?

Back after a break

Do you look for the old familiar spots when you are stressed out?

Do you feel like getting back to your own space, when you feel the whole world is turning in on you?

Do you  take comfort in the memory of soft-worn things  when you feel intimidated?

Wondering why all these seemingly unrelated questions?

A blend of insanity, loneliness, grief, guilt and  turmoil.  It is all these reasons which brought me here - to my own space, that is a perfect mix of anonymity and familiarity. And looks like much water has flown under this bridge, I mean, a lot of posts written by other blog friends.  My blog friend Rekha has joined the NaBloPoMo and this is her second blogathon this year.  Hurray!!! I am so excited to see the posts.  Looking forward to reading all those.  

Gilsu as usual is on a blogging spree and yes looks like i got a lot to read there too.  Ramesh, ( as Gilsu fondly refers our thala) wanted to let you know, that I miss your enlightening posts.  Especially during this uncertain and troubled times around the world, not just in our nation, your insights would help lesser mortals like me.  and its that time of the year for your trip. isnt it?

Just posting how I feel, has made me feel better.

and yes I know, this too shall pass. 

Ernavur

I am a bundle of nerves today – restless, wretched, perturbed, distraught and what not.  Angry with myself. And that feeling you get when every atom in your body and soul wants to do something and you end up saying just the opposite of it, given the constraints you are in.   I wish I could pour my heart out, since it is a complex story that spans over a decade, I will let that pass. 

But this despair  made me come to my own blog that even I have abandoned for the last few months.  Now that is not new. Abandoning I mean. Coming back is difficult. And I am making an effort.  And I know the few hard earned blogger friends are no more visiting my blog.  When I don’t visit this page,  they don’t have any reason to. right?

This post is about an unusual commitment of a group of childhood friends and one guys’ persistence in making  things work.

Wind back to Circa 1990.

I come from the notorious suburb of Chennai called Ernavur.  Most true blue chennai’ites do not even know this place.  My parents did a good job of shielding us children from the elements of this place which are not praiseworthy.  We studied in schools and colleges far away from North Madras and were monitored on our friendships and were cloistered within our community and to note all of us cousins and friends have done well in life is a great testimony to that.

I remember vividly, in my first job, I was asked by a very senior colleague, while being praised for some good work that I was doing, which place in chennai do I come from. As always I proudly said Ennore ( which is a more popular place than my own place) and he said something like this “Oh God Ennore, I have been there, and what good can come from that place?”  I was instigated and was very young, just out of college so with all that callousness, I looked straight into his eye and said  “Why do you even say that ?  Look at me”  he got the point and I saw my RM brimming with pride at my reply.

So there was this very community that I was referring to, and we had a whole large group of friends and cousins who were very close to each other as we attended similar schools, churches and the same social get togethers such as  weddings and receptions and other community gatherings.

Amongst us was this family who was well off,  4 children, mother in the Gulf as nurse ( big thing those days), and a grandmother looking after the children along with the father.  The second son who was called Kuttan at home, was my age group, and we were good friends.  Kuttan lost his father first when he was in high school and after that there was a series of deaths in his family in a short span like as though someone had cast a spell on this family.  Mother left them followed by the grandmother and the final straw was kuttan’s younger brother Joy, who left them when he was barely 18 or so. Joy was my brothers' age and his good friend.

It was around this time, after Joy’s demise, few of us got together, led by kuttan and we decided that we will spend a day, 26^th of January in memory of Joy at an old age home in Ennore which had around 200 plus inmates, most of whom were physically and mentally challenged. This old age home was run by the congregation of Mother Theresa and the year 1990 we all got together, funded this initiative from our pocket money, and we provided lunch and tea and spent our day with them, talking, singing and dancing and playing skits for the inmates. 

The best part was that we started early in the day, divided ourselves into groups and there were guys who purchased food items, groups that  helped in cutting and cleaning, a cook  who prepared food, and a group of us who distributed the food to the inmates. It was a substantial effort then, and a fulfilling and satisfying  experience for all of us.  Surprisingly, no elders were involved in this initiative, but each of us had a lot of support from our families. We got back the next year with more people and Kuttan was the perseverant guy who kept this going year after year.

Marriage took over me by surprise and I still managed to go in the initial years, and later my priorities shifted with Dennu growing up and my job and even though Kuttan never missed to call me, I couldn’t make it to Ennore  for the last few years.

Fast forward to 26^th January 2015

This year I realized all of a sudden when Kuttan posted a message on facebook that it is our 25^th year and he had a detailed post on how we started this initiative.  I was touched by the post and changed that logo as my facebook profile picture and was also  determined to make it to Ennore, this year. And did keep that promise to myself.
  

The number of inmates in the home have reduced and we did all the stuff we used to do in the past years,  Kuttan and family was present and a lot of new members who help in the initiative were also present. We cooked, we distributed food, we had our children do a lot of stuff that we used to do when we were young and got the inmates to sing and dance and every inmate were given  gifts.  The Joy on the faces of these inmates when they receive a small gift in appreciation to the act they do is beyond what words can express.  Pure bliss.

There were professional dancers and singers who entertained the inmates and it was so nice to meaningfully spend this day at this home. The founder members, we were more than 15 people originally, but only 5 of us were present and we shared our experiences with the gathering.  It was so  humbling just to be there, to meet all of them, get back to the memories of my younger days.  I was so immensely proud of this guy Oommen Abraham ( Kuttan). 25 years of consistence is no joke.

Felt Blessed to have friends whom I can start off with, from where we left, even if it means we are connecting up after years together. And this notorious Suburb in North Chennai,  Ernavur still binds us together.

Putting up some pictures for you to see for yourselves.



There we are, 5 of the founder members & Kuttan is the one in black shirt. 

 

With due apologies

I put that title in there and I realised I first owe an apology to my dear readers for being such an inconsistent blogger. :-(

The original apology was intended to the parishoners (people) who sit near me in our church. As usual I was singing loudly and saying all my prayers as loud as I can :-) My son was very upset about the fact that one of his favorite star Paul Walker had passed away and was not into any of his antics that he would do, when he hears me sing. He later told me he prayed for Paul Walker’s soul, which made my heart swell in pride, for I felt that was a good sign of bringing him up in right Christian values. ( ok atleast one !)

So after the Sunday mass, as we were talking to our friends and acquaintances, we had someone come out of the blue and loudly call Joe’s name and my otherwise composed hubby dear going gaga over his long lost friend from his first organisation. They both were completely unaware of any of us around for a couple of minutes, having found each other after some 15 years or so. That’s when J realized that D and I were watching him with amusement and he introduced us to his friend. And this friend whom I have never met, went on and said this, which kind of put me in complete disbelief – he said, yeah I noticed that she sings beautifully and I could hear her so well. These days people hesitate to sing and pray loudly, and I was really impressed that she was doing it. This friend was obviously sitting in the pews ahead of us. Through the corner of my eyets I could see J, looking a bit surprised himself and D trying to compress a smile.

I quitely took in that compliment, got back to my senses and told him, yeah in the church I don’t care that I cannot sing, coz’ it just between me and the lord. And silently apologized to all others who were around me yesterday.

Trust me, I cannot sing for my life and this is first time I ever got a compliment for singing :-) :-)

New Year Post

2013 has arrived and we are already 10 days into the new year – nevertheless its not too late to wish you all a “A blessed New year!”

2013 brought my biggest dormant fear live. Couple of days into the new year, the 12th standard public examination Time table was released. I am sure you would want to know - 1st of March is when the exam begins. Me tensed ? worried? No you have it wrong. I am petrified. What a way to begin a year I say!

The last month was worse, if not bizarre. One of my cousins in her early thirties was diagnosed with cancer, and had to go through an immediate surgery. Before all of us cousins, got out of that shock, another cousin, a little older than me, had a heart condition that needed an open heart surgery. Unfortunately, she swapped some medication and ended up with a blood clot in the brain and had to go through an emergency surgery in her head before the heart surgery. How weird can it get?

Another young cousin, had to go through a simple gynaec surgery. She is the type who is scared of even an injection, and was very worried about the surgery. On the day of the surgery, all arrangements made, the nursing assistant called her name, and there she went – swooning down. Her pressure dropped and had to postpone her surgery. Her surgery was successful, initially, but she developed some complications later and had to come under the knife again, within 3 days of the first surgery. Poor soul. My maternal uncle had to go through an heart surgery second time, due to complications, an unexpected one again.

A close friends father and another friend’s mom ( at least this one I got to hear later) were in the hospital as they suffered heart attacks. All these in the month of December, keeping us on tenterhooks.

So many families in the hospital, more than wishing each other Christmas we were taking updates from the ICU’s of various hospitals across the country. More calls were made to comfort and console each other.

Christmas was nothing but sober. Ammama, is still on all our minds and hearts, and after all this growing up, many of us feel orphaned without her. :-( a new year without Ammama - I need to get used to this.

The positive thing about 2013 is all my unwell cousins, uncle and friends’ parents are out of ICU’s, recovering well, back at their homes. So, after all the dark black clouds, time for the silver lining.

A grandchild is on his/her way – My sister is expecting a baby. Dennu, is going to be a real Big brother. My parents would be seeing a baby feet after 10 years in the family and they are more than thrilled.

My wish for you as we traverse through this year, 2013, is this - strength for the day, Rest for the labor, Light for the way, Grace for the trials, Help from above, unfailing sympathy and undying love. Godspeed.