2018: The Year That Was

On 31 December 2017 when I went to bed a little before ringing in the New Year, I swore to myself, “Tomorrow I will wake up a changed man with three firm resolutions for the New Year. I didn’t want to share them with Aunty. After all no one wants one’s wife to laugh at you on a New Year morning. I would live by my resolve and let her notice the change in me. And I did, for full one week, before I laid them to rest. There is always a next year.

For reasons best known to them, cough, cold or fever decided to stay away from me, denying me excuses to skip my morning walks. Still I stole a couple, on the pretext of having to leave home early for a function, or an early ODI match… Where there is a will, there is a way.

My quota of outstation trips suffered a set back. We spent half the year in the US, but on record it was just one trip. Second, a few trips got cancelled after booking. One was to Trichy, Kumbakonam and Tanjore temples with our family friend. (Anyway, it is never too late. We leave on the New Year night for the same destination for four days.)

The other was to Hampi. The prominent display of cultural and historical places of Karnataka on the stage at the SFV Rajyotsava, rekindled my desire to visit this UNESCO heritage city, which incidentally has been voted the top Asian travel destination by five of the world’s top travel influencers and bloggers. Soon, six of us (three senior couple, to be precise) made hotel bookings and also arranged with Akram for Innova. Meanwhile, a common friend had to be hospitalized for surgery exactly for those two days.  “The Vijayanagara ruins can wait, but not hospital duty,” we reminded ourselves, and cancelled the trip. (We do it on the third week of January.)

On my birthday the Madeshwara temple remained open throughout the day - for some other reason. So Aunty goaded me to go to the temple, pay obeisance, and stuffed the Rudram-Chamakam book into my hands with a suggestion (read order) to recite the slokas at the temple. I began, and soon the two priests went hither and thither to organize the public address system for me. I politely declined. “Modesty,” the two whispered among themselves. Poor fellows didn’t know that I didn’t want my Rudram-expert friends Navin Kashyap and Muthuraman in SFV to hear on the loudspeaker a version replete with mispronunciations and devoid of diction, and blame the temple authorities.

After a gap of three years, we bade farewell to our spectacles that had become a part of our body. To be honest, the change was ad-based rather than need-based. Usually we patronize an international optical firm, but this time I fell for the Buy-1-Get-1 offer by another company having nearly 150 branches pan India. No doubt they sold good frames and lenses, but as you left the shop you began wondering if you really got a good deal. Moral: Never harbor hopes of outsmarting the seller. The buyer will always be at the receiving end.

This morning we got a call from my elder son in Phoenix. I thought he would brief us on the shops they ransacked for Christmas. Far from it. “Appa, we got a Christmas gift,” he said. “Guess what? A seven-week old puppy.” After great deliberations among the four, they named him Max. Pedigree? Father a German hound, and mother, the Australian version of a German shepherd. Then he showed the cute little brown Max to us on Face Time, with the  two grandsons fighting for turns to cuddle him. Until recently I didn’t have a soft corner for dogs. I avoided them. But now I am not sure. “I think we should visit US sooner than later, and make friends with Max while he is still a baby,” I told Aunty who was only eager to nod. “A welcome addition to the family,” we said in unison.

On that happy note we herald the year 2019.

SFV Christmas - A Fitting Finale to 2018

Holding any event is a project in itself, and no less when it is planned only a week before. And challenges are to be met with responses - and befitting ones at that. Precisely that is what Neetha Kurien, Ambica Suresh, and other volunteers did when it came to celebrating Christmas.

Initially, with no more than 25 to 30 responses for participation, the ladies were apprehensive if it would at all take off. But undaunted, they went ahead, and a stage came when they had to close registration lest the event became a case of more performers and less audience. About 120 persons were registered, including children, adults and volunteers. No doubt, the enthusiastic crowd far outnumbered them.

Both Santa Claus and his junior did a very good job.

More so when, between them, they had to hand hundreds of ‘surprise’ gifts to children whose parents had bought for them without their knowledge.

When Santa Claus had somewhat unwound himself, I walked up to him and whispered into his ears: “Could you disclose your identity, sir?”

“Tomorrow,” he answered promptly. But hearing his sound, my friend identified him. Yes, Ravi Parthasarathi, Dr Aarti's husband, had volunteered to don Santa Claus. As for the junior Santa Claus, I am told it was Harsh, Ambica’s son.

Carol singers, attired in traditional style, circumambulated the complex singing merrily the well-rehearsed, “Mary Boy’s Child, Jesus…’, “O Come All Ye Faithful…’;  “Jingle Bells…” I could hum the last number with them. Not surprising, it reminded me of The Sound of Music genre of  Hollywood movie.

Later everyone assembled at the amphitheatre where the programme ended with a candle dance and a film number by teenagers.

Participation in such events does take you down the memory lane. Aunty and I visited the Vatican City not once, but twice. While going around, ask for a route from a Malayalee sister passing by, and she would be all smiles (you can literally count her 32 teeth), and goes out of the way to guide you. So happy is she to see another speak Malayalam in another land.

After great deliberations we both decided to climb to the top through the never-ending spiral stairway. On climb-down we swore never to repeat it because it was arduous. Strange as it may seem, we did it on our second visit too.

Lourdes, in France, was yet another place that we visited on another occasion. We felt it would be yet another church with its accompanying grandeur and magnificence. But only on arrival we realized it was a major Roman Catholic pilgrimage centre, with a dip in the holy running water providing miraculous healing. Aunty was taken to the ladies section.  I was taken to the other where volunteers unclothed me putting on me a bear minimum cloth. Asking me to lie down, two WWF-type men lifted me by my hands, and the other two by legs, swung me back and forth twice before dipping me in the biting-cold flowing water running through a tub. It is supposed to have miraculous healing effect. All I know is that my acute dust-allergic non-stop sneezing came to an abrupt halt thereafter. Touchwood.

‘Today Lourdes hosts around six million visitors every year from all corners of the world. It is the second most important center of tourism in France, second only to Paris, and the third most important site of international Catholic pilgrimage after Rome and the Holy Land.’

Anyway, back to SFV, if there were to be a contest in Bangalore for the most secular apartment complex, chances are SFV will take the cake.

Planned Tirupati, Landed Guruvayoor

“Tirupati is one of the best for senior-citizen darshan facilities,” said over the phone my youngest sister of 70+, as gave an account of her last visit. We were bowled over, and decided to leave by the evening train, if possible.

We asked her to join too. She checked with Raja, her husband. He was okay with it. “So you book the tickets for all the four of us,” she told him. He checked and announced, “no tickets for the dates that suit us.”

“Then why not we try Guruvayoor. We have not visited this year,” said Aunty, now fully charged up. “Fine,” endorsed my sister, and asked her husband to try Guruvayoor. “No” checked Aunty. “We will try from our end. Maybe, our desktop or laptop is more user-friendly.”

Tickets bought, arrangements made for who would bring breakfast, lunch, knick-knacks, there we were in an early-morning train.

In the 3+2 row, Raja occupied the window seat to be able to plug in the charger and make optimal use of his mobile. The ladies took the other two seats to cover everything under the sun in the nine-hour journey. It fell to my lot to fend for myself in the two-seater row. It is in such solitude that one recapitulates earlier visits.

It was 1973. Aunty and I had just got married. Instead of a honeymoon, we embarked on a visit to temples. Some family members no doubt laughed at us. But we were determined.

For Tirupati we had wangled a letter from the Governor of Tamil Nadu to accord us an out-of-turn darshan. The TTD man asked us to wait outside. Seeing us wait a senior couple walked up to us and said, “We have a special-darshan family ticket of Rs 3000 (?) that allows four persons. We are only two. Would you like to join us?” I thought he expected me to share the amount, so I politely declined. He guessed and clarified that it was just accompanying them to avail of the quota. We agreed, and the lady so lovingly held Aunty by hand as though she was her own d-i-l. Her husband and I greeted each other as we walked to the sanctum sanctorum area where was watched the Abhishekam for full 15-20 minutes. What more could you have asked for?

If I heard him right, it was Kasturi Rangan (Editor, Hindu) and his wife. As we bade farewell, they confided they had guessed we were newly married, hence couldn’t make a better choice from among the multitude.

In Guruvayoor it was a different experience. We were on one of our yearly trips, this time jam-packed. We underwent squeeze, pull, push, before we barely managed a glimpse of the deity. Back in the lodge, I realized my sacred-thread with silver Guruvayoorappan locket knotted to it was missing. The locket was bought on our maiden trip to the temple after marriage, hence it had more sentimental value. Aunty got upset and said she would search for it. “Where? In the whole of Guruvayoor?” I asked. She didn’t listen, and set out. She passed through the same crowded serpentine queue looking all the time at the ground if it had fallen anywhere along. She was now right in front of the deity, but no luck. “With your blessings I will buy another one to replace it,” she swore to the Lord and bowed before the deity only to see the sacred-thread lying on the ground right in front. She bent to pick it. The staff on duty checked her, “Madam, you can’t prostrate here, you have to do outside only.” She clarified that she was only picking up an item of hers that was on the ground. Our joy knew no bounds.

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The train whistled to signal its arrival in Thrissur. We hurried to Guruvayoor not to miss the evening senior-citizen darshan, which we had to our heart’s content. We had one more round next morning.

Now in Bangalore, it is back to basics – rushing to RTO to renew Aunty’s driving licence, stop by to give our water kettle for repair, pick up groceries from D’Mart…