It’s a special day (Raksha Bandhan) when sisters give a bracelet known as a Rakhi
It symbolises brotherly love and a promise of protection, bringing good fortune.
I broke my no-sweet-things rule.
Radhika is Kaveri’s auntie but they’re really like sisters.
I’ve got to know Radhika quite well over the past year, especially during the school holiday when she came with Kaveri and I for swimming, skating and often stayed at the BnB.
Fresh from swimming
We’ve all been on holiday together to Kerala. Twelve of us, the first time and we’ll return in October with Kaveri, her mum Chandrika and Radhika. .
Radhika’s real brother gave her a giant pink teddy that’s now moved in here.
Radhika passed her exam this year, got a high-scorer award and is now at PUC- Pre-University College.
Award winner. Saree gift from me on Lakshmi’s big day I’ve also promised to help and protect as her ‘godfather’.
We cycled through the countryside, along the national highway, through the suburbs and on my cycle route around Chamundi Hill.
The countryside behind Kaliyuvamane Layouts are planned New friends Preetham and PreetiWhoopsaround the backside of Chamundi HillChai stop at LalithdripuraBreakfast stop Back home at Mysore Bed and Breakfast
Stopping to chat as people wondered what it was all about.
Ina was already at our house as I returned from the U.K.
The lunatics had taken over the asylum. We have a similar sense of humour but that doesn’t necessarily travel well. 🤔🤭 sorry to Charles, the Canadian giant. He gets it.Self catering BnB
Ina was an early guest who returned to visit every year bar the coronavirus blot on our landscape. She quickly became a close friend of Manjula helping us celebrate our engagement in 2015. They would mostly hang out together and she’s the guest who’s stayed the most and longest.
We’ve also become good friends. She’s also lost her loving partner and been a great support to me.
Ina has seen Kaveri two years running and appreciates how she’s progressed.
Ina has a strong Scottish accent even though she’s lived in Australia for almost seventy years, having escaped Britain, on a ship, to settle there as a young girl with her family.
Part of the team on Manjula’s birthday. Bonding over chai and a phone on Manjula’s birthday. The second celebration of what would have been Manjula’s 50th birthday. Satish is photographer
Ina, is most definitely one of Manjula’s kind. Thoughtfully helping, all around her, emanating a positive energy, appearing to be decades younger than she is but we don’t mention age.
Her initial visit was to meet a Tibetan monk, for the very first time, that she’d sponsored since he was a child.
She regales with stories of her family and her great times looking after her grand kids.
We keep remembering celebrating Manjula’s last birthday. That’s not our cat Visiting Manjula’s bench at the museum garden in Mysore city. Fun together, Ina with Kaveri and Radhika. Aroma Bakery after swimming.
As she says herself
I couldn’t agree more. I’m still learning
Demonstrating the new balancing pod thing, whilst worrying Paul from France Visiting Chandrika and Mani, Kaveri’s mum and dad.
Ina leaves at some ungodly hour for the flybus to Bangalore airport for a week in Singapore en route to home in Australia after our last meal together at Olive Garden
She’s supposed to have gone but I thought I heard her calling out downstairs. Now that’s worrying.
on what would have been Manjula’s 50th birthday we held a creativity day for the 100 students at Kaliyuva Mane School
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Why do we do it?
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To remember and celebrate Manjula by continuing her good kindness.
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Please check the wonderful photographs of our latest event
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Faizan is the official photographer and film maker of Manjula’s Mysore. A great friend of both Manjula and Stephen
He often presents us with a problem. His still shots are too good — we want to see them all.
So here they are — of the day we worked with the team at Kaliyuva Mane on the 21st August, on what would have been Manjula’s 50th birthday — to help support their work with these wonderful children.
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More info and links below.
More information about this day can be found here:
MeandMycycle for more about us and who we are (the blog)
For more information about Faizan
Our thanks to our supporters: The school itself Kaliyuvamane and its great team, Polar Bear Ice Creams their fab team, Faizan and our wonderful volunteers: the artist/teachers Anjali, Rena and Shubhash with help from Australia: Ina, Ali and Miai and Mysore Bed and Breakfast: Sowbaghya.
We all had fun and it made a difference in the children’s lives
If the underpass is anything to go by you’ll be waiting sometime.
The ripped sign should give us a clue. It’s locked.
This is on a day when the whole city is heaving. It’s Lakshmi’s festival in a few days time.
People are risking life and limb crossing the busy roads, squeezing in the few inches between the concrete blocks separating the constant streams of traffic.
Me and MYCycle 