Immersion — Visarjan

September 25, 2023September 26, 2023 SF2 Comments

We take Ganpati aka Ganesh and his mum Gowrie

To Paschimavahini, the river kaveri near Srirangaptnam.

Vasanth and Sowbaghya (and their able assistants Ravichandra and Naveen) doing the honours to immerse mum and son.

That’s after puja at home aka Mysore Bed and Breakfast

The one that’s hiding is Radhika Kaveri’s ‘sister’.

Garima and Trishalla joined us, after spending wonderful time together at this week’s children’s theatre event. Here with the irrepressible Kaveri.

Antoinette, from New York, regular guest of Mysore Bed and Breakfast provided more photos. Including catching me in a regular pose of bossing Kaveri. 🤔🤭

And finally from Vasanth…

Wonderful story

September 25, 2023 SFLeave a comment

I’ve just finished reading.

Brian Selznick combines art and words to provide a surprising and insightful story. Strongly recommended

Some might consider them children’s books. If so, this child loves them. we have all his books at Manjula’s Library at Mysore Bed and Breakfast.

Kaveri and other guests have also loved this obviously young persons book.

I liked it!

Gowri-Ganesh-Chaturthi

September 18, 2023September 19, 2023 SFLeave a comment

Each year MAnjula would carefully prepare puja for Ganesh and his mother Gowri

Manjula preparing for puja in 2015 a very significant year, when we got engaged.

Ganesh in 2015 the version on the left was taken to be immersed in the river Kaveri later that week.

…

This year I was invited to Kaveri’s school to join the celebrations.

Afterwards we did our own thing at home

All thanks to Sowbaghya with help from her assistant.

Next we’ll work out which day we can immerse him in the river.

…

Kaveri becoming a sharp English teenager.

… Whatever…

She’s always with us

Electricity in India.

September 16, 2023 SFLeave a comment

Helpful insights

Sockets and plugs are the old English system with three and two pin, as below…. it’s 240 volts.

It’s easy to buy a low cost converter in India like this …

So it’s unecessary to buy one of those expensive fly-anywhere-converters

We ask our guests to use the USB phone chargers in the adapters in each of our lounges. …

There’s regular power cuts. It’s not a problem for long but at Mysore Bed and Breakfast we have a UPS — uninterrupted power supply, on each floor, (assuming it’s working) 🤔.

Do feel free to ask any questions.

Stephen.

Next Meeting .

September 12, 2023September 12, 2023 SFLeave a comment

Reflective Space

Last Friday. 5 for 6 at Mysore Bed and Breakfast 29th September.

Share your thoughts, experiences and insights.

This is an open meeting for young adults and the young at heart. Meeting itself 6-8, beforehand for drinks, cake, browse the library.

Any questions or suggestions contact Stephen.

The ‘closed’ membership group is likely to start in the new year.

Please check our previous announcement for more details.

Who we are and what we do

September 11, 2023September 11, 2023 SFLeave a comment

Update and clarification

Manjula’s Mysore continues to provide accommodation by sharing our home to guests visiting Mysore, together with our guided cycle tours.

We’re also experimenting with how we can support the learning of young people through reflective space events at Mysore Bed and Breakfast.

As all good businesses should, we also find ways to help the wider community, as part of our Corporate Social Responsibility.

To this end we have supported, in the name of MAnjula, the education of a young girl and boy, gifted bicycles, arranged holidays, provided meals, and more.

We continue to keep our eyes and ears tuned into future opportunities to do good in Manjula’s name.

We are not affiliated with any other organisations but have collaborated with others to find and serve our local communities. This has included Polar Bear Ice Creams, Aroma Bakery, CAVA, and community organisations.

We thank them for their invaluable help in reaching out to our communities.

A statement from the Directors

Sarvesh and Stephen.

I like this quote

September 11, 2023 SFLeave a comment

Never imagined I’d be sitting in my lounge in Mysore quoting Shakespeare. It’s from Measure for Measure.

“Our doubts are traitors

And make us lose the good we oft might win

By fearing to attempt”

I’ve lifted it from a book by Rafe Esquith ( Teach like your hair’s on fire ) one of the wonderful books I’m reading about education. Some are analytical or like Rafes: stories of innovations to help motivate children to learn.

I’m certain many of us can recall examples of how our doubts or fears have stopped us making decisions or taking action. All of us hopefully will remember when we did have the courage of our convictions and acted successfully.

I often remember when I first started working in local government in the U.K. I thought it idiotic and time-wasting that certain powers hadn’t been delegated to officers (from the politicians : councillors/corporators). We would go to formal committee for what, to me, seemed small decisions. My senior colleagues ridiculed the idea. We’ve tried that before laddie (it was Yorkshire but I was 30!) 🤔 I did it and I got it. Result. 😛

The doubts and doubters didn’t win over.

New thing… learning.

September 7, 2023September 8, 2023 SFLeave a comment

I shared this joke as I’m currently working out how to help children think (creatively, divergently and critically) as part of my new thing. (Contemplating working with kaveri’s school, if they’ll have me) I’m looking into Kohlberg’s Stages Of Moral Development after starting to read this book ….

Postscript

I’ve also been reading Ken Robinson’s books. Great insights about how our education systems are designed for the Industrial Revolution preparing children to slot into jobs that will not exist. So we need to help them to have the competencies associated with adaptability, effective communication and developing relationships. I agree but there seems to be an added problem in achieving that. We don’t help them to think for themselves, to be innovative, we suppress it and expect them to know their place. That is an even older approach, it’s medieval and wrong.

Manjula’s Library

September 7, 2023September 7, 2023 SFLeave a comment

Me and the dogs sorting out the children’s section of the library.

Fact is Lucie has scarpered. Nowhere to be seen, but frankly , it’s no loss as she can’t read anyway.

Billet-Doux is present, after a fashion.

Books are slowly finding their way to the shelves.

Manjula’s Sari’s protect the books from the get-everywhere dust.

Thank you to Judith Gilliland of the USA for the donation of the books you authored which started our library years ago.

I’ve now sorted over 150 young children’s books but I don’t agree with that classification as they’re for ALL ages. There’s many others: novels, india, management, thinking, politics, history, philosophy, uncategorisable for another day.

Lucie appears at the precise moment the work is over.

Meanwhile, it’s catching, Sowbaghya doing her own thing.

I’m clearly a clutter bug

Anjali gets married.

September 4, 2023September 4, 2023 SFLeave a comment

Since Punith introduced us I’ve realised how much Anjali is a real star

She got married today. Every wedding is same but different, down to caste, experience, attitude and get-on-ableness of the generations, so it’s not unlike absolutely everything else in consistently inconsistent India.

Even in the midst of planning a wedding and balancing the interests/preferences of in and out laws Anjali was instrumental in making our creativity day for the children at Kaliyuvamane.