Manjula and Ina

Manjula and Lucie (our dog) Welcoming Ina to our home.

After that first visit she would field questions from our guests who came to share our home — Mysore Bed and Breakfast– were we a couple?

Ina acknowledged before us that we’d fallen in love.

Ina came every year (except during the pandemic) from that first visit, for a total of ten years. She became a very close friend of my wife Manjula and a great support to me helping me grieve Manjula. She was our favourite and most regular guest, here Ina is promoting us with the new mug and proving she became an essential part of the team (furniture!).

The photos are from our last year with Manjula visiting the local Tibetan settlement and Somnathpur Temple. Ina, Manjula, Willan (our workawayer in 2018) and myself, Stephen

I was their sometime chauffeur

Together, celebrating Manjula’s last birthday in 2018

There’s more here including Ina’s visit a month ago

We will miss Ina, a wonderful caring character, who has become part of our life, here in Mysore. After Manjula died she often referred to her as a Lotus who had survived and thrived through the mud. They both radiated their goodness as sisters and had a wicked sense of humour

Ina lit a candle for her and what we’ll do each year is a Puja for both Manjula and Ina to help their spirits find their new home.

Just as we recently did for Manjula

We look forward to meeting again

Stephen

Asking for help with our tools.

SB came to do Ayudha puja to ask the goddess to look after our tools and help them perform for the next year

Nice sari
Can’t miss out the cycles
Poor radical did feel a bit left out.
Lucie is often not impressed.

Next day is the final event of the annual celebration of the goddess killing the demon, after which our fair city is named!

That’s a stay home and avoid the crowds day.

Lowly-raised

I’m feeling a bit low

Just back from walking Lucie after another not-much-sleep night I peeked into the guest book. 

Marie and Armand (see cycling photo) have just returned to Lyon. We had a great time together. Marie, an author and illustrator left a lovely image. Yes it’s me!!

If only I’d remember to ask more guests to write in it, as it proves to be a real tonic. 

Continued…
And again (northern English, you’ll understand)

It helps lift my head up from peering into the grief gravy when I all-too-often reflect on the things I wish I’d done better. I recognise I did what I did in difficult circumstances and my beautiful MAnjula was overall very happy. 

Looks like another trip to Italy might be on the cards.

But I’m always brought up by inviting memories of radiant MAnjula to shine, who will always be a part of me

We have a rich mix of wonderful guests and not only friendly northerners. 🤔🤭

Then wonderful photos pop up.

Thanks to our friend Google

Ina

Meet a wonderful friend.

To both Manjula and I.

Again and again

Ina with Sowbaghya and between them my very own wonderfulness

Ina visited us again this year to become ‘part of the furniture’. It was her tenth anniversary of visiting us.

We celebrated Manjula’s birthday with friends, visited Bylakuppe and Dorjee the monk, (the Tibetan who she sponsored as a child), and Ina got to know and appreciate our burgeoning Kaveri.

Photo from John Small

She left us after a month’s stay to go back home and visit family and friends in Singapore.

Photo from SB

I learned this morning that Ina died last night and her spirit joins her great friend Manjula’s on their next journey.

Photo from Vasanth
From Sowbaghya and with Satish and John

I’ll dive into my photos and post again with memories of Manjula and Ina together.

The sweet-ish sisters ..

… Leave for two nights with Kaveri’s mum.

It’s been the usual joy having them here for the week.

There’s one more before they return to school and college.

The T-shirt was left as a gift by a recent guest but nicely sums up the impact Manjula’s Mysore wants from our support to them

Footnote

Chandrika has re-utilised the money I’d given them for the auto ride. No surprise there then.

Manjula’s love

Radiated through her smile and her actions.

As I’ve paddled my boat through the grief gravy the layers of Manjula’s love become more apparent. I learn more everyday from her life.

“But when you want to gain love through success, it cannot be achieved through anything quantifiable. The people that will be crying when you depart the world are not doing so because of any number that is tied to your name. They are doing so because you were a loving partner, a caring friend, or a shepherd of kindness. You are dearly missed not because of what you’ve earned, but because of what you represented.”

Find the article here

Life’s lessons

The illusion of control.

I expect I’m doing my usual and stating the bleeding obvious. 

In this unwelcome necessary extraordinary extended period of reflection and potential growth, I realise the greatest challenge. 

Yes it’s about loss and grief, goes without saying, I suppose. 

There’s been many but especially three (many more of course but three for listing here) . Losing someone through splitting up with a lover, second losing Manjula when she died.  Now I’d count my tonic to deal with the grief as the third. It’s not loss but deep down it’s the equivalent. 

So why do I put them together? 

They represent times when I felt unable to do anything … actually experiencing powerlessness, learning lack of control in some situations.

That realisation comes … After a lifetime of reinforced messages that it’s up to us, we’re masters of our own destiny and in control. 

The third example is having the wherewithal to support and guide Kaveri but to realise how handicapped I am in the face of a completely dysfunctional family who don’t understand or care. 

Well done, Farrell — that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into (only yesterday, Kaveri was asking about Laurel and Hardy) — But of course it’s about regaining one’s equilibrium, being positive and constructive, working out the way that works and the benefit I can gain from another of life’s lessons. 

So in a different way, it does depend on how we take it and manage the situation — critically it’s in the eyes of the beholder—and mostly about our relationships. 

So as I said bleeding obvious. 

I send this to you because you might not believe it but you are very important 

As Kaveri knows, BK 

Manjula’s flowers.

Matching Money

Kaveri is already an ace negotiator

I’ve now agreed to match whatever she saves this (financial) year, with the equivalent each year up until she reaches 21.

We’ve started counting her savings and placed them in a box at my home

That’s now over 5,000Rs from the two years I’ve known her, from selling bracelets at the kids market and generally extorting from the foreigners. 🤔🤭🙂

It’ll be put into a protected account so no one else can get their grubby hands on it.

One of the many many lessons I learned from Manjula is how she experienced people, particularly men but not exclusively, and also family members (and first husband) who would take her money, gold and send her out to the moneylenders to borrow more.

We will have protections in place, help educate Kaveri and hopefully the strong woman I know she will become will help safeguard her as an adult.

Plus she’s astute at reminding me of my ‘pearls of wisdom’ when I forget to follow my own advice. So we’ll also keep an eye on each other.

..

So Kaveri… the savings are for you to choose how to use BUT it’s a waste to spend on parties. Leave that until you’re rich.

Here’s how we arrived here —- from Facebook

Manjula’s Memory Tree

Manjula ‘s Memory Tree was recreated for August to help commemorate what would have been her 51st Birthday.

Why a memory Tree?

Complete with our Buddhist flag.

Our memories and wishes have now flown back to the Ema, our wishing wall — set up with her help, years before she moved on.

We remember Manjula constantly in many different ways.

Ema is the wishing wall found in Japanese Temples and suggested by an earlier guest.