Our friend Ina

August 18, 2025August 18, 2025 SF3 Comments

all our guests become friends but…

… Ina was very special, having visited us annually for ten years

It’s August and at this time, we’re used to Ina’s Scottish accent — quite how she had such a strong accent after living almost seventy years in Australia, we don’t know — sing songing through the house.

Manjula and Ina became great buddies.

Hanging out together and going on day trips

…

Her first trip here was to visit the Tibetan Buddhist Monk Dorjee

at the settlement .. Bylakuppe, who she’d sponsored as a child but never met before.

Last year we had another outing to our own slice of Tibet, with our very own guide.

She so treasured our times together, especially the year MAnjula and I were married and the celebration of her last birthday that year, in August 2018

Sadly her spirit left her body in 2024 shortly after her last visit.

We fondly remember her kindness, her indomitable spirit

when she took over Manjula’s Mysore and let her presence touch everyone she met and now lingers on in her/our home.

We miss her dearly, and now she joins the motley bunch of my MAnjula and Lucie who we will remember every year through our puja to help their spirits in their way, until we all meet again.

Anything is possible

August 18, 2025August 18, 2025 SFLeave a comment

Absolutely

Democracy must move beyond a representation model to one where everyone is actively engaged. That’s our ‘work’ of the future.

Unfortunately all our societal systems and social structures are designed to maintain our status quo.

That is a life with stratified levels of inequality and exclusion and the mindsets resulting in mental and physical restraint that disempowers and keeps us ‘in our place.’

BK

August 18, 2025 SFLeave a comment

Lifted from my Facebook

For those who don’t.

Perfect Storm

August 14, 2025August 14, 2025 SFLeave a comment

Well I’m feeling it at the moment.

It’s one thing after another.

…

Registering with the Foreigners Registration Office is always unpredictable and stressful.

It’s extra this time as I’m not knowing where

my next visa will come from

…

Owner wants his house back, after sixteen years, it’s the house I’ve lived in for the longest, in my whole life.

It’s where MAnjula created our home, introduced it to the world as Mysore Bed and Breakfast and where she lit up my life like a smiling sunbeam for nine years. It’s where we sited a blue plaque (as a famous person lived here), her library and entertained thousands of people.

A museum even jokingly claimed it as their annex because it’s a living breathing art gallery from around India.

Pictures, sculptures, paintings, carvings, posters, books, all sorts of artefacts (aka clutter) from around (mainly) India, Europe and even Canada and the US.

…

Continuing to sponsor and support eleven year old Kaveri in spite of her mother and new partner sabotaging us, by changing schools, days of absence and inability to help

As MAnjula would say ‘we’ll see’.

It’s times like these that we recognise the good things in life.

and learn from our challenges

Moreart

August 13, 2025 SFLeave a comment

What is this idiot doing?

Sharath (middle) sold me the art he created for the Art College (CAVA) exhibition.

It’s a dog.

Here’s the mould Sharath first created.

The discolouration in the piece I’ve bought is in a similar position to Lucie’s white/grey patches.

and visually, a quite different character.

He/she is fighting for attention in the clutter

until he/she finds a more permanent place.

Vehicel

August 13, 2025August 13, 2025 SFLeave a comment

After visiting and living here for twenty years, I realise that I’m absorbing the different ways.

It even affects my English.

When I see something misspelt it takes some time to adjust my set— shifting from a little doubt to eventual realisation — it is actually wrong and what the correct spelling is

I’m cycling this morning around the base of Chamundi hill. I saw vehicel painted on a lorry, and it felt wrong minutes later I knew the solution

vehicle.

But I didn’t know straightaway. Years ago I would have.

The time it took to convince myself is the sign of a 68 year old falling behind but also adjustment (and confusion) due to different behaviours.

Globally it also happens.

The behaviour of leaders creates a shift to a new normal. Extremes become the middle — as what was unusual and frowned upon becomes acceptable.

Just look at Trump his publically outlandish behaviour gives permission to others to do the same.

Not only that

The behaviour of other leaders before him who’ve shifted but kept it hidden can now be more open about how they’ve been behaving.

The bullies become the norm.

Look around, it’s everywhere.

….

I think we adjust to different norms of behaviour whether it’s spelling or locking up ‘the other’ and our care, compassion and tolerance diminishes.

Reagan speaks.

This evening

August 6, 2025 SFLeave a comment

We managed to fit in homework of Maths and Hindi (I was delegated to doing some illustration), skating, shopping for Rakhi

and a new comb (my morning duties include hair combing, so the comb has suffered), supper and we fitted in a the angry birds movie. Lots.

I think I spotted real blissful looks from Kav at some sloppy bits.

Night time story this week has been.

Incredible insights into slavery, disability and a woman pharoah. The last, nicely timed to follow a discussion on the pyramids.

It’s been quite a week

August 5, 2025August 5, 2025 SFLeave a comment

Already and it’s only Tuesday

This week we start a new arrangement.

Kaveri is now staying alternate weeks between the home MAnjula created and home with her mum Chandrika

That’s after ..

.. a Great weekend together

It’s involved buying new shoes, maths, animals, angles, English, Hindi (I was not involved with that one), breakfast, more and more.

It’s exhausting.

I’m feeling it but also realising how Sowbaghya is stepping up by preparing breakfast, lunch and dinner and finishing my pathetic attempts to comb Kaveri’s hair.

It reminds me of … what a challenge it is and my own long hair in the 70s.

and another thing … the curriculum, text books, homework have made mistakes about turtles and tortoises. It’s sort of understandable but can’t correct it for Kaveri as she’d then answer it wrong in her homework or test. . Now there’s a lesson, of sorts.

A tortoise might be a type of ‘turtle’ and a reptile but it doesn’t live in water but on land!!

Here’s thanks from AI searching the net.

Yes, all tortoises are turtles, but not all turtles are tortoises. Tortoises are a type of turtle that are specifically adapted to live on land, while the term “turtle” generally refers to reptiles with shells that can live in both aquatic and terrestrial environments.

Here’s a more detailed explanation:

Order Testudines:Both turtles and tortoises belong to the order Testudines, which encompasses all reptiles with a shell.
Tortoises:Tortoises are a family of turtles (Testudinidae) characterized by their terrestrial lifestyle and distinct physical features like domed shells and sturdy, often “elephantine” legs.
Turtles:The term “turtle” is broader and can include both aquatic (like sea turtles and freshwater turtles) and semi-aquatic species, as well as tortoises.
Key Difference:The primary difference lies in their habitat and related adaptations. Tortoises are land-dwellers, while turtles can be aquatic, semi-aquatic, or terrestrial.

The homework had got tortoises going in the water.

We approach Manjula’s birthday

August 4, 2025August 4, 2025 SFLeave a comment

In August Manjula would have been 52.

We have traditions in the U.K. to commemorate and recognise significant people’s contribution by installing a blue plaque on the house where they lived

Like this one ….