Author: SF

A YIndian, Yorkshire by birth and Indian by marriage. Originally from the UK, I've now lived in Mysore, South India for over ten years with my beautiful wife Manjula. MeandMycycle is about the ups, downs and ups of our life in Mysore and our creations: Mysore Bed and Breakfast and MyCycle Tours.

more change….

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We, that’s Manjula, Kamlama and I, drive to the village in the Ambassador, round the backside of Chamundi Hill.

We park round the front of the small village house and follow the sound of the music to the rear. We’re met by a typical scene: a “tent’ a canvas decorated roof to provide shade,  these are often used for events at someone’s house, has been quickly erected that morning. The musicians are seated on the road in centre of the tent, the men are either seated by the music or constructing something out of bamboo.

Our gardener is laid by the side of the house door with his closest women relatives, particularly his wife and adult daughters, crying, prostate around his body. Small groups respectfully go and place flowers. the pile becomes so high that they are often scooped up and taken away to be added to the ‘litter’ the men are building.

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We pay our respects, leave flowers, wait a few moments and leave.

He will be buried later that day. I don’t know why. Most people are burnt on a funeral pyre (helps the soul escape?)  and then the ashes to be sprinkled on water. Locally that’s on the river such as the site we feature on the Srirangaptnam tour. Some are buried.

For the following thirteen days there are a whole series of rituals and customs to be followed. These vary according to location, caste, local and family tradition. They might include: no cooking at home, a process of cleansing, clearing and cleaning, redecorating the house, showering, Tulsi plants, new sari, bangles, sindu. The widow goes to the burial place to break her bangles, takes the flowers from her hair and wipes off the Sindu.

Its complicated, formal and informal and its significance is unmistakeable.

These scenes are common as we pass through villages.

This is the first close member of our team to die. Nariyanappa has worked for us for over three years and in that relatively short time has created a commerative to his abilities as a gardener. He’s made a real and lasting difference to the place.

You can see it, as you arrive at the house, in the downstairs sit-out, up by the back door with the bouganvillia or the best of the lot, the roof top terrace. Even to the very last moments he was concerned to ensure his daughter (who also works for us) was visiting regularly to water and keep the garden in good order.

Respect!

We visited his wife and family during this period of mourning to provide some cash to help them through and the gift of a little sun We thought it was approriate as he’d brought a light into our home with the beautiful garden he’d created which is appreciated by the hundreds of people who visit us here in Mysore.

Thank you Nariyanappa!

 

Who is Cochrane?

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According to ‘The Times’ (in UK) :

“He was a Radical, whereas those were the palmy days of Toryism. He was outspoken, whereas officials admire reticence and discretion. He was resolute in exposing abuses, and therefore constantly creating trouble. He was impractible – a term still in favour for describing inconvenient excellence; and he head a strong spirit of independence – a quality which as very recent controversies have shown is singularly obnoxious to the official mind.”

This biography of a unique man, helps illustrate how institutions such as the Royal Navy in late 18th and early 19th century were corrupt and how the establishment ‘looked after its own’ and wouldn’t countenance the challenges represented by the radical movement and in this case Lord  Cochrane.

In some ways it helps show how Britain might have introduced or at the very least encouraged those practices through the British Raj in India.

Back to Cochrane. Historian Sir Archibald Alison stated…

Lord Cochrane was, after the death of Nelson, the greatest naval commander of that age of glory. Equal to his great predecessor in personal gallantry, enthusiastic ardour, and devotion to his country, he was perhaps his superior  in original genius, inventive power and inexhaustible resources.

 

 

want a boy or a girl 2

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Remember back in November I relayed Manjula’s discussion with friends about whether they would want a boy or a girl? Its here if you wish to check back.

It was triggered by the pregnancy of one of her friends.

Well, as I mentioned in the postscript, the pregnant woman’s husband subsequently died

Now we’ve just heard even more news of the suffering of this poor woman. Her mother has just died during a visit to her daughter whose baby is due this week. Manjula and her other friends have now gone to console her.

I’ll let you know how things develop but imagine what the poor woman must be going through.

the big birthday

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thank you for all your kind wishes and I hope you all have a wonderful happiness filled year. It was my birthday and yes we did celebrate it on the 31st December (2016). I was 50, ten years ago and I have already been caught out telling someone I was 50 this time around but it isn’t the absolute truth I’m 50 + 10 Maybe I’m getting a little forgetful.img_1179Well the celebrations of this esteemed occasion began a year (2015) ago with a small party in Mysore as I reached the 60th year, then we celebrated with Manjula’s BIG trip to the UK in July (2016).

On the day itself, I was fortunate that two friends: Laura and Frances, who I met a couple of years ago at University came to visit on, New year’s Eve (2016). As you can see: No opportunity to celebrate has been or will be lost. It will continue in the next eleven months: camping and Ben’s weddingin July in the UK and a final recognition when my youngest Ol reaches 30 (in 2017) and we’re a pint and a half. Yes I don’t understand it either. and the dates in brackets? just so that the confusion doesn’t reign.

Factoid

But I have now realised that the older one’s gets is similar to when one begins to understand more of India. We realise how little we really know, and how much more there is to know that we first thought and then the ultimate relaisation, it doesn’t really matter!

a valuable member of our team

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I’m often struck by how much serious illness there is around. I know there is a LOT of it around and the older one gets there is even more ! But there is a lot here.

We have a great team at Mysore Bed and Breakfast, the cleaners, the drivers and we even have a very part time Gardener. Manjula keeps them all in order, which is not a simple task. We unfortunatelay lost Yogananda one of our local drivers, just recently.

Our Gardener, Narianappa, who has created a lovely garden not only on the roof terrace, but also on the first floor landing and has visually made the entrance and front of the building a great inviting welcome.

He always works in a non assuming sort of way, peddling everywhere on his trusty old sit-up-and-beg cycle gets on well with all his many clients in Mysore and has created luscious, lively gardens all around the area and further afield.

Here is Narianappa with his daughter and nephew working on the garden.

Well he’s been at home for some weeks now after an operation for cancer. They think his kidney is not now working and he may be jaundiced. His daughter who also cleans for us has passed on a message that we should look for another gardener. He goes back to the hospital today and the family are offering their own kidneys.

It doesn’t look good

Why India? 2

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Why move to India…

I fell in love with India, its culture, people and places from afar and planned to visit in the 1970’s when I took a year off from my university. (I made a bit of a habit of taking years off).

True or False

True

I was a bit of a wus and not an adventurous traveller. I’d got as far as Turkey and the message from those who’d travelled overland from India was that it was particularly dangerous at that time to go to India, via Pakistan as they had just hanged Bhutto. So my visit to India just didn’t seem destined to happen.

Would I even manage to get to India in the next decade?

Nope

I hooked up with Liz and Ben in my late 20’s (We’re in the 1980s now). Liz had already lived in India for a couple of years in the early 1970’s so with one kid already (Ben) and potentially another one to come (Ol), India, was most definitely not considered by Liz to be a suitable place to take a young family.  Her experience of India was as a hippy  and she wouldn’t reconnect with India for many more years.

So that means I wasn’t also going to get to India, not yet anyway.

Farrell Factoid

I have subsequently met many people who have found a love for India (not least the visitors to Mysore Bed and Breakfast). There are of course many different attractions and often its difficult to define what it is that they particularly like. For many people they are inexplicably drawn to India, it has a sort of magnetism from a great distance. Maybe it is the free flow of ideas crossing the ‘bridges’ west and east (especially Britain and India) that stimulate people’s interest, there has of course been many exported ideas (and zero) for hundreds of years. There’s been icons such as the Beatles, the travelling Yogis, the hippies themselves, Yoga, whatever, there is an incredible range of things that we’ve heard about that help feed our seemingly insatiable desires for India, India things and Indian-ness.

Michael Wood in his book (Big Recommendation) to accompany the BBC series ‘The Story of India’ writes of becoming ’emeshed with India’, ‘the great privilege to be welcomed into another culture and to spend time in it, especially one so rich and diverse and perenially illuminating’

Of course many cultures and countries could fulfil this but

…what is so special about India?

I’d have to wait, quite a bit longer to find out.

Why India? 1

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So why did you move to India when you were 53?

Its a question often asked by guests at Mysore Bed and Breakfast. Top Ten answers

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I loved the wild west and its stories from an early age. India seems to be just like the wild west.

True or False?

True, I did used to watch the westerns, with my Dad, on the TV from an early age and really got into it.

True, India in some ways is a bit anarchistic (to put it mildly) so can seem a bit of a free for all as in the old west, without the guns (mostly) but it is of course …..

FALSE, its not the reason I moved to India.

 

STOP PRESS

Here’s further evidence of a young interest in the Wild West and that it runs in the family

Well she can’t

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Wedding update….

On the very next day we get news that the father of the boy has called the girl to ask what her fathers job is and to how much money will be given by them as dowry.

It works out that the boy’s family is quite rich, the dad is a civil engineer and they have cars and maybe three houses.

So it’s off. There is a mismatch on wealth and occupation. Quite why this wasn’t sorted by the broker before they even met, who knows.

So mum is a bit sad, daughter says she doesn’t care, even if she doesn’t ever get married.

So the apple cart is upset. This must be a very stressful situation. The individuals involved must feel the rejection very personally and familially.

So whilst it might be illegal, dowry is still a BIG issue. I think it’s just one of the ways that suitability and comparability is clarified. It’s a short cut. Back in England in the upper classes, the man would approach a woman’s father to ask for her hand in marriage. Their suitability would also be determined maybe by their wealth, and income but above all by class. Is this really much different?

In life, in India, caste is incredibly significant. It not only reflects one’s position in life and how one will be treated by others, it will affect life chances and experiences. And as we’ve seen with this example, even caste alone is not good enough to determine someone’s suitability.

In my view it’s one of the most corrosive things in Indian life.

will she, wont she?

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a littler girl rehearsing for a FUTURE date!

 

 

The girl is a little tall and her forehead is a little big (maybe Manjula means she’s a little plain). She’s the daughter of a friend of Manjula and as she’s reached her mid twenties she’s looking for a husband. A broker, a family friend (gets commission from both sides for an intro and a second bigger payment should they subsequently get married) has found another possible husband.

 

She’s already seen eleven or twelve potential husbands.

Her mummy (getting a little desperate) says “go outside” meaning find someone you like get married and move out to his home. She worries that at 26 and having already seen so many prospective grooms she might get too old to be married!

An added pressure is, we’re just entering a month when it’s inauspicious to marry and even to hold the introductory meetings.

 

Yesterday’s meeting was convenienty held at party that was a continuing celebration of her cousin’s wedding. It was used as an opportunity for boy to meet girl (another potential match) and check each other out.

At the meeting, at the cousins house, were representatives of both families that’s ‘girl’ her family including mummy, auntie, cousins, and the ‘boy’ together with his mummy, daddy, auntie and Manjula snuck in.

They’ll all sit round having tea and biscuits, boy and girl just checking each other out visually but not speaking, parents from each side asking questions related to family and background primarily about the job, their parents jobs, how much they are paid etc…

The parents ask the ‘prospectives’ in turn if they are OK with the other and with their head bowed do the ‘head-rock-and-roll’ each, to confirm that they are happy  to progress to the next stage

They are both bank managers! big tick

Today, next day, the families will visit the priest (poojari) and check that they are a proper match taking into consideration their Gods (mustn’t be the same, this is maybe a safeguard to ensure they are not too closely related, just my half baked theory) birthdate and who knows what else. At some stage horoscopes are checked for compatability.

If they get the go ahead, from the priest today, they’ll meet up at the home (when it becomes auspicious again in Jan) and make plans for the wedding.

There are however a few more ordeals and potential pitfalls, for example the potential bride doesn’t cook, will this present a problem?

Now get your head around this one if you can…… at some stage the ‘girl’ will have to walk a few steps to enable the ‘boys’ family to check the arch on her foot. A woman’s foot is not supposed to show an arch i.e. be flat foot, for a man it either doesn’t matter or an arch is good. Just don’t ask me! I have no idea.

Just always remember, India is consistently inconsistent, so what’s apparently true in one context is not in another situation, family or caste, or whatever 🙂

Please note: the photos are from other weddings and engagement parties!