Over the last year we’ve occasionally had small gatherings at our house for young people.
It’s included people from their late teens to early adult but it’s open and not specific, conversations are in English and all it requires is an open mind accepting of others and their opinions.
It’s flexible.
It’s resulted in stimulating insightful conversations
We meet again this month to decide how to take it forward.
If you’re in Mysore and interested write to me at
Sfindia@gmail.com
Stephen
Kaveri’s tooth has been bothering her all week while on holiday in Kannur.
The new is pushing out the old.
Now it’s out
It seems that in Italy (Ilaria is with us) and England (I’m the official representative) children are encouraged to place the tooth under their pillow.
A mouse (really?) or fairy will replace it with a coin, or so we think. if that happens, will there be an Italian or British coin? Mmm
We’ll see, maybe.
Here in India, we’re told, the tooth gets wrapped in cow shit and thrown over the roof. Who knows what happens after that.
Someone might be pulling our leg.
The very next day
A coin appeared under Kaveri’s pillow.
I just had to post again. Earlier I reflected my concern about the lack of care and compassion (see last posting) when I stumbled across this photo and dickens quote
Here’s someone’s extreme lack of care and compassion preferring that we don’t support people in poverty, who are clearly undeserving feckless oiks.
Un-bloody-believable.
Except this attitude is all too familiar, but I expect that these people (I’ve made it anonymous as we don’t want to create an internet teacup storm) aren’t demonstrating the slightest bit of self awareness by posting such crap on an insignificant page of old London photographs.
Maybe they haven’t got the slightest idea that our system is slanted in favour of the rich and powerful and blaming the powerless feeds into a narrative that maintains this unsavoury order.
Obviously I am naive about how people just accept the demonisation of poor people. I feel a Brexit moan coming on. Get real old people.
I write this having just returned (I live in India, remember?) from a one room dwelling that would have been no better and probably far worse than where those in the photograph lived.
The people are not to blame for the cycle of deprivation or their lot in life.
In my distorted view. It’s our duty in life to work out how best we can be kind and that includes showing care and compassion with a more equitable share of the resources we have at our disposal.
Assuming the immigration bureaucrats (long story) let me remain in my adopted country, we’ll continue to help where we can, through Manjula’s Mysore.
I apologise for ever complaining about Indian bureaucracy
In any case I usually blame the British Raj and maybe the current British Administration might value a lesson.
Sarcasm warning
I travelled to Bangalore last month, a five hour round trip, to submit my passport for renewal.
Yesterday I received an email from the passport office in Liverpool England, with a formal letter attached.
My photos have been rejected for a range of possible reasons. They haven’t indicated which one: it could be only one photo sent, head too small (in real life, opposite being the problem) or any number of other options. They’ve kept that secret.
Clearly my approach of carrying a selection of photos to Bangalore and asking their staff member which ones were suitable and they selecting them ( yes there were two) , didn’t do the trick.
I have twenty days to send to England otherwise my request might be rejected.
I have a new photo taken and place them in envelope ready to send. I avoid writing a sarcastic note about having asked their representative for guidance. I just plead to get it back asap so I can travel again.
At the central post office.
Take a ticket for your place in the queue. We all take one but then ignore the system.
Speed post Sir?
Yes please, how quick will it be?
Twenty days
I’ll send positive affirmation vibes against any delays and rejection of my application.
Please complete the declaration form and sign
Here it is
Three copies
There’s a xerox machine. Gets jammed but quickly sorted.
Copied and signed
ID please with address.
I have my Adhaar card.
Two copies please
Back to the xerox
…
I Zap the equivalent of £19 via QR Code (bet you can’t do that in Britland) It’s done.
Yes I can hear you saying. Why doesn’t he send the photographs digitally?
Because you can only do that if you’ve completed an online form and you can’t do it online when requesting a renewal from outside the U.K.
Just don’t ask, I’m now relaxing
Testing
Next we’ll consult the consumer and the disposal inexpert
Did I mention we’ve got kats?
Our democratic kits. After a few tussles, with the support of Obama, the election result wasn’t too bad, and they now settle into the off White House.
Originally written in March 2021 but lost in the ether
I’m officially confirmed as a writer and here’s the evidence.
I have a blank page and pen. I also have a passion, here it is, at the top of the blank page.
I’ve submitted for a competition and got absolutely nowhere, so that’s the ‘rejection’ box ticked.
I‘ve got the writer’s block down to a fine art.. To be fair I think it’s proximity to the ‘wound’ or the trauma that makes it extra difficult. This month creates extra challenges as there’s a pile-up of anniversaries, our weddings and Manjula’s death, but that’s an expected part of this particular journey.
I’m reading lots of fiction, including children’s, non fiction and insights into how to write. How much is being held by this decaying brain is another matter.
I’m inadvertently following famous writers such as Paul Auster and now my writer of the moment, who I’ve only just discovered wrote ‘Stardust’ my favourite film Neil Gaiman
I must admit to liking young people’s story books. I like the pace, find them interesting and I more easily remember what I’ve read.
As the ‘passion’ would say “let’s see.”
First update
It feels like it’s been weeks since I added to our story so I plan to have a different approach, set up my writing place, establish a routine and treat it as a ‘job.’
Second update
It’s written but as I’m a writer I’ll follow a norm and declare it just ain’t good enough
Third update
It’s going to be completely revised and restructured. I’ll break the memoir rules but I just don’t care.
Fourth update 2022 and I’m yet to start. I’ve slipped into a ‘can’t quite get my act-together phase’ I told you I was a writer.
In between the enormous gaps.
This morning
My brain was missing again
I let Lucie out the front door
There was the bag of kittens on legs waiting for me
Poor billet-doux was in shock. Ran away but was stuck
Trying to get through the gate to escape the black monster.
The bag of kittens squeezed through. I only hope there’s no long term damage.
She’s due within days.
E P Thompson (English social historian) reckoned you could find examples of any thoughts, philosophies, beliefs, ways of organising that exists, here in India. It’s like it represents an open book on the world I agree and so much more is true.
Where do you think monty pythons ground breaking comedy came from? I’m forever re-visiting their skits…. nudge-nudge, wink-wink, (meeting with the FRRO), bicycle repair man by the roadside, haggling and ‘look on the bright side’ in ‘Life of Brian’ there is so much that
Manana, think it’s from Spain, south or Central America, then think again.
Catch 22, novel about Vietnam, or maybe the vagaries of Kafkaesque bureaucracy. It’s all here.
They all resonate with, yes you’ve guessed it. The consistently inconsistent mish mash, the wonderful yet infuriating India.
After meeting up with our mysore BnB family at WOMAD and knocking on a few of their doors I went camping.
I shouldn’t have been.
It proved to be a tonic.
over to bee-man Stephen to drop our beautiful tent, return the fancy hire car and prepare to return home
In my experience, when grieving, we regularly get ambushed by memories of magical times together. They make me both happy and sad. I’ve learned not to run away but to face them, even create them, so it was ok to retrace my steps.
Thank you for joining my journey and your support.
Me and MYCycle 