for working together to create this beautiful image.
‘Beloved’ A portrait of Manjula
Stephen’s love for Manjula . Weaves a bridge, between our worlds. A bridge made of heart strings, a bridge of exploration to the multi dimensional. Manjula’s love for Stephen. Pierces through the veil, as a warm ray on a chilly day.
by Aadirika Kawa
I love my new Manjula. It’s been well worth the wait I understand how much skill and creativity it has taken. I realise there’s so many dimensions to this living and breathing painting, I can see different aspects depending upon where I stand, the lighting and how its photographed. This has taken so much love and dedication to create.
Manjula would laugh and tease me, claiming we already had too many paintings. I can’t get enough of her.
Thank you for my wonderful Christmas present and presence.
Manjula’s assistants: Lucie (the furry one) Satish (the director one) and Stephen (the hairy one) giving yet another cycle. Sowbhagya (who holds up Moksha Manor) and her son Naveen. A happy boy with his new bicycle.
I wish I’d discovered this earlier, when Manjula was with me in person.
I realise with Manjula and others I love, that there are often times when I’m — ‘not quite there.’ I have a tendency to distance, to go numb when stressed, withdraw and move to the edge.
On reflection, I think this might be one of my most significant failings. OK OK, queue here to add to the list….. (of significant failings) 😉
Presence Stephen, be there …
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Maria Popova’s Brain pickings which arrived in my mail box today, relates to this, and has introduced me to Thich Nhat Hanh.
I love this quote and there is more here, if you’re interested….
Some of my friends have been kind enough to share that when I lost Manjula they felt for me and hugged their own loved one closer and tighter.
It’s great that friends gain insights from our loss, which heightens their appreciation of their loved ones now.
….
I”m not sure we can maximise every single day and live it as if its your last (how exhausting) but Thich Nhat Hanh points out that we should strive to be there, to be present and connected to our loved one(s).
I realise, I did what I could in the circumstances but it’s always possible to do more and better.
The intensity of loss highlights how important your love always is and will be, it shows how invaluable is the support you can give each other especially in challenging times.
Manjula continues to give and she was always there and present, remarkably so, more than anyone I’ve known. More in our story, you’ll just have to wait.
I realise now that then you’re shocked by untimely death your love doesn’t perish, it grows in intensity and in a way, absence doesn’t diminish presence.
Her presence is of course beyond all the pics I’ve got around me of Manjula at home or that I occasionally ride through the city 😉 .
Sowbhagya came in one of Manjula’s old dresses. Not the best idea. Lucie followed her into the kitchen thinking it was Manjula, SB hugged Lucie and burst into tears.
I walked Lucie for my own tearful.
Unforeseen and coincidentally photo of MAnjula in the dress recently popped up on Facebook.
Lucie clearly affected. Still missing her in so many ways.
mask mask mask mask no shortage of them at Mysore Bed and Breakfast
As part of remembering Manjula: Vasanth and Satish distributes mycycle masks and small monetary gift to each of our team of drivers. Our big thanks to Ina seen here on the right at Manjula’s birthday party. Ina sent money to help drivers. BabuWe love logo as it’s part of celebrating Manjula. AnjumLokeshNon branded supplies from Vasanth. ShafiAkram
First…. A little faffing, as we prepare to remember her preciousness. Sowbaghya has prepared a full on meal for Manjula. Some of her old and new clothing is laid out, in case she needs it, I forgot to ask what the money is for. The chain around her neck and gold ‘coins’ form the Mangal Sutra which she wears to show she’s marriedThere’s always flowers and now my and Punith’s drawing of Manjula is also found everywhere. We forgot the lamps, Manjula wouldn’t be at all surprised. Too many men involved and that useless Yindian. Thankfully SB quickly rescued the situation. Sensible woman with fire. Insensible Yindian playing with fire 1Playing with fire 2 It’s the time of year when we especially connect to those like Manjula who slipped through our fingers. we do Pooja at home and some at the Kaveri riverside where I immersed Manjula’s ashes. We stepped outside while Manjula came to get her fill. Then washed our hands and knocked on the door to warn her we were coming back inside. Only then were we allowed to eat.
This annual Hindu event known in Mexico as the ‘day of the dead’ but of course, quite different, is known as Mahalaya Amavasya. We remember our loved ones and provide help and support for their journey to the next place. In our case to Manjula’s reincarnation.
Thank you to Sowbaghya, Satish and Vasanth for your loving kindness to Manjula. You made it very special.
Manjula and her good friend Ina have shared gifts of money and mycycle masks with each of our eight drivers who are finding it hard with very little business in these virus times.
Manjula wished to be reincarnated as a tree. She wanted to provide cover and and support to people. To me it reflected her strength and gentleness.
The Pongamia tree that Manjula wanted to be, as is the one outside our house.
I was reminded of this after reading a recent brain picking, with reference to a letter from D H Lawrence reflecting his love for trees.
“To walk among trees is to be reminded that although relationships weave the fabric of life, one can only be in relationship — in a forest or a family or a friendship — when firmly planted in the sovereignty of one’s own being, when resolutely reaching for one’s own light.”
That’s so my Manjula. It’s a lesson she leaves me with. As she now waits for me to lift myself from my bed of lethargy and act.
“A century ago, Hermann Hesse contemplated how trees model for us this foundation of integrity in his staggeringly beautiful love letter to trees — how they stand lonesome-looking even in a forest, yet “not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche.” Celebrating them as “the most penetrating preachers,” he reverenced the silent fortitude with which “they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves.”
again I’m so reminded of MAnjula, her own strength, independence and gentle kindness.
A Manjula plaque fixed to our tree on her birthday.
“A supreme challenge of human life is reconciling the longing to fulfill ourselves in union, in partnership, in love, with the urgency of fulfilling ourselves according to our own solitary and sovereign laws. Writing at the same time as Hesse, living in exile in the mountains, having barely survived an attack of the deadly Spanish Flu that claimed tens of millions of lives, the polymathic creative force D.H. Lawrence (September 11, 1885–March 2, 1930) took up the question of this divergent longing with great subtlety and splendor of insight in his autobiographically tinted novel Aaron’s Rod (free ebook | public library), rooting the plot’s climactic relationship resolution in a stunning passage about trees.”
The fact is I’m able to find references to Manjula anywhere and everywhere. “A single act of kindness throws out roots in all directions, and the roots spring up and make new trees.”
Me and MYCycle 