… about my purpose.
It was pretty clear this weekend.
I’ve adopted an extra grand daughter and this was our first weekend together since my return from holiday
Thank you Kaveri.
You are IT
If there ever was any doubt…
Category: Manjula Gives
Today, bowling.
Why?
Do I want to stay in India?
I visited the office of our local MP today who also happens to be …
His Highness Shri Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, Maharaja of Mysore
I met one of his team to ask for help to continue to live in India. He seemed a little flummoxed.
Why did I want to live here?
Why did he ask?
Maybe he expected me to live with my blood family. That is the tradition among some families in India, it’s not mine.
Mainly it’s because Mysore is my home
I fell in love with the people of India and its places initially from a distance in the 70s and full on when I arrived twenty years ago.
Here is the family I have chosen. I’m close to my blood family but I choose this family where I have made my home built on trust, to live. If I can.
There’s too many family members to list but I mention some …
My beautiful wife MAnjula who remains in our hearts with her presence that’s felt in our home, in the memorial garden we created and the good we do.
I got back home to the two who are most dominant in my life Kaveri and Sowbaghya.
And show the others
They also include
— our team and the young people I’ve got to know through Manjula’s Mysore events. Here’s one. for forty young women and our reflective space
— our wonderful network in Mysore
— Plus our online community with many around the world and here in India
BUT why do I need help?
As a foreigner married to an Indian I was eligible (it’s mandatory) for Overseas Citizen of India which gives residency. As she’s died whether I get one or not is discretionary. In Bangalore at the Foreigners Regional Registration Office and in London at the High Commission they wouldn’t accept my application for OCI. As I understand it they can accept if we owned our house (we and I still rent) or had children, which we didn’t. Beyond this the powers of discretion are held at the centre in Delhi to which I don’t have access.
Which is why I asking for the MPs help.
— He might have contacts in central government that could help me through their discretionary powers
— I’ve lived here for fifteen years on business visas which I’ll not be able to get another after this year.
— he will recognise the value I’ve brought to our community through bringing businesses here on the Prince’s Seeing is Believing Events, helping young people and developing tourism in Mysore.
I hope the MP can help.
A helping hand
I led an unusual cycle tour today on Srirangapatnam.
Four teenagers, ok one isn’t yet but no one would know. Were invited to join me for a cycle tour ostensibly to better understand how to be a guide.
My objective which alines with my latest thinking on how we might better prepare young people to be more rounded and better active citizens as they mature.
I’d hoped that the day’s adventure would help improve their confidence, communication and assertiveness.
Big ask but a tiny step.
Coincidentally Kaveri asked me why a horse had blinkers. I lost no opportunity to use the analogy in how it’s important for them to get a wider view.
I delivered the standard tour with more emphasis on how they should manage it, rather than the content.
SB the ever present aid and family member was her usual great support.
After the tour we visited the recently opened car museum
The museum included a similar Mercedes to one I owned in the 90s, my wonderful inactive Ambassador and a candlestick telephone like one at home.
…
I’ve invited them to continue with this journey, if they wish, so that within a year ( much less!) they should be able to lead a tour.
Who knows where it might lead —- greater personal competencies at least.
If it happens— I’m open to them leading tours and maybe taking over and expanding. I have absolutely no expectations.
They’re all very different characters but of course, all have potential.
I was happy with the day.
Who adopted who?
… or who’s the boss? Well nobody really.
I refer to how kaveri (age 11) who in a little over three years has matured mentally, physically and socially. It is, of course, a very significant stage in life.
As you can see she now almost as tall as her mum (age 29?).
I’m proud of her and the little help I’ve been able to be.
On reflection, she’s always been quite ‘together’ for her age.
She’s just about to start her third school since I’ve known her. I’ve promised that Manjula’s Mysore will continue to support her education up to university and maybe beyond.
…
Kaveri, Lucie and I
I’m — as Kaveri puts it — one of her nine mums.
Love
Marginalian
Comes up trumps again with great literary, political and philosophical connections.
I like her quote from Simone de Beauvoir
What then is love? Not much, not much; I come back to this idea. Sensitivity, imagination, fatigue, and this effort to depend on another; the taste for the mystery of the other and the need to admire… What is worthwhile, is friendship… this profound mutual confidence between [two people], and this joy of knowing that the other exists.
“The ancient Greeks, in their pioneering effort to order the chaos of the cosmos, neatly taxonomized them into filial love (the kind we feel for siblings, children, parents, and friends), eros (the love of lovers), and agape(the deepest, purest, most impersonal and spiritual love).”
I decided that we would continue Manjula’s sunshine goodness, sharing her love, through events and activities for young people.
The most obvious example is our continuing support for Kaveri.
Girls are back in town
Radhika was 17 this week so with Kaveri back for a skating race we made Sunday into an extra celebration.
Happy Birthday
Radhika B Radical
Kaveri grows fast.
Manjula’s Library
It started out as a joke.
Manjula complained about me filling the house with art and books —- and we were running out of space.
She decided that when I was seventy-five (that’s right, i’m —not yet) and stopped leading MYcycle tours (big assumption there) we’d open the house as a library.
In her memory I closed one of the bedrooms to reopen it as ‘Manjula’s Library’
There’s now hundreds of fiction and non-fiction books in English, including those about education, India, history, philosophy, for adults and children.
It’s an idiosyncratic mix already used by our guests, the members of ‘reflective space’ and the time I spend with young people.
My own favourites are the picture books.
It changes by the day ….
… check out the new arrivals.
Yes, it’s not JUST books, we now have a selection of cool badges.
Creativity Days
Were organised by Manjula’s Mysore at Kaliyuvamane, the ‘open’ school that Kaveri attends in Mysore and separately for an NGO working with visually impaired young women.
Why?
… because it’s an ‘alternative’ approach we think reflects our way of thinking and that of the school.
Betty Edward’s writer of ‘Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain’ puts it well…
“throughout many cultures … there is much talk of creativity and our need for innovation and invention. “ …. Yet …
“our education system seems bent on eliminating every last bit of creative perceptual training of the right side of the brain, while overemphasising the skills best accomplished by the left side of the brain: memorising dates, data, theorems, and events with the goal of passing standardised tests.”
Edwards believes that “with careful teaching transfer, drawing and reading together can educate both halves of the brain.”
Indeed the management guru Tom Peters declared innovation as the no 1 competency for successful, thriving organisations. That was also reflected in the work of John W Gardner author of ‘excellence’ and ‘self-renewal: the individual and the innovative society’
As I look into this more, I realise that creativity helps us develop and use the right side of the brain to enhance our perception and to bring meaning into our increasingly complex worlds.
It’s therefore no accident that we’ve promoted “two vital global skills: reading and drawing.”
I hope MAnjula was happy and proud that in her memory we’ve tried to better equip young people for the challenges they’ll face, bringer greater equilibrium and help them find their passion.
How amazingly
fortunate am I?
A beautiful wife — of many wonders — one of my many gifts from India.
Now in addition to my MAnjula
memories living
in my heart there’s a little thing
Helping fill my life and manage my grief …
Putting it in its place. …
Thank you
MAnjula and Kaveri.
Me and MYCycle 