It’s Mysore’s biggest annual event when Chamundeshwari is carried through the city on an elephant.
There’s many happenings over the ten days.
Ayudha puja is one of them.
Naveen, Sowbhagya’s son is seen here doing puja for my car and bike.
Ayudha puja is when we ask the gods to bless our tools (in this case, our vehicles), originally our weapons!
..
Thank you Naveen
Fresh from watching the ceremony.
We’re at one of our fave eateries this evening — Depth and Green— for a great mix of food, drink and experience.
We both had a lovely green smoothie — delicious, with humous and toast for her and sandwich with egg and cheese and veg for me.
A young woman (I wasn’t organised enough to take photos) walked over to introduce herself.
She’d been watching us and was so impressed with how we related , wanting to know something about us and our magic.
We recalled our first meeting in the park opposite my house in Siddartha layout. Kaveri had been visiting her grandmother who was night-watch woman at a construction site next to the park.
That was five years ago. Wow. It’s hard to believe.
It’s disputed but I recall her saying helloooooo as I crossed the park. She reckons I said hello first. Whatever.
…
I explained, to the young woman, that my wife MAnjula had died seven years ago. She wanted me to help others from a similar background to her. So I appealed for any suggestions for young people I could support. None came forward, until the fateful day I met Kaveri.
She was impressed how we’d created such a positive bond.
We acknowledged how people might misunderstand our situation (old man and young girl hanging out together) but it made her happy to meet us and realised what a positive caring relationship we had.
My role (and that of the other director) in supporting Kaveri is on behalf of our business ‘Manjula’s Mysore’ which has an agreement with her mother and active involvement of her grandmother and auntie.
Footnote
When people get to know my background :
Qualified social worker from over forty years ago.
Manager of social (welfare) services in U.K. including teams of social workers, assessors and carers
Experience working with children and families, intervening to support and protect children, in some senses a ‘policing’ role on behalf of the state.
Risk assessment of families, ensuring they’re supported when experiencing difficulties and intervening to ensure the children are safe
Assessing prospective adoptive parents
Delivering workshops and providing consultancy on values and ethics, guiding businesses to socially responsible (CSR)
Working with Hindu, African-Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Sikh, white working class and disabled people’s communities
Plus I’m supported by a network of childcare professionals and we’re operating on behalf of our company subject to the agreement it has with Kaveri’s mother.
… they realise this is a professional set up with Kaveri’s development and safety as our utmost priority.
So there’s much more to our Manjula’s Mysore’s involvement over the past five years.
In India, nothing is quite as it seems.
Our successful support of Kaveri involves money, skills and help-in-kind from our business and contributions from past guests from around the world. .
Manjula’s Mysore’s Corporate (CSR) Responsibility has now included: creativity days in schools and for forty visually disabled young women, gifting bicycles, teaching/presentations, memorial garden, cycle tours,, accommodation, ‘reflective space’ for young adults, our care for our community.
Our pizza supper.
Hebden Bridge is where Liz, Ben and I moved to from London in 1986
It’s a wonderful small mill town in West Yorkshire in the Pennine hills, famous for its cotton cloth (and hippies).
Shared love and shining memories of Manjula, Lucie and Ina, whose love remains with us.
Thank you to Sowbhagya and Satish, for remembering and honouring our precious family.
While I’m not at home.
Footnote from the Internet.
Pitru Paksha is a 15-to-16-day Hindu observance dedicated to honouring departed ancestors through sacred rituals, prayers, and food offerings.
Ganesh the remover of obstacles is an important part of our life in Mysore.
Each year at Ganesh Chaturthi we bring Ganesh into our home for Puja and after a few days take him to the Kaveri river by Srirangapatnam
Thank you to Satish and Naveen for accompanying Ganesh to the river today, as we have every year after setting up home in Mysore
Ganesh is also known to create opportunities which on the surface seem to be obstacles for us to meet, learn, develop and grow.
I’m learning…
We hope he’ll help me return to my home in January.
Thank you Sowbhagya for organising.
…
Internet info
paschimavahini
Is where we take him. It’s also featured on our cycle tour.
Paschimavahini is a sacred site near Srirangapatna in Karnataka, India, where the Cauvery River briefly flows westward.
I immersed Manjula’s ashes here.
Significance and Sacred Rituals
Geography: A westward-flowing stretch of a major river is considered rare and highly auspicious in Hindu tradition.
Ancestral Rites: It is a major pilgrimage destination where families gather to perform final rites and immerse the ashes (shraddha) of deceased loved ones into the holy waters.
Mythology: Puranas mention the site as holy, noting that taking a ritual dip here helps wash away sins and grants spiritual liberation (moksha).
I’ve cycled for sixty years and encouraged my sons to be considerate cyclists to other road users and especially pedestrians.
At times I’ve joked that the first task to learn (for all forms of transport) is how to stop.
I worry that the many inexperienced cyclists who rent electric cycles haven’t discovered that basic skill.
I’m familiar with people (in India) no knowing or following the basic rules. Here in the UK, because it’s such a contrast to what came before —- its a shock.
Mayhem on the roads and it’s incredibly dangerous.
Were the politicians and police asleep or comatose when they failed to anticipate this chaos.
The majority … of the Inexperienced cyclists on rented electric cycles ignore the signals, travel on payments, weave in and your, come close to mowing down people who are on a crossing
I’ve no idea of the accident rates but I’m scared
It’s a real danger and all at relatively high speed.
They generally don’t wear helmets, aren’t focussed and sometimes on phones.
Then they block pavements when discarding the cycles.
It’s got out-of-hand.
On this trip I’ve visited places I used to live.
Now I’m also visiting family, here my sister Claire and brother Jason, who live between Sheffield and Rotherham in South Yorkshire
They live next door to each other! Really?
She’s got out the family photos.
Oh no!
It’s also been an opportunity to revisit my Sunday School Chapel, second home and school in Sheffield.
Reflections
I first tasted honey at Sunday School and was taken aback. It was amazing. Why had I never had this before? I was maybe age eight and it was probably too exotic and costly for my family.
Compare and contrast.
It’s useful to return to my home city and country. I’m initially shocked by the price differences with India.
I expect the U.K. to be a little better organised but it disappoints.
More later ..
Happy and sad.
I have lovely memories — of visiting Bath with Manjula eight and nine years ago.
Imagine a two thousand year old Roman Baths
Well there is one here.
Sorry but I didn’t pay to go in this time, it’s expensive.
So I can’t show the actual bath.
Lots of tourists from U.K., USA, Europe, Japan, India, have paid.
A visited with Manjula and now those times together trigger a waterfall of memories, sometimes felt in tears.
Factoid
It’s so expensive here in England in London’s famous Covent garden it costs £1.50 (150 Rupees) to go to toilet (washroom).
Bath is a beautiful city and very middle class.
Grief is always with us. It diminishes (relatively)by other parts of life surrounding it.
Memories remind us and we’re both happy and sad.
That loss sends our life Ourselves and our worlds in different directions.
It’s hard at times.
Watching people run…
and cycle
play football —- in a cage. 🤭
Climb trees
Pedal their ‘cars’ (semi -incumbents)
Walk their dogs
What a fun day, but there’s one or two problems.
BB— ball bearings help solve a complex worldwide problem — friction but it’s another BB namely Bad Behaviour, that helps create friction between the people.
An example of this is not following the rules.
I’m not talking of these rules
But these…
…. the people who rent electric cycles, often break the rules.
Cyclists are typically considerate of others — pedestrians and cyclists, obey the rules of the road, including stopping at red lights but in the last few years there’s been a big change.
The inexperienced cyclists who rent electric cycles are often reckless and unsafe —- ignoring the traffic lights and the general rules of the road, riding fast, weaving in and out at high speed,
It can be very risky …
But for now
Peacefully
There’s even a zoo and FREE toilets.
I was visiting Battersea Park and stumbled across a festival …
more later
Tearfully
