our Hindu house has a Pooja room, set up by MAnjula it’s still used for certain festivals. Other households would use it everyday. Our next festival is likely to be for the big rotund guy, my favourite: Ganesh.
No two houses are the same which might be due to the specific Gods, they worship, their caste or maybe just because India is incredibly consistently inconsistent.
In memory of MAnjula as with many households a photo, is placed in the hall (lounge/living room) when people die. For the first year we’d place flowers around her every month, with a special Pooja on her annual death anniversary. This all part of a series of rituals to help her soul spirit find another body and be reincarnated into her next life.
Tanuja at Manjula’s second death anniversary.
In our house there’s a main photo of MAnjula in each of our two lounges. Fact is there are photos of her everywhere. My son thinks The whole house is becoming a shrine.
Sowbaghya who did all the preparation, cooking, decoration for each of Manjula’s death anniversaries.
Now after two years I’ve decorated her like a Christmas tree with lights all around her.
Sometimes she’ll get a little extra treatment with red or yellow dots and we’ll do a little Pooja. It’s essentially a prayer with a request to god.
We’re flexi here.
Her pic is also found on the tree out the front of our house, T-shirt’s and masks her no 1 place is in my heart.
For me it’s especially important to acknowledge our being together and celebrate Manjula as many didn’t know about our relationship.
The virus situation goes from bad to — we’ve got rid of it, to —- disaster.
Leaving things until the eleventh hour, no … it’s more like one moment before midnight is not a sensible policy but it’s standard practice. No lessons learned from the first wave, infrastructure collapsing, shortage of beds, no oxygen in many hospitals, exhausted staff, people confused.
Indian politicians fail their communities. They have other, presumably more important things to worry about.
Now we have a lockdown in all but name and it’s piling confusion onto inconsistency onto chaos.
Is the instruction to close most businesses for all of everyday in which case it would be a lockdown or just when there’s a curfew?
The govt diktat is totally confusing. If it’s just overnight and weekends. What’s the point it’ll have minimal effect on the virus. If it’s everyday it’s a lock down a term they don’t politically wish to use.
The police statement adds to the confusion with the statement “it will be normal from tomorrow” so there will or will not be a lockdown/curfew from tomorrow. Of course it probably means that closure of businesses will seem like normal tomorrow.
Clear as mud.
It’s the day before the non-lockdown, I’m just back from cycling, with nobody wearing masks in the villages, most wearing them back in Siddarthanagar. I passed a wedding. In a field presumably outdoors (but in tents) in response to the situation but the limit to the gathering is supposed to be 50! There’s almost that number already preparing for the event and the guests are yet to arrive.
Recently Sowbhaghya asked why a shop keeper wasn’t wearing a mask as he should be, he declared there was no coronavirus here.
The combination of poor confusing communication from authority, default to deference and the anything goes attitude of the Wild West, is part of why we’re here.
Here’s useful guardian articles summarising how we might have got into this stupid situation.
I thought I’d share this after revealing to a new friend Anjali
We have a cup caste regime
From the left steel glass ( I know it’s not glass, just ask an Indian) can be used anywhere and everywhere. Middle, one of our favourite cups with emotional attachment so can only be used in upstairs hall (lounge for you foreigners) and number three can be used anywhere in the house or downstairs sit out as we care less. The most precious, heaps of history and irreplaceable so use is severely restricted.
The point is they can be used by anyone: guests, staff, family some are higher value so should be looked after more than others.
Why do I tell you this?
I joked about the caste of cups because believe it or not in some houses in India the servants aka lower caste are only allowed to drink or eat from separate cups/glasses/plates and utensils. This presumably originates from a belief that they might defile the superior caste.
I tell you this, as you know I love and I’ve adopted India and one wonderful woman in particular. We created a shared home that didn’t reflect those primitive traditional let’s say mediaeval practices.
She experienced unkindness throughout her life, yet always and especially in the last nine years was the most kind.
MAnjula continues to give
Kulfi for the cleaners. They used to work on our street, knew us and would stop for water, chai and chat (that’s talking not snacks).
Our fine house was a place of support and conversation for women and not just our guests. Manjula’s networks. We’ve continued to support our drivers and they’ve joined the Manjula Mask Movement.
Vasanth and Satish modelling our mycycle masks but the big favourite is …the one where Manjula seems to be sniggering and who years before the pandemic was telling us to mask-up, modelled by Rakesh aka Peter PanAnd masks have been donated for the vaccinators for when they finish work. Many cycles have been gifted here for Sowbhaghya’s son Naveen.
We went to the vets again today as Lucie was sick a few times last week.
She loves her trips out in auto and ambassador.
She has problems with her liver and kidneys maybe due to Tick Fever she caught a year ago.
It’s a chronic condition, just medication to help her organs function but not cure.
It’s very serious.
We stocked up on specialist renal diet from Austria (!) and now two drugs, probiotics and two vitamins. It’s not cheap but who cares? I’ve been here before.
It’s been a difficult few years.
The ox fell off and lost his horns. But let’s no loose sight of the positive. The Bul Bul returns. This is the fourth time a Bul Bul has nested here. First on the roof, next on the middle level, then in the drive and now in our back yard. This made MAnjula so happy.
We’re bursting at the seams. Wherever you turn there’s evidence.
We now have plants in the drive out the front, inside and outside the gate, down both sides of the house, in the back yard and on the mid level roof. There’s hundreds of them. We plan to create a small garden in the park this year so that will use half the plants. Let’s hope the mosquitoes will go with them.
Most Indian houses have little if any art. It’s an unnecessary (not) expense and very middle class. As I arrived with the latest offering MAnjula would complain that there was too much art and not room for anymore. Wrong!
Our latest addition
An appliqué banner, created by the multi-talented Jacqui using Manjula’s clothing has just arrived from England and is now by our main door.
An earlier addition was this beautiful portrait.
There’s always room for art.
Next Manjula would joke about there being too many books, and how we should open a library.
So here it is…. Manjula’s library… available for local friends and our guests. (Yes they’re also friends.)
and that’s carefully avoiding mentioning anyone who’s bursting at the seams.
My good friend Brian, who has a cameo appearance in my short story ‘looking for a home’ also sent a kind thoughtful poem on Manjula’s second death anniversary.
Me and MYCycle 