Category: our story

Give a little

SF2 Comments

So what’s next?

Manjula was always keen to give through sharing our home and leaving a little bit of herself when connecting with people. When we got engaged we gave presents such as cycles to the children of drivers in our team.

As part of commemorating Manjula we have sponsored a meal at an Ashram or old people’s home for people who have no other choice and otherwise might be destitute. A neat way for the organisation to raise funds and for us to remember Manjula and her generosity.

It’s something she had specifically mentioned.

So we’ve been to the ashram and arranged to sponsor a meal after the eleventh day, Tom and Amy have also provided lunch on the 23rd (exactly a month after she died) and on the 20th April all the meals will be in her name.

Today was the first of those days. As the residents arrived for lunch the manager explained it was in Manjula’s name and we passed around the photobook of our wedding.

Then the core team went for our own lunch and I shed a tear for my Manjula

Satish ‘the reliable’ aka project manager sorted it out.

The eleventh day

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Fresh from the Pooja

We travelled to the 11th day pooja. Held by Manjula’s brother in the village maybe four hours drive away

I’ve already relayed some of the sensitivities when we met to plan this Pooja. Here. They’ve shifted the day so our closest Indian friends Tanuja, Satish and Vasanth aren’t able to come, bugger. To support me I do however have Tom and Amy, and two other friends Steven (thanks for the photos) from Australia and Imran, who was going to prove to be a godsend, as he’s the only one to really understand and be able to interpret!

The Pooja or ritualistic prayer is mostly a request. The 11th day Pooja is part of the process of helping Manjula’s spirit be released from her body and the here and now. This helps her break away and start her new life in a new form or maybe hang around a bit!

As we arrive the cooking of curries (plenty of meat) and rolling of the Ragi balls is being completed.

We’re ready to rebuff any attempt to try hang on to her jewellery. Within minutes they’re asking for it to be left here until the morning. As agreed I’ll be taking it with me immediately after the Pooja.

Raju, Manjula’s brother is having his head shaved. I’d floated the idea of me being shaved but this was dismissed out of hand by my Hindu advisors Tanu, Satish and Vasanth.

Together with anyone else wishing to express an opinion, there was a clear consensus. It would be toooo complicated. A sort of Indian open house has spoken. (Everyone has an opinion about everything, of course)

Manjula’s photo was the centrepiece she was garlanded and then surrounded by offerings. Of things she liked, maybe.

I placed my garland, her Mangal

Sutra and ankle chains on her photo.

We took it in turns to do twirls with the incense and fire.

It’s obviously an important ritual for a Hindu. It’s also an essential part of bringing communities together.

As one of our party said. There were two people there with tearful red eyes. Manjulas cousin also called Manjula who you can see in a couple of photos here and her brother, Raju. Otherwise it seemed like Manjula was just a quiet voice almost incidental to the whole thing.

On reflection

We now have a clear view of what would have been Manjula’s life if we hadn’t met and fell in love.

She was brought up in the Bamboo bazar slum in Mysore so not a village but most definitely this level of poverty

But it’s not the living conditions or the poverty that seems the greatest challenge but the harshness of some of the people. the sister-in-laws branch of the family are astonishingly direct and focussed on money, Manjula doesn’t really seem to figure

It was time to go

Relatives were asking for Imran’s cell no in case they needed help ie money and so they could make a call if anyone was in hospital or otherwise needed help.

We’ve done our bit and it’s time to go and now realise how hard it was for Manjula and how she’d escaped this life and blossomed in her new one from nine years ago.

Peachy

SF2 Comments

Manjula fell in love with peaches during our two extended holidays in the U.K.

She couldn’t get enough them but unfortunately they are unavailable in Mysore. So the Super Troopers Tom and Amy brought some from the UK. Her face lit up and she wolfed them down. That is, except the tinned peaches!

So what to do with them?

Well we walked up Chamundi Hill. Chamundeshwari who lives on the hill being Manjula’s No 1 God.

Carefully opened the Sainsbury’s can …..

And celebrated Manjula in the setting sun.

My life, my key, my saviour

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Absolutely nothing ever goes to plan or as expected.

The 11th day, of Pooja for Manjula is now the day after the one originally planned, so unfortunately non of our Indian friends are able to come. The appropriate date is calculated by some mystic, the stars or pure whim, who knows? The event organised by Manjulas brother and family will be in a village with no one that we really know. It doesn’t really matter. But…. Non of us will speak Kannada or have any idea whats going on. Then there’s the whole issue of me bringing her mangal sutra and ankle chains and getting them back to take home. So there’s a few things to understand and manage.

That’s today’s first challenge.

Then there was….

the Merry-go-round of trying to collect Manjula’s body from the hospital,

..or the case of the missing engagement ring and wedding sari.

It’s one thing after another.

It’s becoming more and more apparent that Manjula has been my golden key to help open the lock of India she’s enabled me to relatively easily surf the uncertain waters, the buffering of the white water. That’s now gone.

India well and truly takes you out of your comfort zone and then pushes you out a bit further and a bit further and further still into unchartered waters.

She was also my life life saver in so many ways.

But of course, she’s still with me.

Manjula’s Memorial

SF8 Comments

A wonderful photo of beautiful Manjula, the daily local pungent jasmine flowers, roses, her constant companion favourite WOMAD water bottle, Buddha, painting of Luci, wedding present wood inlay of Manjula the personification of Mysore Bed and Breakfast, one oft favourite photos of the wedding.

Celebrating Manjula

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Thank you for your condolences and the lovely memories of Manjula that I’ve received from around the world. It’s been a great support and shows how many connections Manjula made. We now know that many of you have very fond and we’re not surprised of the sometimes funny stories about Manjula. It’s given us a great idea, to create a scrapbook of reminiscences and images, they might be anecdotes, insights into her character, simple little stories, a particular photo you love or may be you can draw a picture, write a poem or create some art work.

Whatever you think represents Manjula for you.

Send yours preferably by Friday of this week via Email, <tours@mycycle.co> or by messenger, post or pigeon. Don’t worry, it doesn’t need to be slick and polished

We’ll then create an actual book and a virtual version for you to read online.

Love from

Stephen and Luci

Things need doing…

SF2 Comments

Tom Amy and I are doing focussed practical things. Backing up the Digital photos and giving the kitchen a thorough clean. Well actually it mainly Tom and Amy.

I’ve just been sent to close the balcony door. Manjula would always tell me that the troup of monkeys would come on a weekend and usually a Sunday so the doors shouldn’t be left open. The last thing is we don’t want the monkeys playing on the computer.

Well I don’t need to close it. Luci is on guard.

But looking closer

I see the sadness in her eyes. She’s missing Manjula, so we have big cuddle and talk of her.

It’s wonderful that Tom and Amy are here. It would be impossible for Luci and I being here on our own.

Tom has music playing and incense sticks burning but there is an unmistakable presence.

The smiles, the laughter, her giggles, tolerance of me and my idiotic ways. She’s with us now tut tutting at how we’re doing the cleaning and wishing she was here to do a proper job.

Manjula is in the air and in our hearts. It’s really quite good.

Swop?

SF1 Comment

I can understand how some people might wish to swop places with their loved one who has died or been diagnosed with a terminal illness.

I could do that, no doubt.

But it misses one of the many points.

There would still be the grief, the loneliness, confusion of being only one part of the whole.

And how would it work? I would take on Manjula’s illness she would have all our money, material goods (she’d definitely demand the washing machine) the house, Lucy. No sweat. But it’s no solution. We’d still be apart. Maybe we could go for a hybrid two halves as one.

No I’m not going bonkers this is how my mind ordinarily ‘works’.

If it was just a case of a straight swop. I’d worry that even though Manjula can be strong as a rock, gentle as the waves, she actually comes from a very poor background and in this extremely layered patriarchal society it will always be a challenge for a woman on her own.

Until of course it really changes.

Manjula …. Taking back control

SF2 Comments

The idiots in the British Government at the head of the Conservative party seem to have completely lost it, and not just in terms of Brexit

On the other hand …. it’s quite another matter for a woman in Mysore ……

Her main purpose in our nine years together was to invite people to share her home and to connect. In those years she’d done everything to create a beautiful, clean, comfortable open welcoming home. Not just the cleaning, cooking, preparing rooms for the guests, managing the staff, coordinating transport and the garden and above all create that warm, welcoming atmosphere that something in the air.

That useless lump of a husband by contrast was only the booking clerk. She so loved pointing that out!

Of this achievement she was rightly proud. This week we’ve received hundreds of messages from around the world, a testament to how she’s drawn people close to her, connected with them and left behind a piece of her.

This last season, as she lost so much weight and at times became poorly, she would often reflect with me that now that she could do none of what she did over the years. It wasn’t true of course, after talking it through she’d agree that the most important the meeting, greeting and chatting, connecting with people was still very much her role and what she’d love doing. It’s the main reason why we were open over this last season. It was what kept her going.

Recorded on 12th March

She very much kept control, she had a network, fetching and carrying, the fruit and veg for breakfasts delivered by the shop, the gardener dropping in her own Breakfast, Sudha bringing home cooked food every day, organising transport, managing the staff, I’d even jokingly bought her a bell to use when she wanted me but the innovator, the strong woman that she was would just have to ring my phone and pavlov’s dog would come running.

I’d joke that it wasn’t like this before we got married.

But there’s another less comfortable aspect of her taking control.

I think she’d had enough and knew it was time to go.

She was fed up of the uncertainty, the to and fro from the different doctors and clinics, the loss of weight, feeling ill, the many many many drugs she was taking every day, the dodderyness, the tests. She absolutely hated the blood tests, it had all got too much. Last week on Wednesday the doctors wanted to admit her, she wouldn’t go. We went home. I discussed it with her. She eventually decided to go back in on the Friday to an ordinary ward. She was admitted to the ICU as her condition had deteriorated. As we prepared to leave home in the Ambassador to go to the hospital she had one careful look around the lounge, as if she was taking it all in, one last time or as others suggested that she could see something else telling her it was time.

Manjula had a heart attack that evening and was brought back to life then again in the morning she had another and in line with her wishes I asked the doctors to let her go.