Creativity from Manjula’s Mysore and her friends
At Kaliyuvamane with a focus on hands
Thank you to Antoinette visiting from New York who designed and delivered the workshop.
Third day of
Language of love
A recent arrival at Manjula’s Library.
There’s a short chapter on ‘the language of love’ my reaction is not surprising, given the subject.
It happens ‘sometimes’. …
There’s a physical tightening of the stomach and a sort of shift in the eyes and forehead leading to the feeling of tears welling and a teeny moisturising of the eyes. I’m still making my way through the fantasy fairground tunnel of love slowly through the thick mud of grief gravy. Whilst I’ll never get to the end I need to ensure I break into the positive memory zones and rediscover tolerance.
On the way I’m reminded of previous moments of our wonderful life that I was lucky enough to share with my MAnjula.
Her love was constant (probably) and consistent built on her strengths of attentiveness and presence. I love her more as I’m share more of its layers passing through this crazy tunnel.
I realise that I’ve written this with John Lennon’s Woman playing in the background and it all started with you are my sunshine.
Lyrics below
Woman
I can hardly express
My mixed emotions at my thoughtlessness
After all, I’m forever in your debt
And woman
I will try to express
My inner feelings and thankfulness
For showing me the meaning of success
…
Woman
I know you understand
The little child inside the man
Please remember, my life is in your hands
And woman
Hold me close to your heart
However distant, don’t keep us apart
After all, it is written in the stars
…
woman
Please let me explain
I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain
So let me tell you again and again and again
I love you, yeah-yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah-yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah-yeah
Now and forever
I love you, yeah-yeah
Now and forever
——-
You are my sunshine
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You’ll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don’t take
My sunshine away
The other night, dear
As I lay sleeping
I dreamed I held you
In my arms
When I awoke, dear
I was mistaken
So I hung my head and cried
You are my sunshine
My only sunshine
You make me happy
When skies are gray
You’ll never know, dear
How much I love you
Please don’t take
My sunshine away
Manjula and Ina
After that first visit she would field questions from our guests who came to share our home — Mysore Bed and Breakfast– were we a couple?
Ina acknowledged before us that we’d fallen in love.
Ina came every year (except during the pandemic) from that first visit, for a total of ten years. She became a very close friend of my wife Manjula and a great support to me helping me grieve Manjula. She was our favourite and most regular guest, here Ina is promoting us with the new mug and proving she became an essential part of the team (furniture!).
The photos are from our last year with Manjula visiting the local Tibetan settlement and Somnathpur Temple. Ina, Manjula, Willan (our workawayer in 2018) and myself, Stephen
I was their sometime chauffeur
Together, celebrating Manjula’s last birthday in 2018
There’s more here including Ina’s visit a month ago
We will miss Ina, a wonderful caring character, who has become part of our life, here in Mysore. After Manjula died she often referred to her as a Lotus who had survived and thrived through the mud. They both radiated their goodness as sisters and had a wicked sense of humour
Ina lit a candle for her and what we’ll do each year is a Puja for both Manjula and Ina to help their spirits find their new home.
Just as we recently did for Manjula
We look forward to meeting again
Stephen
Asking for help with our tools.
SB came to do Ayudha puja to ask the goddess to look after our tools and help them perform for the next year
Next day is the final event of the annual celebration of the goddess killing the demon, after which our fair city is named!
That’s a stay home and avoid the crowds day.
Lowly-raised
I’m feeling a bit low
Just back from walking Lucie after another not-much-sleep night I peeked into the guest book.
If only I’d remember to ask more guests to write in it, as it proves to be a real tonic.
It helps lift my head up from peering into the grief gravy when I all-too-often reflect on the things I wish I’d done better. I recognise I did what I did in difficult circumstances and my beautiful MAnjula was overall very happy.
But I’m always brought up by inviting memories of radiant MAnjula to shine, who will always be a part of me
Thanks to our friend Google
Ina
To both Manjula and I.
Ina visited us again this year to become ‘part of the furniture’. It was her tenth anniversary of visiting us.
We celebrated Manjula’s birthday with friends, visited Bylakuppe and Dorjee the monk, (the Tibetan who she sponsored as a child), and Ina got to know and appreciate our burgeoning Kaveri.
She left us after a month’s stay to go back home and visit family and friends in Singapore.
I learned this morning that Ina died last night and her spirit joins her great friend Manjula’s on their next journey.
I’ll dive into my photos and post again with memories of Manjula and Ina together.
The sweet-ish sisters ..
… Leave for two nights with Kaveri’s mum.
It’s been the usual joy having them here for the week.
There’s one more before they return to school and college.
The T-shirt was left as a gift by a recent guest but nicely sums up the impact Manjula’s Mysore wants from our support to them
Footnote
Chandrika has re-utilised the money I’d given them for the auto ride. No surprise there then.
Family home time
Radhika recently got engaged to Prakash
Manjula’s love
Radiated through her smile and her actions.
As I’ve paddled my boat through the grief gravy the layers of Manjula’s love become more apparent. I learn more everyday from her life.
“But when you want to gain love through success, it cannot be achieved through anything quantifiable. The people that will be crying when you depart the world are not doing so because of any number that is tied to your name. They are doing so because you were a loving partner, a caring friend, or a shepherd of kindness. You are dearly missed not because of what you’ve earned, but because of what you represented.”
Life’s lessons
The illusion of control.
I expect I’m doing my usual and stating the bleeding obvious.
In this unwelcome necessary extraordinary extended period of reflection and potential growth, I realise the greatest challenge.
Yes it’s about loss and grief, goes without saying, I suppose.
There’s been many but especially three (many more of course but three for listing here) . Losing someone through splitting up with a lover, second losing Manjula when she died. Now I’d count my tonic to deal with the grief as the third. It’s not loss but deep down it’s the equivalent.
So why do I put them together?
They represent times when I felt unable to do anything … actually experiencing powerlessness, learning lack of control in some situations.
That realisation comes … After a lifetime of reinforced messages that it’s up to us, we’re masters of our own destiny and in control.
The third example is having the wherewithal to support and guide Kaveri but to realise how handicapped I am in the face of a completely dysfunctional family who don’t understand or care.
Well done, Farrell — that’s another fine mess you’ve gotten us into (only yesterday, Kaveri was asking about Laurel and Hardy) — But of course it’s about regaining one’s equilibrium, being positive and constructive, working out the way that works and the benefit I can gain from another of life’s lessons.
So in a different way, it does depend on how we take it and manage the situation — critically it’s in the eyes of the beholder—and mostly about our relationships.
So as I said bleeding obvious.
I send this to you because you might not believe it but you are very important
As Kaveri knows, BK
