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
Tag: care
The family grows
No not (just) the car.
It’s important to recognise and realise how much my adopted family here in India as helped me survive the most difficult years in my life.
Sowbaghya is so critical to my life here in Mysore
She’s project managed and coordinated the rejuvenation of the radical red, that is now attention seeking in and around Mysore and Srirangaptnam
That’s the tip of the mountain of help she has been.
Sowbaghya is important to me and has kept me and the business going.
Thank you Sowbaghya for all your help.
I firmly believe that grief is always with us but becomes more manageable as we fill the space around it with important valued people and ‘things’ we do.
The next member of the family, everyone knows, the irrepressible Kaveri. Grief manager extraordinaire.
I can’t begin to list what she does for me.
She makes me smile (and cry.)
She’s cool.
Our mini team is complete with Kaveri’s ‘sister’ Radhika, a wonderful young woman.
I look forward to witnessing her develop and we growing together through the years.
Oh ….. Trishalla and Eregowda, have been a great support through difficult and remembering times, you’ll have to wait to see where that leads.
A special mention for: Sarvesh, Vasanth, Satish, Tanuja and their families.
We’ve all worked together to cherish and continue Manjula’s radiance through our projects: events, school, community meals, creativity days, supporting Kaveri, and making Manjula’s garden in the park.
Not to forget our guests who have become family and my very own DNA family folks in the U.K. and Canada
There’s not only humans in my family…
Post Brexit
I would joke that there was life after Brexit in the U.K. as an island old people’s home.
I take it back — there’s not enough people to staff it or tomatoes to feed the residents. .
But it’s worse: the inhumanity: commodification of people care, indifference of the owners, ignorance and inaction of the families, callousness of a privatised only-care-for-the-rich system, means you’re dumped into concentrated carelessness.
We shouldn’t be surprised but why should we or how can we care?
Just make sure you,’re not feeble and alive to have to enjoy the mouldy fruits of the system
I sometimes scoff about extended supportive family networks. I shouldn’t but I do question whether they shouldn’t also be on life support. The fact is it’s the compassion and care amplified through people connections to each other we sorely need injecting to revitalise our communities
Me as a 66 year old am about to go care for an eight year old that helps blow life into this bundle of walking cobwebs.
I feel young again. Ha ha
Manjula’s Mysore
It’s same but different….
…as it will continue to provide services to help people visiting Mysore, have a great time, through Mysore Bed and Breakfast and MyCycle Tours.
We’ll also commemorate Manjula through her gifts and now with the added extra of working with young people, to help them grow, develop and thrive..
….
Most recently we celebrated Manjula’s birth anniversary with an eventful day for visually impaired young women. Here’s our press release
We’ve helped with a young man’s education and plan to do more of that next year by supporting a young girl
We’ve also:
- sponsored meals at an ashram for older people
- sited benches in two parks in Mysore
- created a garden in the park opposite our house, we’ve always had a garden at the house but this is something else
- taken our team on holiday to the beach in Kerala
- provided almost 50 cycles as gifts to individuals and organisations
Manjula’s Mysore was our domain on the internet but we’ve now gone one step further and named the new company after the woman who made it all possible.
Manjula’s Mysore will continue to do good, reflecting Manjula’s kindness, through partnerships of NGOs, business and with our team of community volunteers.
Canada Cares
Drivers keep to the lane and stop for pedestrians at zebra crossings and side roads.
Considerate Canadians helping out.
That’s nice.
Postscript
While I was out and preparing this posting someone came round (or maybe overnight) and stole Trixie, my new friend. So not all Canadians are good apples.
Managing grief
The lifelong friend becomes more manageable through diversion and building more around the grief bubble
Two new friends and an older one have made the biggest difference.
Burning books.
Reading library torched.
Sadly a wonderful project set up by a poor kind helpful guy, here in Mysore was torched last week.
Why would people do such a thing?
Already people are beginning to help. There’s an appeal here or Manjula and I will be making a direct donation. Contact me if you wish to join in, tours@mycycle.co
Storytime three
Caring
Just a week ago today…
Kamala arrives for the night shift. The system here assumes that someone will stay with you all day to be there for all non-nursing care roles. Whatever that means!
I’ve been at the hospital all day and will return in the morning.
We’re being a bit posh with private room (good decision) which includes a bed for the ‘carer.’ As you can see below.
It reminds me of thirty years ago. I was the manager of services for Disabled people for a UK council: Kirklees. We had a group visiting Greece as one of those exchange visits (up the EU!). One of the disabled people needed to go into hospital and all our available professional carers were required to cover all the non nursing care. The other disabled people had to be supported by other members (non of them being care staff!) of the group. Two of us decided to hire a car and together with another member of the group who needed our support as he had significant care needs (help for bathing, getting in and out of bed, going to the toilet, getting around in his wheelchair.) It was all new to us but an incredibly valuable experience to see things from our colleagues and the disabled persons’ perspective).
Well we don’t have to do all those things For Manj but similarly we have to have someone at hospital all the time. The other similarity is I’ve swopped roles now with Manjula as I’ve had guests at the BnB while the boss was in the hospital.
It’s helped me realise how much Manjula does.
Now she’s back home there’s the whole new experience of being ‘the maid’…. do this, do that, bring the tv downstairs, reorganise the ground floor, cooking (any suggestions gratefully received), set up the machinery and mask her up (much more complex than the one in the pic) for the night then get up to get it off her! …. more and more 😉
Its quite a new valuable experience.
its 2 am in the morning
It’s 2 am in the morning and I’ve just given the dog, Lucy a final walk of the day. In the shadows I noticed a mother and daughter, covered with shawls, scarves and carrying bags.Waiting tentatively for me to pass. Once I and the dog had passed by they continued on their journey.
Who are they? what are they doing?
As they continue to walk through the area I can hear the wild street dogs kicking off. I guess that they are poor people just travelling through. It must be quite scary and daunting with barking dogs at most corners and now I’m back at home I hear the whistles in the distance of the policeman on their beat.
What must their life be like?
It makes me stop and reflect for a moment and think about those poor people and what I assume are very different and difficult lives.
I might live in India but as you might expect, in a middle class lifestyle and quite detached from the experience of many very poor people.
I recognise how important it is for me to not lose sight of the difficulties that people face and somehow to connect.
Me and MYCycle 