Tag: Manjula’s Mysore

The big guy

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Each year we’d buy a terracotta Ganesh, place him in our Pooja room with the appropriate rituals with lots of food (he’s a hungry god).

Sowbhaghya after preparing himself. The small Ganesh in the middle of the yellow flowers is the one we’ll take to the river.
Typical Indian male with giant belly. Says the Yindian breathing in!
The bigger version of Lord Ganesh lives here. I bought him cheap as a left over from the festival years ago.
We’d usually buy him from the potter’s street

After the stipulated number of days he’d be taken and immersed in the Kaveri river near Srirangaptnam.

Last year there was no ceremony as it was within the first year since madam departed. This year it was more subdued.
Satish did the honours.
While they attempted to drown a girl next door.
And I finished the job, immersing him three times and releasing him into the river.
Manjula was with us and
Lucie was tolerant
The remaining gods were driven back home.

Manjula forever giving

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On Manjula’s birthday she’s provided the meals for elderly people, who might otherwise be destitute, at their ashram/home. The NGO also has a children’s home which we will visit.
There are now four benches in two different gardens.
Tea and cakes in the park on her birthday

We captured each other’s heart

Cycling Manjula around Mysore

Visiting Bamboo Bazaar slum where Manjula lived as a child. Sharing sweets and showing her photo. I wonder what they think of Manjula now and how her life changed so much.
Kanchana’s team have completed a few projects including this patchwork quilt from Manjula’s clothing.
It’s designed to go on the wall or the bed.
Manjula’s memory tree decorated by our team of old drivers and two young people.
Manjula gives BIG photo album (that’s for me) and shopping bags.
Manjula’s plaque on the tree outside our door.
Manjula gives steel lifetime straws and personalised pens in pouches made from her clothing.
Thank you Manjula for being with us on your birthday. I can’t say it often or loud enough and show how much I miss and love you.
In the future Manjula’s giving will be to support to specific projects in a sustainable way.

Waiting rewarded….

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Happy Birthday Manjula we love, miss and cherish you.

We wanted to hear from you on your 47th birthday and we’re not disappointed. We have a lovely message… check the video…. below

Thank you Manj.

Manjula never ever let me down and together we created a wonderful life. Thank you Manjula for making me happy.

Lucie and I, are now missing our brilliant smiling light. The memories and intensity of her giving soul of a beautiful caring, compassionate woman lives with us still.

Here’s a challenge:

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How to keep in touch and show one’s love, on her birthday, when she’s not physically here, anymore.

I think I have a solution

I have found a famous time machine on eBay for sale by Leonard of the ‘Big Bang Theory’.

so I can travel back in time …..

  • to deliver a bunch of flowers
… pick her up and take her on a trip (she called it a’ rounding’) ….
and pass on a message

That was then and this is now. What fun and a great success but I think I’m back one day early. What date is it?

The next test is whether my strong-willed, determined most positiveness wife can somehow gets a message back to me. As she said: “we’ll see.”

One or two great books

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In Manjula’s library on grieving…..

Adult books. My two top picks would be Didion and Grief and Grieving.
and children’s books, that this child loves. Memory Tree and Heart and the Bottle are fab but they’re all great.

Birthdays

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Events that bring people together help create our Mysore BnB community.

Manjula, special in many ways also had two different birthdates but unlike the Queen, celebrated neither of them. Once Mr English lets-get-organised differently was involved, she decided to adopt the 21st August birthdate and drop the one she shared with Jesus. After that she expected a celebration every year that was full on fun.

2016 age 43

We might have breakfast, a visit out for the day and a meal at home or in a restaurant. It was a celebration of Manjula’s choosing: our life, and good fortune, the home we’d made, together with local friends and often with special guests like Ina from Australia.

Fresh from our second holiday in the UK and Manjula’s 44th. On our day trip out we found a wonderful garden restaurant Thotada Mane where we’d host our wedding lunch. The birthday card, I painted, adapts a famous graffiti picture to show Manjula capturing my heart.
We visited a Temple, Satish, Vasanth’s families and randomly an elderly gentleman I know from my cycle tours, in 2017.

Her 45th, in 2018, was extra special after that worrying time in Intensive Care. Ina and Willian, (he’s from Brazil) were with us for a ’rounding’ as Madam would say: a visit to Somnathpur, lunch on Srirangapatnam and a gathering of our immediate clan for dinner at the Roopa. My ‘sweetness’ was on form making the best of her every single moment.

We will always celebrate Manjula and her birthday whether she’s here or there. As we approach her 47th birthday we’ve placed the benches in the park and paid for meals at the Old people’s home. I hope for more to follow, maybe I’ll hear from herself and could the phantom smiley painter return?

…….watch this space….

We’ve been time travelling again on her birthdays

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Manjula wanted something a little less exposed to the wind than the open-topped machine, so I borrowed the Tardis (compliments of Dr Who?) to take her on another trip or ‘rounding’ as she used to describe our outings in our Ambassador car.

Somehow we became younger

Manjula loves this as it suits her highly developed (English?) sense of humour 😉

It’s not the first time we’ve time travelled like this. She was keen for adventures into the unknown. We also discovered parallel worlds at the WOMAD (World of Music Art and Dance Festival) in England.

I admit to being disappointed as we’ve not heard directly from her. There’s time yet and I still hope