It’s eight weeks now. I’m in London and carrying with me a photograph of my beautiful Manjula.
We don’t have access to Mysore Market and it’s wonderful selection of beautiful fragrant flowers.
Manjula did however love receiving roses and the local Sainsbury’s has obliged.
Manjula is, of course, in my thoughts, every single minute but I also especially remember her by placing her photo somewhere prominent and displaying flowers on the monthly anniversary of that Saturday morning when she died.
Emotional titbit
I’ve avoided going to our local hotel for a parcel (take out).
During Manjula’s last few months when unable to cook, her friend Sudha would bring a home cooked meal for her each day. I’d get a parcel from Dose Corner. So it’s a firm memory.
Well it’s been seven weeks now so I forced myself go fetch a meal and help move on.
Its a great meal and costs just 110 rs
It’s maybe not surprising but even something as simple as getting the meal is very emotional with tears welling up.
I’m slowly shifting towards happier memories. Last night I put together first stages of the photo book. I’ve been avoiding it.
It was really therapeutic. Not straightforward but really nice to do.
Moving on… with Manjula with me.
You have my sympathies.
I’ve posted what must seem a constant stream of feelings. It also can’t be easy to find your way around the many postings.
It reminds me of an interview I gave to a journalist in the UK, years ago. I was working on an innovative approach to engage local communities in helping guide local public services to be more responsive to their needs. After I’d explained my approach. He said, so you launch a whole series of custard pies some hit and some even stick While some fall by the wayside.
I’m beginning to think meandmycycle.com is not dissimilar. A series of disconnected postings ranging from the bizarre, mildly interesting and hopefully a fair few that connect to you.
I’m working on that same theory. Randomly works, sometimes.
Thank you for sticking with it and me.
But I think I need to get a bit better organised and the blog more focussed.
So over the next few weeks I’ll start to focus on:
Our story, with two separate parts Manjula’s amazing story (I’m not biased, the more interesting by far) and Stephen’s
There will also be insights into this amazing country….
Life in India
and some bits a pieces:
Titbits a sort of hotch potch
Clearly labelled (yeh!)
I’ll use feedback to review, amend and revise.
So please….. As always, comments are appreciated and feedback on what works for you and suggestions of how I can improve would be great.
Thanks for your invaluable support.
one of the directors is absent without leave.
Mycycle tours and travels Pvt ltd was set up to ensure a secure income, home etc for Manjula but now it’s not needed in quite that way.
As we’ve decided to continue two good friends, Manjula’s adopted sister Tanuja and brother Satish have stepped into the breach to become new directors.
We’re at the accountants having provided: national identity card, PAN (tax) card, bank account details, 3 x ID photos and then been videoed online to prove who they are! It’s not straightforward to put it mildly.
so here we are, the new team, continuing in Manjula and MyCycles good name.
I’ve had a bit of a wobble over the past few days. (Nothing surprising there, at the best of times).
With the invaluable and repeated help of Tom and Ann and of course my support hammock of friends (including Amy, Sue, Dave and you) around the world. I’ve reached a certain stage.
Clap of Thunder just came to Mysore nicely timed to emphasise.
I know it’s not absolute and there maybe some wavering or even three steps back in the board game of life.
Fact is I’ve been haunted by that final instruction to the Doctors to ‘let her go’ and not resuscitate Manjula after her second heart attack.
There is no way of knowing, there is no ‘best’ or ‘if only’. I did what I could do in the circumstances, in line with Manjula’s wishes to stop any further suffering, there was no choice really. She was very poorly, lost a lot of weight and was unable to fight anymore.
Intellectually that’s it, no argument, sort of accepted. Emotionally I continue to bounce around on the roller coaster.
Thank you for your support in this impossible situation.
Manjula had a most beautiful smile that many have said lit up the room and left a presence in their heart.
A smile brings us together and Manjula most definitely brought people together, crossed social, class, cultural caste and international boundaries and made connections. Just one of her astonishing attributes. (There’s that Farrell bias again 🙂)
“Care granted to the sick, welcome offered to the banished, forgiveness itself are worth nothing without a smile enlightening the deed. We communicate in a smile beyond languages, classes, and parties. We are faithful members of the same church, you with your customs, I with mine.” Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I know this of Manjula, she beamed her smile, passed on her warmth, lit up our way regardless of the toll her gattling gun of illnesses was making on her poor depleted body. To her very last she squeezed out a giggle and a smile.
Thank you to Janie for this wonderful portrait.
Manjula’s Mysore, our shared passion, will continue
Manjula has created a home to share, where people from around the world have visited and connected with others of like minded openness.
Her essence permeates the space and she’s left a piece, a mark with all of us.
We will honour her wishes, her work, and follow her pattern.
Manjula’s Mysore Bed and Breakfast will remain and change. We’ll build on what Manjula created and ensure it’s the same but different.
You can help
Come to visit and send your friends.
If you’d like to get more involved we also invite old and new friends come and help out. For a couple of weeks or longer come and help look after the place. In return for bed and breakfast help keep the place clean, welcome guests and maybe help create a new dimension to Manjula’s place.
There’s even been a few guests interested in setting up their own BnB so why not come give it a try and dip your toes in the water, just learn by doing.
I’ll be away over the next two months then reopen.
This poem is not about my situation at all. But is it or isn’t it?
In my current state, I’ve become ‘masterful’ at Seeing the world through my very specific spectacles (flexi specs) Without a doubt they are not bifocal or even trifocals, they are progressives.
I can see all sorts of things. I can see what I want to see.
I’ve got them on now, I turn the metaphorical (!?) dial.
First setting ‘reality’ to see the smile that lights up the room of my beautiful my lovable (it’s what Manjula means) Manjula, the one who I adore whose presence I carry with me and who I miss intently. She’s absolutely perfect (OK, that’s the rose tinted setting and comes with the territory).
Second, I look back to see how Manjula grew and blossomed, showed strength through endless challenges, changed me in so many ways and through the connections she made, left a part of her with her friends throughout the world.
Next
Oh no, I slipped and mistakenly landed on grief 2 (you know the guilt trip, ‘what if’ one where we don’t HAVE to be there) whoops, move it back a step to grief 1 (dealing with the gaping hole, the big loss, we just have to manage this one)
And finally I turn it to magical thinking to cherish and hold her with me as a star in the sky, she’s not quite here or there for that matter, maybe she does feel something, maybe not but it doesn’t matter, as my love, sent out as a ray, a beam will still hold strong. I can be the more loving one, in fact I’m the one that’s left, so I have to be
THE MORE LOVING ONE
by W.H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.
Today, exactly four weeks after my beautiful died I’m at the old people’s ashram.
In memory of Manjula we’re gifting all today’s meals. I’ve arrived an hour early so it’s time to chill, remember and reflect and in a very limited way feed my addiction to share with you guys.
Back in Siddarthanagar smileys have appeared on the road, overnight.
Using stencils and water soluble spray paints they are another simple way to discreetly and publically remember and acknowledge.
There’s a fair amount of sweeping goes on at the ashram.
Checking out Manjula
There are just so many….. photos everywhere (Manjula would complain that there were too many but I never believed her)
These are in prominent positions in the house.
This one with lots of her things as part of the pooja on specific days, they’re not always there!
The logo created by Punith.
videos ….
Article in the Guardian (photo is taken from the article)
The river Kaveri where Manjula said a prayer after our wedding celebration in the field on Srirangaptnam. A tender memory.
Facebook and blog postings, meals at the Ashram for the elderly residents ……. remembered happenings, and most importantly the piece of her that’s in my heart that will always make me smile, ( the T-shirt I gave her in recognition of this and the rosette I made awarding her best maid in Mysore after working for her for one year…. early signs of my love?)
the jokes, the giggles, bossing me around, the hair (she was losing it) I still find in nooks and crannies.
And what about this from Kate who came to stay with us years ago?
A lovely gesture, trees planted by treesthatcount.co.nz in New Zealand in memory of Manjula.
Thanks Kate, love it!
Me and MYCycle 