Chandy

2008-02-03T00:56:00.000+05:30

It will be a year since my mother passed away--she passed away on February 13th last year. It's a year, but I can't bear to delete this blog.

2007-05-04T16:01:00.000+05:30

I've been thinking about my mother alot. Firstly there was my father's first death anniversary on May 2nd. Then recently I came across videos on YouTube of some of her favourite, songs/singers, like Nat King Cole singing 'Ramblin' Rose', Joan Baez singing, and a recording of a 30s song 'Long way to Tipperary' which I know because she sang it. She particularly liked the song 'Ramblin' Rose' as sung by Nat King Cole and later, during the 60s she got to hear Joan Baez and Simon and Garfunkel through us and loved their music. Then, today when I came across a short video clip from the ballet of 'Giselle' (she loved ballet), I felt really sad that I had not been able to find these things for her before she died. She would have so enjoyed them.

2007-04-02T14:56:00.000+05:30

Several of RC's grandchildren were here for the 40th day prayers after her demise. Many of them have said how much they will miss her and about the happy times they'd had with her in Trivandrum. So for all of them I want to say that she and I had a conversation about Happiness. She told me she found it very difficult to let go and just be happy. She told me that she couldn't remember any really happy times from her childhood. So, I told her that a great deal of that is a question of attitude and I asked her whether she couldn't dredge up any really happy memories. She thought for a while and then said that among the really brightest and best memories she had were when her grandchildren came to stay with her and the when she did things with them. Every holiday, there was atleast one grandchild/children with her. I guess with them she was able to let go and relax and enjoy the simple joys of life with them. So I want all her grandkids to know that you gave her as much joy as she seemed to have given you. Here are 2 pictures of her with a grandson and great-grandchildren.

2007-03-02T17:20:00.000+05:30

These were the last two pictures my mother intended to put up on the blog--or which I had asked her to write about.
This first one is of my grandfather--her father.

It's one of the early color pictures (he died in 1979). She has written a great deal about him earlier in this blog. He was a big influence in the life of his children and us grandchildren.
The other picture is also of her father. This is a contraption he rigged up when he found he could no longer stand on his head! He said that as one got older and circulation got slower, less blood supply to the brain was what caused most old age problems. So this was his solution; this way he got the benefits of a headstand much easier.

2007-02-17T14:44:00.000+05:30

This is Chandy's daughter again. I just wanted to say that till the last day she did her Sudoko, got the furniture rearranged, and got herself a new set of clothes stitched. On Monday evening she showed me the new outfit she had got stitched, but with some last minute alterations.
At 3 p.m when I went over to her flat to test her blood sugar, she was doing Sudoko. Her home nurse told me the last minute alterations on her outfit were done and that she planned to wear it the next time she went out--a kurta, with matching skirt and shawl! She then got her driver to rearrange the furniture in her room. In the meantime, she read me something out of some book she had got and when I left, close to 4p.m., she gave me last minute instructions as usual.
I was away only for around half an hour, when I got the call to come immediately. She went in around 15 to 20 minutes of my returning there. It really was such a shock. Here is a picture of she and my father.

2007-02-15T18:53:00.000+05:30

This is Rebecca Chandy's daughter writing. My mother passed away suddenly on February 13th at around 5 in the evening. It's true she was 89 years old (her 90th birthday would have been on May 17th) but she was young at heart. She had got some new pictures to put up on the blog and had promised me that she would write something in a notebook to go with the pictures. All not to be. So this is the last post in this blog.

2006-11-11T08:00:00.000+05:30

This was in January 1948. My parents had come to Bombay to visit us. But the main purpose of their visit was to receive my younger sister, who was returning from England after completing a 2 year course in Meteorology (I expect I am correct).

We took my parents sightseeing around Bombay. (The picture above was taken at the Malabar Hill gardens during their visit.) On one of the days we were in the area of the Gateway of India, when we heard some commotion and the streets started emptying. Everybody was buying the newspapers a vendor was selling. My husband too rushed back with a newspaper and said that Gandhiji had been shot and that we must get back home immediately as there would be trouble. With 2 young children it was worrying. My husband somehow managed to get a taxi and got us home safely.

The next day the whole city seemed to be dead. There was no movement on the road and everything was silent. But my sister was arriving that day. Her ship would be coming in.

We did not possess any vehicle. But my husband went and fetched her. I do not how my husband managed to reach the ship and bring my sister back home. She could not bring her luggage with her though. The luggage was only collected much later when things started returning to normal.

In 1951

2006-11-06T19:37:00.000+05:30

My mother-in-law was an amazing personality. This was in the year 1951. She was travelling to Bombay (from Kerala) with her grand daughter and a servant lady. She had written to her son to inform him about the time of her arrival at the Victoria Terminus station. (The letter never arrived. I do not know how it was lost.)

Their train arrived at the station. It was early morning. She got out on to the platform with the help of the porters. But, there was no sign of her son. Can you imagine her predicament in a strange place and not knowing the local language? After waiting for around 30mins or so, she must have realised she would have to manage on her own. They came out of the station and hired a taxi. She showed her son’s address to the taxi driver. The taxi driver brought her to Lamington Road where we lived in a flat. But no one knew where the flat was. My mother-in-law, though she did not speak Hindi, spoke English.

When they arrived in the area of our flat, my mother-in-law stopped the taxi, got out and asked a man on the road whether he could direct them to her son’s place. Fortunately, this man knew her son, and got into the taxi with them and brought them safely to the building where we lived.

She came storming in to our flat saying she wanted to give her son a piece of her mind. That is when the whole story came out.

Car Trip to Delhi

2006-11-01T16:50:00.000+05:30

Mr. C was going to Delhi (from Bombay). My children and I wanted to go too. So Mr. C was persuaded to go by car and we, my children, my niece and I, took a ride. Mr. C had to attend a meeting in Delhi the next day and it was very kind of him to go by car instead of by plane.

We started out in the early morning with our Rajasthani driver—a very competent and handsome man. My youngest child was about 3 years old and her older brother about 6 years old. My niece, who was doing her post-graduation in Biology in Bombay, was also with us.

We went along happily, singing and munching away on snacks. We entered a road which ran through a forest. It was shady and cool. But we had heard of dacoits and hold-ups in this area. So we were a little worried. Suddenly Devi Singh, our driver, said that we had a puncture.

So Mr. C and Devi Singh got out and started changing the tyre. Just then a jeep passed us with a lot of policemen and 2 masked men in their middle. After sometime we heard the putt, putt of a motorbike approaching. Devi Singh suddenly said in Hindi “Daku mafi dekta hai” (They look like dacoits). We adults were very tense and held our breaths. The bike passed us, the riders looked into the car and after a few yards drove into the forest.

As soon as the car was ready, we started out again. It was afternoon by then. There was very little traffic on the road. We were almost at Gwalior, when a second tyre burst. We were STUCK. The tyre had to be patched up. (Remember, there were no mobile phones 47 years ago, not even an STD booth). Although there were very few cars on the road, Mr. C was able to stop a driver and get him to take Devi Singh to Gwalior with the tyre. (Amazingly, this man dropped Devi Singh back with the patched tyre!)

In the meanwhile, when Devi Singh was gone, a Jeep approached. He stopped and was willing to take the ladies and children to Gwalior. He was returning after a shikaar (hunt).

By the time Mr. C reached Gwalior, it was late in the evening about 8 p.m. Mr. C was determined to continue the journey to Delhi to be in time for his meeting at 9 a.m. He was warned that the road to Delhi was unsafe, especially at night. But he decided to go on. No vehicle would travel through the Chambal Valley at night.

The children promptly went to sleep as they felt safe. They had not heard of Chambal Valley and dacoits. The elders sat upright with wide open eyes. I am sure we were all praying hard.

We reached Delhi by 2 a.m., glad to have reached safely. The next day Mr. C went for his meeting and we spent time sight seeing and shopping. The next morning we drove back to Bombay. We passed through the beautiful Chambal Valley. All we saw were some peahens strutting around on the hillocks! We reached Bombay with no incidents.

2006-10-23T21:17:00.000+05:30

The computer is fascinating and kept me free of boredom and busy the whole day. As soon as I was ready in the morning, my walker took me straight there. E-mail was my first preference. Then came the games. Google Earth was a big attraction. I could not enjoy google talk much because I am a little deaf and my right eye is not too good.
My favourite game was Free Cell. But then came Sudoko. I felt very happy after completing a VERY EASY game. Completing an EASY game was also an achievement. Whenever it got too hard I went back to the easier games to get the satisfaction of achievement. Chess also I enjoyed, but the computer was always smarter!
But I was foolish in not using a proper chair. As time passed, I did not realise that my spine was unhappy at my position on a very uncomfortable chair. One day there was an open protest by my spine, in a slight backache. But I still went back to my beloved computer. By evening it was worse and the next day I couldn't get up from my bed. The net result is now I am on complete bedrest!
Beware all approaching their 90th year, of their computers (overdoing it)

67 years Ago

2006-10-04T18:25:00.000+05:30

67 Years Ago

My parents-in-law stayed in a village in Central Travancore. The mode of transport was mainly by boats. We had two boats that were brought up on to land and tried up with strong iron chains in the boat shed at night. The motorable road was about 1½ km away.

It was an agriculture community mainly cultivating rice in the low-lying paddy fields. Coconut trees were grown on the higher land. The labourers were mostly of the ‘lower caste’ who lived on the land of the landlords. They were paid so many measures of grain as their wages, every evening. During the lean months, in karkidagom (July), when there was no cultivation, the poor people took loans of grain from the land lords!

There was no electricity. But we had beautiful lamps, which were cleaned and filled with kerosene and lighted in the evenings.

There was a canal adjacent to our property and beyond that were rice fields stretching as far as the eye could see. During the monsoon the fields were full of water and it looked like a big ocean. How beautiful it was.

Once we, Ammachy, Sarasu and I got into the boat to go to Niranam. Our old Chacko Chettan—the boat man-- manoeuvred the boat with his long bamboo pole in to the bigger stream and from there on to the Manimala River, which was in spate and looked like a huge big lake. We were going to visit my sister-in-law in Niranam. I remember being on the lake in that wide expanse of water without seeing any other boat. The water was so deep that the pole would go down almost to its limit. That was frightening, but beautiful.

80 years ago

2006-10-03T19:47:00.000+05:30

80 years ago

I lived in the city, Thiruvanathapuram, the capital of erstwhile Travancore State, now a part of Kerala. We attended a girl’s school quite far from our residence. In the morning we used to go by jutka, a horse drawn carriage. In the evening we walked carrying our books. It was not like the present day,,when students have to carry a heavy load when they go to school. Travancore state was ruled by a Maharaja with the help of the dewan (prime minister). It was not directly under the British rule. There was a British resident posted to the state.

The money that was used then was called the sarkar rupee. 16 kaash made one chakram, 4 chakram, made 1 panam and 7 panams made a rupee.The rupee and panam were made of silver and chakram and kaassh of copper We also had British rupee. That was valued at 28 ½ chakram. We did a lot of Arithmetic sums changing sarkar rupee to British rupee and paisas and vice versa. As you can imagine, that was not easy,.It was tough!!!!Later the monetary system was changed to rupees, annas and paisas.

Thank you

2006-09-30T16:11:00.000+05:30

my blogs and everthing concerning me and my present life in kottayam are possible, thanks to my daugther susan.
I live on the 5th floor of a multi-stored building and susan stays in a house in the next compound.
she visits me every day and helps me to deal with any problems i have. She plays the piano for me and also connect me to the various music programmes on the computer.
It is wonderful to have children who give their time and energy for the old parents. All my children are wonderful-my three sons in the U.S and my younger daugther in chennai. I am grateful for their care and concern. I pray to God to keep them healthy.

2006-09-15T19:08:00.000+05:30

The picture here is of me taken a long time ago. I am carrying my brother's son. The house in the back is the cottage in the hills that my father built in his cardamom estate. I am wearing the typical Syrian Christian dress of chatta mundu. You can imagine how old this picture is beacuse the little boy in the picture is now 69 years old!

My father

2006-09-15T18:56:00.000+05:30

To answer what Ann asks in her comment, my father recovered fully and went back to work as an engineer in the Travancore Government. He retired and gave all his attention to looking after his cardamom estate in the hills near Kumily. He built a beautiful cottage in the hills and all his children and grandchildren had a lovely time there, where everybody played chess and badminton and went for long walks.
My father lived up to the age of 97. My mother passed away at the age of 63, when my father was 68. Even after my mother’s death, he continued to stay in his house in Nedungadapally. My children and I went to stay with him during the children’s holidays and he kept us entertained teaching chess, table tennis, badminton and various games.
After he was 80, he left for Trivandrum to stay with one of his sons and family. At that time he designed and constructed my house in Trivandrum. Later, he supervised construction of my sister’s house, which was built opposite mine.
He later moved to Coimbatore—maybe when he was almost 90—to my eldest brother’s house, where he organised bridge evenings roping in his sons (2 in Coimbatore then), daughters-in-law and friends. He was a great man.
This is a picture of my father when he was about 85 maybe.

2006-08-17T19:52:00.000+05:30

It must have been the year 1923 or ‘24. My father had just bought a car. The top was cloth. It may have been a Ford. The place where my father was stationed at that time was the town of Nagercoil(now in Tamilnadu state) in the erstwhile Travancore state. There was no petrol available there at that time. It had to be brought from Trivandrum (the capital town) and stocked in 5 gallon cans.

One evening my father took us for a drive, my youngest brother—about 3 at that time—my two oldest brothers who must have been about 14 and 13 then, and me( I was about 5 or 6). After a long drive when neared our house, we ran out of petrol. My memory is that the 2^nd of my two older brothers walked to the house to fetch the petrol. He returned fairly soon with it. By the time he returned, it was dark.

The petrol tank was under the front seat. You had to remove the cushions and lift the seat to get to the petrol tank. My father removed the seat and opened the petrol tank. We had no such thing as an electric torch. As it was dark, my father used a hurricane lantern for light. My younger brother and I were in the back seat. I peeped over the seat, watching him.

Suddenly a drop of petrol fell on the hurricane lantern. The hurricane lantern burst into flames and burst, which set the petrol on fire. My father’s face and hands got burnt and he fell down. I opened the back door and got out leaving my little brother behind. One of my older brothers ran and pulled him out of the car too. By that time the fire had caught onto the cloth top of the car. My father tried to put out the fire with gravel, but because of his burnt hands he could not.

By this time a crowd of people had gathered. My two older brothers, with the help of the people who had gathered, managed to put out the fire.

In the meantime, my father started walking towards the hospital. On the way he met someone in a bullock cart who took him to the hospital, where his burns were taken care of and bandaged.

My younger brother and I had been left at a shop by my father before he left for the hospital. Then, I remember a police officer came in a horse carriage and he took the two of us home.

The next day, my little brother was too scared to go near my father because he looked like an Egyptian mummy!

We were lucky, we were all safe, but the car was a total wreck.

2006-07-28T19:32:00.000+05:30

But how welcome this pure H2O is when we think of the last expanses of water we have polluted.

When I was young ( I am 89 years old now) we were careful in using the water. The water had to be drawn from a well invariably very deep. This water was used for domestic purposes. Bathing, washing clothes etc was done in the nearby river or in a huge kulam (pond).

Rain

2006-07-09T19:21:00.000+05:30

How as children we enjoyed the rain. Now we grumble.

Reflections on Life from Kottayam

2006-06-06T19:14:00.000+05:30

I am looking forward to my grandson arriving tomorrow. It's three years since he came. He now has a Masters degree and a job in hand. To him life in Kottayam may be boring, especially coming from California. I am an 89 year old grandmother and wondering how to give him a good time.