Suma and I never even in our weirdest dreams, thought of celebrating our 36th wedding anniversary in such a style, when I decided to join her in Chennai at Nisha's residence. The weather was of course oppressively sultry and hot but Nisha, Lakshmi and Parvathy ditermined to give the idea a big heave and a push so that everyone enjoyed the little function. I wanted my old friends Danny, Dinesh and Prakash attend the celebration with their families, so I rang them up well in advance to ensure their presence. They were only too glad to agree to come. So on 12th evening despite the weather, all of us assembled in Nisha's living room. Danny came with Prema, Prakash with Syamala and Dinesh besides Ajita brought His lovely daughter Lakshmi to our great delight.
We hoped Danny's son Prithvi and Prakash's Vijay also to attend but they had other engagements.
One unexpected guest was Sujatha, Suma's sister whose Her presence added more mirth and laughter.
The celebrations started with the traditional cake cutting by Suma, myself, Ammu and Krishna! Danny undoubtedly occupied the centrestage. He rose up to his reputation guzzling more'fuel' to help him to energize himself to dance, sing, crack jokes and find time to play with Krishna and Ammu! He became instant hit with dear Kichu who refused to release his new friend to take his much needed sips!
When the ladies started to drown us with their chatter and laughter, we moved a bit away and huddled ourselves with our glasses and bottle in front of us. Our memories travelled past with supersonic speed towards the 70s. Nostalgia flooded our minds and out came the stories of recklessness which we might have discussed hundreds of times earlier. We missed Anup, Dev and Indru but Prakash who shot our wedding photos in color ( color photos were a rarity and luxury those days, but Prakash was a sailor who used to go around the globe several times and for him it was not a big deal!) was with us. When I told Prakash I preserved those photos, everyone screamed at me why I didn't bring them . I know, I should have done it but I simply forgot. I promised Prakash I'd show it to him sometime later.
What followed was a delicious dinner and the crowd dispersed after that. Krishna was very reluctant to part with 'Danny uncle' but Danny assured him that he'd again visit him next day!
Suma and I were simply overwhelmed by the love and affection bestowed upon us by our friends and of course, Nisha, Lakshmi and Parvathy. We certainly missed Vinod who was away in Nairobi on official duty.
So it was a memorable day in our life as important as 12th sept 1973, because of the participation of my friends who were with me on that day at Palakkad!
Murali
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Bhagavat Geeta's role in moulding one's life
Hi Friends!
Of late I have become an ardent fan of Bhagavat Geeta. Certainly, it's not because it is a holy book of Hindus. If anyone brands it an ancestral property of a religion alone he hasn't understood the basic tenets of it. I have gone through some of the versions of its interpretations but the most simple and easily understood one is by C. Radhakrisnan, a scholar and author, who runs a regular column in the Malayalam daily, 'Mathrubhoomi'.
A redeeming feature of his writing is that he combines the present day scientific wisdom in his explanations to substantiate the fact that what Geeta advises is about a change of life rather than simply worshipping 1001 Gods. In fact, one may not find much space devoted to rituals and modes of worship in Geetha. Assuming that Geeta was written in 3000 or 3500 BC, a student of Geeta can find that a decay had already set in in the social fabric of the communities which prompted the Sage Vyasa to make Lord Krishna to address this basic defects and also to isolate the 'middle men' who utilyzed the gullibility of the masses to enrich themselves.
Through Yoga, and undergoing a well disciplined life, dedicating own life to search for truth, love and concentrating on 'Parabrahma,' Geeta says one can become dear to God. Appparently this sounds very very difficult. Yes, it is because, before seeking the God Almighty, you must discover the God in you and others. According to Geeta, God is not in any form as it is a great 'phenomenon' existing in everything surrounding us. It was a great revelation to me as I always had a narrow way of thinking that praying very privately and chanting all slokas, God will bless me or lighting a lamp and performing pujas and making special offerings He'll be mightily pleased in me. What I failed to recognise is the Supreme nature of divinity engulfing the universe as a whole. I also failed to see the existence of God in other living beings and the divinity surrounding them. I expected favourable results out of my actions right or wrong they may be. But Gita taught me to be neutral in reaction after performing my duty which will eliminate any possible anxiety arising out of my actions. Today, I'm free of tensions because I believe, if what I'm doing the right thing, the results will follow; I shouldn't feel tense about it. If all this load is removed from our mind, it helps us to concentrate on anything to meditate. When we meditate, our mind should be like a flame of a candle burning in stillness without flickering so much so that, the flame is the 'parabrahma' the divine basis of existence of life.
I am aware of the limitation of my knowledge. I have no spiritual virtue and I within myself, I harbour all ill feelings, jealousy, lust and a giant size ego which nullify whatever rudiments of good thoughts I claim to have.
But I can try to train myself into carving new dimension of a person with ceretain good qualities like lesser ego, a comparitively clear conscience and a mind full of love and compassion. What Gita advocates, as I understand it, is that man shall uphold all his virtues and live like a fine human being with his faultless concience guiding him as God Almighty. This is purely my understanding and I'm no exponent of ancient scriptures. As God is omnipresent, we can worship Him from wherever we are. We need not make Him a prisoner within the four walls of a temple, church or mosque. I may not realize my goal within the available time I have but at least I can try. And I would.
Murali
Of late I have become an ardent fan of Bhagavat Geeta. Certainly, it's not because it is a holy book of Hindus. If anyone brands it an ancestral property of a religion alone he hasn't understood the basic tenets of it. I have gone through some of the versions of its interpretations but the most simple and easily understood one is by C. Radhakrisnan, a scholar and author, who runs a regular column in the Malayalam daily, 'Mathrubhoomi'.
A redeeming feature of his writing is that he combines the present day scientific wisdom in his explanations to substantiate the fact that what Geeta advises is about a change of life rather than simply worshipping 1001 Gods. In fact, one may not find much space devoted to rituals and modes of worship in Geetha. Assuming that Geeta was written in 3000 or 3500 BC, a student of Geeta can find that a decay had already set in in the social fabric of the communities which prompted the Sage Vyasa to make Lord Krishna to address this basic defects and also to isolate the 'middle men' who utilyzed the gullibility of the masses to enrich themselves.
Through Yoga, and undergoing a well disciplined life, dedicating own life to search for truth, love and concentrating on 'Parabrahma,' Geeta says one can become dear to God. Appparently this sounds very very difficult. Yes, it is because, before seeking the God Almighty, you must discover the God in you and others. According to Geeta, God is not in any form as it is a great 'phenomenon' existing in everything surrounding us. It was a great revelation to me as I always had a narrow way of thinking that praying very privately and chanting all slokas, God will bless me or lighting a lamp and performing pujas and making special offerings He'll be mightily pleased in me. What I failed to recognise is the Supreme nature of divinity engulfing the universe as a whole. I also failed to see the existence of God in other living beings and the divinity surrounding them. I expected favourable results out of my actions right or wrong they may be. But Gita taught me to be neutral in reaction after performing my duty which will eliminate any possible anxiety arising out of my actions. Today, I'm free of tensions because I believe, if what I'm doing the right thing, the results will follow; I shouldn't feel tense about it. If all this load is removed from our mind, it helps us to concentrate on anything to meditate. When we meditate, our mind should be like a flame of a candle burning in stillness without flickering so much so that, the flame is the 'parabrahma' the divine basis of existence of life.
I am aware of the limitation of my knowledge. I have no spiritual virtue and I within myself, I harbour all ill feelings, jealousy, lust and a giant size ego which nullify whatever rudiments of good thoughts I claim to have.
But I can try to train myself into carving new dimension of a person with ceretain good qualities like lesser ego, a comparitively clear conscience and a mind full of love and compassion. What Gita advocates, as I understand it, is that man shall uphold all his virtues and live like a fine human being with his faultless concience guiding him as God Almighty. This is purely my understanding and I'm no exponent of ancient scriptures. As God is omnipresent, we can worship Him from wherever we are. We need not make Him a prisoner within the four walls of a temple, church or mosque. I may not realize my goal within the available time I have but at least I can try. And I would.
Murali
Saturday, August 1, 2009
A college reunion!
Hi Friends!
I can't say if this is just a newly found enthusiasm or a genuine desire to log my experiences and feelings. But clearly, I'm not under any illusion that starting a blog is like opening an outlet for my creative urge (?) that was latent in me in all these years! Some may be cursing and muttering under their breath for going through this monolog just because it is obligatory for them to read !
This is the third time I'm promising to be more matter of fact and try to keep it short. Twice, I couldn't do that. this time I'll do.
It's much more than the pleasure of meeting the classmates; It's excitement unlimited; it's a thrill to recall incidents that took place 50 years ago! It is difficult to visualise the slim beautiful girls of yesteryears as matronly looking ,grey (many dyed) haired grandmothers. They too would be harbouring reciprocal feelings when they meet the 'boys'!
We were just 7 boys and 26 girls. Of these 3 are no more.
Quite unlike of the present day classmates, we had kept a reasonable distance from the girls; boys kept a low profile; may be we're a bit shy. The ineraction was limited to mostly monosyllables , a smile or just a nod! even that was rare. So it is least surprising that we didn't have any knowledge of the whereabouts of all these ladies. I had regular contact with only one person- who retired as the dean of Calicut university Students welfare, Prof.Aniyan. Once Aniyan came into contact with Dr. Jose Paul who had retired and settled down in Aluva. And , from then onwards, the flood gates of information about our classmates opened up, the addresses and phone numbers started pouring in.
Dr. Jose Paul is an extraordinary person. A born optimist, the word 'No' has no place in his lexicon. After his graduation he joined Cochin PortTrust, took his doctorate in shipping from Cardiff Un iversity and became the chairman of Goa Port trust and Dy Chairman of Bombay Port. He was ready to go to any extent to gather information about everyone in our class and he did it too. It was an awesome task which he managed admirably well. Not only he phoned up every one, he visited each of us personally accompanied by his wife Rita. He also insisted that having got the phone numbers, we should talkto each of our classmates! It worked wonders because, when we met with some, it was not with any trepidation or apprehension ,but with great longing just as if we're meeting our long lost friend, literally!
The spouses were extremely eager, and in many respects often surpassed our classmates in their excitement, in meeting and talking over phone.
Jose has fixed Sept 27th as D-day of our 1st meeting. We're yet to finalise on the venue though tentatively,we have the historical and the picturesque Bolghaty Palace hotel in our mind. This is an event by itself in the history of Maharaja's college, Ernakulam because this is happening after 50 years!
More about this after our meeting!1
So long
Murali
I can't say if this is just a newly found enthusiasm or a genuine desire to log my experiences and feelings. But clearly, I'm not under any illusion that starting a blog is like opening an outlet for my creative urge (?) that was latent in me in all these years! Some may be cursing and muttering under their breath for going through this monolog just because it is obligatory for them to read !
This is the third time I'm promising to be more matter of fact and try to keep it short. Twice, I couldn't do that. this time I'll do.
It's much more than the pleasure of meeting the classmates; It's excitement unlimited; it's a thrill to recall incidents that took place 50 years ago! It is difficult to visualise the slim beautiful girls of yesteryears as matronly looking ,grey (many dyed) haired grandmothers. They too would be harbouring reciprocal feelings when they meet the 'boys'!
We were just 7 boys and 26 girls. Of these 3 are no more.
Quite unlike of the present day classmates, we had kept a reasonable distance from the girls; boys kept a low profile; may be we're a bit shy. The ineraction was limited to mostly monosyllables , a smile or just a nod! even that was rare. So it is least surprising that we didn't have any knowledge of the whereabouts of all these ladies. I had regular contact with only one person- who retired as the dean of Calicut university Students welfare, Prof.Aniyan. Once Aniyan came into contact with Dr. Jose Paul who had retired and settled down in Aluva. And , from then onwards, the flood gates of information about our classmates opened up, the addresses and phone numbers started pouring in.
Dr. Jose Paul is an extraordinary person. A born optimist, the word 'No' has no place in his lexicon. After his graduation he joined Cochin PortTrust, took his doctorate in shipping from Cardiff Un iversity and became the chairman of Goa Port trust and Dy Chairman of Bombay Port. He was ready to go to any extent to gather information about everyone in our class and he did it too. It was an awesome task which he managed admirably well. Not only he phoned up every one, he visited each of us personally accompanied by his wife Rita. He also insisted that having got the phone numbers, we should talkto each of our classmates! It worked wonders because, when we met with some, it was not with any trepidation or apprehension ,but with great longing just as if we're meeting our long lost friend, literally!
The spouses were extremely eager, and in many respects often surpassed our classmates in their excitement, in meeting and talking over phone.
Jose has fixed Sept 27th as D-day of our 1st meeting. We're yet to finalise on the venue though tentatively,we have the historical and the picturesque Bolghaty Palace hotel in our mind. This is an event by itself in the history of Maharaja's college, Ernakulam because this is happening after 50 years!
More about this after our meeting!1
So long
Murali
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Hello friends!
It''s nice to be with you all once again.
I attach great importance to the friendships I built up forty years ago or even earlier than many of the recent ones.
There are several reasons for that.
One, basically, I'm not much of an extrovert although I was in the marketing for almost 30years! It was indeed difficult for me to create newer friendships at my age. Two, the friends I have for the last forty years, were with me throughout in all happiness, trials and tribulations of me and my family. We maintained contacts all these years without a break. We visited each other whenever possible, attended family gatherings like weddings, consoled each other in breavements. We are concerned about each other when one of us or any member of our own families falls sick. We become tense and anxious even when one of us doesn't keep good health. We make frantic calls till we're certain the other guy recuperates. Three, our children understand this bond between us and encourage us. Anup, Danny, Devadas, Dinesh, Indrasenan, Kalyan and Ramu and this humble self form a terrific team! Almost all of us have high BP; I bounced back from a serious MI (heart attack), Dev just manged to escape by undergoing angioplasty avoiding hospitilisation. Danny was lucky to limp back minus one kidney when it was discovered he had developed malignancy. (Many still don't know about it even now!) Anup had been in and out of Hospitals quite frequently because of his high blood sugar. Dinesh had problem with cholesterol control and Kalyan and Ramu takes the BP contro tablets. The most remarkable feature is none of us is overly tensed about our own health problems. We relax our controls whenever we meet and take a peg or two more than the usual and recall the really wild days we spent in that sleepy town, Salem when we were in the prime of our youth!
There is something that's very unique about Danny. When he joins a group his energy percolates into others. His rich baritone voice infuses a certain liveliness into the most docile of human beings and his love of life will enthuse even the dejected and disappointed. He practises yoga after his surgery and is a great advocate of it now. He brought back another friend of ours from the brink when he was diagnosed with mallignancy. He found time to spend with our friend, taught him some yoga which he practises even now and our friend is a much healthier person now considering he is 79!
Anup was the baby of our group and I think we pampered him! He's a happy go lucky sort with full of wit and humour and even now I think, he is a 'problem child' for Asha (his lovely wife) and his children! Danny and I were reckless and wilder than any other member of our group. But Dev and Dinesh exerted a sobering influence on the gang so, we didn't plunge headlong into any danger. Dev had a nasty habit of lighting a cigarette every nowand then. He was just short of being a chain smoker! Dinesh left the gang for Madras to look after his dad who was ill. So he missed some fun. Indru the short, stocky and a totally bald (even then) was the financiar for all of us. It was because all will have empty purses towards the end of the month and wait eagerly for the monthly remittances.
All of us had a mtorbike/scooter and we used to thunder down the streets of Salem much to the dislike of the pedestrians and envy of the other less fortunate young men.
But, one by one the members of the gang left Salem ultimately I was the lone person there. Anup left for Kerala when he joined a multinational, Dev was elevated and left for Bombay, Danny left for Madras and Indru for coimbatore. Kalyan and Ramu too prefered Madras towards the end of 70s and beginning of 80s.
Then in the 90s and 2000s, we once again started meeting each often and the ties were renewed. The renewal came like a bang because we felt we needed the companion ship we missed so long. Then came the marriages of our children and these truly were occasions for our reunion and great fun.
When my daughter and her family came down to Chennai for a 2 year stint, we seized this opportunity for more frequent meetings which we continue.
It's great to have friends in whom you can confide, share your happiness, seek advice other than your own family members. We will continue this bond of friendship in the years to come.
Bye
Murali
Sunday, July 26, 2009
My First post!
Boy!Am I excited!! I'm indebted to my two lovely nieces Lakshmi and Parvathi (Paru to me) and my daughter nisha for creating this blog. It needed a lot of effort from their part to drill into my thick skull to make me understand the rudiments of blog creations.
I must admit I'm a late comer to blogs. I am 67 years old and I belong to that era (which of course seems to be eons away) when no one has heard about computers. I declined all offers to learn the basics thinking I may not need it. It was when Nisha went to UK after her marriage that I felt the need for it. I learnt how to send e-mails and receive them. I could type,save cut and paste! All these apparently, just kidstuff for today's techies and why, even for the school kids. But there still a great deal has to be learnt, as I understand, to be a computer literate! I don't know if I would learn some of it before my time is up, nevertheless, I made a beginning today. My son Arun (fondly called Tinku by all of us except his wife the lovely Amritha ), who is in Doha working for an international consultancy firm KPMG as a chartered accountant, has not written a letter to us eversince he left our shores. It's mostly chat or mail. My daughter Nisha, again a charterd accountant who was in UK working for an asset management co as their financial controller and her techi husband Vinod (Vinod was born and brought up in London) are at the moment in Chennai as Vinod has a 2 yr assignment in here. But once they leave for UK by middle of 2010 I need to be more active on the computer.
My wife Suma is a very bright girl o( 58 yrs old) who enjoys sudoku and solving mathematical puzzles. She is definitely not dull headed like me because I never could solve sudoku by filling in at least one number. She does it with great ease even when I'm a bit annoyed searching for my favourite Hindu paper. I enjoy doing simple crosswords ( more complex ones are not my cup of tea!) that appear in the metroplus edition. Suma is far more intelligent and practcal than me> I used to wonder where I'd be without her!
My daughter-in law Amritha is a very vibrant girl with full of life and zest. There is never a dull moment when she is around. When we are in Chennai (We shuttle between Palakkad in Kerala and Chennai as Nisha and family are here) we miss her badly.
Vinod is not just our son-in-law; he is eager to extent any help when we need it. He is another son to us just like Amritha is another daughter.
Our house hold story is not complete without our two cute grandchildren-again, Amritha (6) and Krishna (3). Morethan Nisha and Vinod, it is these two cuties that prompts us to make more frequent visits to this awfully hot place. their smartness and intelligence never cease to amaze me. Paru and Lakshmi have the same opinion!
You must be wondering what I was doing for a living. After my graduation from Maharaja's College Ernakulam, I joined a multinational pharma co and sold their medicines for two decades. After that I shifted to training imparting communication and language skills. Meanwhile I had a heart attack which compelled me to put an end to my travelling career. I continued with my training classes in Palakkad which went on till 2006. My 6 month long absences almost every year when we go to London was too much for the students and they said goodbye to me.
Suma is old student of the Victoria College of Palakkad. she got her BA degree in Economics. I persuaded her to do her post graduation 5 yrs after she gave birth to Nisha,but she soon became pregnant and that was the end of our ambition to get her a post graduation degree!
This is all about us. I confess this is a bit too long. I promise to keep it short and sweet next time onwards. Once again my sincere thanks to my beautiful nieces Lakshmi and Paru (they're software engineers lakshmi is with L&T and Paru is with Infosis) who really made this dream of mine possible.
bye
Will be with you soon
I must admit I'm a late comer to blogs. I am 67 years old and I belong to that era (which of course seems to be eons away) when no one has heard about computers. I declined all offers to learn the basics thinking I may not need it. It was when Nisha went to UK after her marriage that I felt the need for it. I learnt how to send e-mails and receive them. I could type,save cut and paste! All these apparently, just kidstuff for today's techies and why, even for the school kids. But there still a great deal has to be learnt, as I understand, to be a computer literate! I don't know if I would learn some of it before my time is up, nevertheless, I made a beginning today. My son Arun (fondly called Tinku by all of us except his wife the lovely Amritha ), who is in Doha working for an international consultancy firm KPMG as a chartered accountant, has not written a letter to us eversince he left our shores. It's mostly chat or mail. My daughter Nisha, again a charterd accountant who was in UK working for an asset management co as their financial controller and her techi husband Vinod (Vinod was born and brought up in London) are at the moment in Chennai as Vinod has a 2 yr assignment in here. But once they leave for UK by middle of 2010 I need to be more active on the computer.
My wife Suma is a very bright girl o( 58 yrs old) who enjoys sudoku and solving mathematical puzzles. She is definitely not dull headed like me because I never could solve sudoku by filling in at least one number. She does it with great ease even when I'm a bit annoyed searching for my favourite Hindu paper. I enjoy doing simple crosswords ( more complex ones are not my cup of tea!) that appear in the metroplus edition. Suma is far more intelligent and practcal than me> I used to wonder where I'd be without her!
My daughter-in law Amritha is a very vibrant girl with full of life and zest. There is never a dull moment when she is around. When we are in Chennai (We shuttle between Palakkad in Kerala and Chennai as Nisha and family are here) we miss her badly.
Vinod is not just our son-in-law; he is eager to extent any help when we need it. He is another son to us just like Amritha is another daughter.
Our house hold story is not complete without our two cute grandchildren-again, Amritha (6) and Krishna (3). Morethan Nisha and Vinod, it is these two cuties that prompts us to make more frequent visits to this awfully hot place. their smartness and intelligence never cease to amaze me. Paru and Lakshmi have the same opinion!
You must be wondering what I was doing for a living. After my graduation from Maharaja's College Ernakulam, I joined a multinational pharma co and sold their medicines for two decades. After that I shifted to training imparting communication and language skills. Meanwhile I had a heart attack which compelled me to put an end to my travelling career. I continued with my training classes in Palakkad which went on till 2006. My 6 month long absences almost every year when we go to London was too much for the students and they said goodbye to me.
Suma is old student of the Victoria College of Palakkad. she got her BA degree in Economics. I persuaded her to do her post graduation 5 yrs after she gave birth to Nisha,but she soon became pregnant and that was the end of our ambition to get her a post graduation degree!
This is all about us. I confess this is a bit too long. I promise to keep it short and sweet next time onwards. Once again my sincere thanks to my beautiful nieces Lakshmi and Paru (they're software engineers lakshmi is with L&T and Paru is with Infosis) who really made this dream of mine possible.
bye
Will be with you soon
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