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Journey of a lifetime

1 From a Jack to a King  And the kingmaker? My mom! In 1969 when man landed on the moon this happy-go-lucky girl from a small village in Kerala watched as MAN took his first step on the moon, on a TV sitting in a hotel room in US ! A little village girl brought up in a remote village, scaling up walls along with her siblings, picking flowers to make garlands for her Lord Krishna, found herself catering to the whims and fancies of another Lord whom she had accepted as her spouse. And then they went on a whirlwind tour of their life which ended only at the turn of the century! A story that spanned nearly the whole twentieth century. It is a wonder how a couple with such contrasting backgrounds and characters built their life brick by brick taking every opportunity to step forward supporting each other in their own way. Amma, officially known as Manjapra Varieth Madhavi( Madhavi) , a fifth grade drop-out, was from a family where children had to make do with all that was...
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2 Lets start at the very beginning

Lets start at the very beginning…  ….a very good place to start…. When you sing you begin with do…re…mi… when we say our story we begin with …. ……my sister Chandrika’s words……….. Our parents got married when the second world war was in progress. The turmoil that ravaged all over the world hardly caused a murmur in their nest, cocooned as they were in the rolling hills of Munnar, in the Western Ghats and Achan’s journey around the world took place at the peak of his career curve. For me and my siblings, Chandrika, Shylaja and Unnichettan, our eldest brother, Achan  was the Tarzan of the jungles - like the Kerala police of those days - clad in a knee-length khaki pants and a hat fitted firmly on his head, grinning like the Cheshire Cat he used to appear and disappear from our lives. He was our hero : relating  his encounters with elephants - he could smell them from half a kilometer away, pinpoint where they are by the way they broke the bamboo and even one particularly nau...
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20 Still waters of Niagra

  After a swirl in the city of New York, Dad and Mom (Achan and Amma) were due to visit the Niagara Falls from New York city about 400 miles -  approximately six and a half hours - away to be done in a one day tour.         There does not appear to be any description or stories of the day of 31 st  December 1968. After the New York tourist bus visit a long day awaited Dad and Mom before their drive to Niagara falls on New Year’s Eve of 1969.  A Greyhound tour in the depth of a dark winter night in an entirely strange new setting would have been more than terrifying for Mom as she was always a sunshine being, a little girl at heart loving the outdoors, in sun, rain or wind. For a girly mind, who always referred to herself as a being who does not fade in the hot sun - having grown up in fire, the fear and trust in her husband were the only small cinders left in her mind…That night was a story clothed in the mystery of a long 11 plus hours ...
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19 Amma on Broadway!! 29.12.1968

  https://kalavariar.blogspot.com/    As you can see it is not just Amma on Broadway but decades later myself, Kala, and my daughter too were caught on camera, posing for a click!  A family of theatrical personalities, my daughter and her group of dance performers recently made people turn their head to catch a glimpse or click a photo of their very symbolic Mohiniattam garbs – symbolic as it embodies the female figures in Kathakali performance, a dance form of Kerala that followed the matrilineal system till the seventies of last century. Amma would be proud watching from beyond the clouds. Always a connoisseur of art, she never lost an opportunity to sing, dance or act in plays. In our neighbourhood it was well-known that if they performed around the lamp that my mother placed at the centre of the circle of dancers on  Thiruvatthira  day, celebrated on the longest night of the year to worship Lord Shiva, one will get a husband of one’s choice. I remember ...
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18 Achan & Amma in the Big Apple - NYC

It was the last week of December  1968! Achan seems to have planned to go to New York by bus as can be seen from a photo of Amma with a caption  En route to New York date 29.12.68.  Though train journeys do have a dream like quality in people’s conscience, Achan and Amma appears to have travelled by the popular interstate Greyhound lines. The available public mode of travel was the Greyhound cross country bus services since the New York - Ottawa slim train services apparently closed around 1954 which could have been the reason for his choice of the mode of transport. I am pretty sure that Achan had established contacts necessary to be in New York from India itself. Hence their stay was not with any hazards even in the middle of winter. From another picture we find that the couple stayed with the son of Mr. Mendez, probably one of Achan’s colleagues. I am not sure whether they took this humpbacked bus or the 1954 version. Whatever .. but it must have been a long trip ...
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17 Dam it but forget me not!

    Cheruthoni dam with all five gates open It is generally said that everything has a time and things happen only at its stipulated time. Quite a few weeks back my sister Chandrika sent me the writeup for continuing our blog. I knew I had to do it and I had plenty of time to sit down and work on it but it seemed somehow incomplete. It is only now that the time has come but I should not be saying that the time has come – for such a disaster to strike a population so literate, so aware and so much forward in thinking but the tragedy that has struck is unbelievable and it has happened a second time in the last few years. A cloud-burst has washed off a major part of mid-Kerala once again. The last time when the flooding happened due to rains it was at the fag end of a monsoon season and skies should have cleared for Onam festivities, the best time to be in Kerala. We were there, right at the point where it all happened and we escaped the floods by the skin of our teeth. This was ...
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16 Land Ahoy!!!

MONTREAL PART 2  - Mrs. K.R, as my mother used to often address herself, and the KSEB team led by my father K.Ramachandra Warrier, arrive at Montreal, Canada –  a lot of hard work has been put in over a period of three months at least by my sister Chandrika to collate the data which makes very interesting reading!!! As the first snows softly and silently spread everywhere Amma and Achan landed at Montreal.  Red leaved Maple trees, the Canadian emblem, bereft of their enchanting and colourful autumn leaves could be seen as mournful black silhouettes against the white snow.  Nevertheless, Achan and Amma must have considered being present during Xmas in the Metropolis of Montreal itself as a bonanza. Though Montreal derived its name from the neighbouring Mount Royal hills, they did not come across either reindeers nor for that matter – luckily - any Polar Bears ! Even so, they would have surely tasted Maple syrup, Canada’s lip-smacking honey tha...
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