On this Mother’s Day and almost every other day, I thank God that I have this amazing woman as my Mother.
All photos were taken by my friend Thulasi Kakkat, on my wedding day.
Other posts on Amma:
A Circle of Life
The old woman in Chatta and Mundu
Women’s Day
The last weekend was one of the best weekends I ever had. On Saturday, I had my first ever shoot for a television channel. It all began with an email from a program producer at Manorama News. They wanted to do a feature about Blogswara for their program called “Vanitha“. I, along with Pradipettan and Divya, went there and talked about Blogswara. The shooting was in an Ayurveda resort at Thrissur. I was quite nervous in the beginning and tried my level best not to show it, but gradually it turned out to be okay after the first few minutes. Thanks to Karthika and her team from MN and the friends accompanied, who made it feel like a casual outing. Those who can, do check out the following dates and time to see us on the mini screen. 🙂
August 24, Monday – 2:30 PM
August 25, Tuesday – 5 AM & 9:30 AM
Channel: Manorama News
Sunday was even more interesting. I went to my mother’s birthplace and roamed around the place for sometime. We have cousins there and we do visit them now and then, but it has been a long time since we have seen the whereabouts. Amma was tired, but was so happy to walk around and show us the places. There was an old well in their property which they used to water the farm. She talked about people from her childhood and the old framing techniques etc. She could meet a couple of her old pals too. There was my old Aunt in my mother’s ancestral house and she did not recognize me and my brother when we greeted her. Can’t complain as she is 80 now! But she could walk faster than us. I don’t have any memory of the place, but all my brothers and sisters have nostalgic memories of the place from their childhood. They used to tell me stories of their summer vacation trips to this place, about taking a bath in the village pond, a walk through the paddy fields etc. But the old village is not a village anymore. While showing us around, my Aunt told me that the old paddy fields are all gone and it is now filled with the newly built houses. “Those were our paddy fields in those times“, she said.
Here are some pics.
This is the house that my mother was born and brought up in.
“All the paddy fields are gone now” – tells my Aunt walking with my bro and his kiddo.
The old village pond, it is so beautiful!
A small water stream on the way. There were some tiny fishes which caught the interest of my bro’s kid.
And that’s the 80 yr old young lady. 🙂
I was away for the past 3-4 days on a short break. There was a betrothal function in the family on Saturday and a song recording session on Sunday morning (details of the song to be followed soon). On Sunday afternoon, I and my friends in the hometown went to Munnar for a one-day trip. It was not much of a sight-seeing trip, but a chance for us friends to spend some time together after a long gap. A time for the boys-turned-men to be boys again. 🙂 I couldn’t shoot enough pics as my digicam stopped working in between. So I had to rely on my mobile phone cam and here are some snaps from the place.
At top station, Munnar – this place has a spectacular view of the valley
Kundala Dam Lake – So beautiful and pristine. Take a boat ride and sit still at the middle of the lake. It’s a great experience in itself.
The monsoon rains are now shying away from Kerala. The days and nights which used to be filled with the thunderous music of rains are still having the usual smoke and dust. And it is so refreshing when it rains after long intervals. Here are two photos that I took in the last week.
[Pic #1 : A view from the third floor of Envestnet, the organization that I work with, in Trivandrum, Kerala.]
[Pic #2 : A view from my bro-in-law’s property in a village in Thrissur, Kerala.]
The graffiti inside the toilets in our trains usually have vulgar language and/or sexual graphics. In India, the public toilet is the kind of place where people get to release their closeted sexual perversion or desires through graffiti. But never in the recent post have I seen any message of love in such places. And on last Sunday I saw a very peculiar message of love, on the walls of toilet in the Mangalore-Trivandrum express train, while I was on my way to Trivandrum from my hometown Thrissur.
“I love my Pedali” – that was written all over the four walls of the toilet in that train. In different ways. Now those who are used to the wall graffiti in India may not find that interesting enough, but what captured my interest is the name “Pedali“. The word “Pedali” in Malayalam means the side of the neck. So I wonder, who would be so much self-obsessed with his Pedali that he took the effort of filling in the toilet space with his love for his Pedali? 🙂 Or is there actually a name called Pedali? Anyways, this guy/gal really really loves his pedali! 😀
It’s summer time and one of the hottest summers we ever had. Children usually spend their summer vacation playing outside, but this time the heat is not really letting them to have some fun time during the day. And the schools are opening in a couple of week’s time, so there isn’t much time left. I took the following pictures on a family gathering at my sister’s place, just a week back. It is Anthony in the red/black shirt who is my third sister’s youngest and Kevin John, my third brother’s eldest, in dark blue T. By the way, I chose the name for Kevin. “Kevin” means bright and “John” means blessed.
Eating Aich Creem! (Anthony [L], Kevin [R])
I’ve got a Balloon!
Look at that! Why don’t we just walk there?
Yo!
Yo Yo!!
Gopal is a known photoblogger in the online world and famous for his daily clicks of Bangalore. He shoots his pictures on his way to work with a Canon A530, a small compact camera that he carries in his pocket. For the last two years, Gopal has been clicking a photo of Bangalore everyday. Result is what you see in his photoblog.
Now he has an exhibition of his photos going on through out the month of May at F & B Restaurant, St Marks Road, Bangalore (on the right, soon after SBI). If you are in Bangalore, go ahead and check it out and own a copy if you would like.
