We are blessed with ....

Mrithula gets up everyday and rushes to the loo to see it is locked. She softly knocks the door..
"Anna.... ".

He answers back among the shower noise...."Who is it..?".

She replies..."Mithu... It is getting late for me....."

"Irudi........" comes back the reply.

Then the matter will be brought to the judges,(Wife and self). We need to call him again, and Aakash comes back quickly. This is our morning daily routine.

The best thing on earth is having children and raising them up. I really wonder the way my parents raised us.

There is no time and place for my daughter to ask a story. I am a good story teller. But though I am not running short of stories like Tamil Cinema, it irritates us when we want to push them with the morning routines. We as parents need to remember the latest updates in her school too. The recent news is Emma's mom is pregnant and has a baby. I cannot ask my daughter whether any one will have dinosaur in the stomach. Probably she may come with another story. One day when teenager Aakash, was trying to prove Darwin's theory at the backyard of our house, I clicked him. That is the picture you are seeing. He is a great nature lover, creative, sportsman, athlete, dancer, rap singer, lyricist, artist and interested in Science. Sometimes we feel very sad in seeing him leaving to school after a shower, at 7.45 A.M when the temperature is -2.

If you call my house, you cannot escape without hearing Mrithula's voice over the phone singing
"Dil Dil Dil Dil...Kaadhil...dil..dil...dil....Kannathil Muthamittal.........". She does not understand whether it is a long distance call or local. So beware when you call home.My daughter's latest wish is to adopt a girl baby from India.

Aakash is 13 and Mrithula is 4 years old. They are familiar with most of the bloggers in my blog roll.

She loves her brother Aakash, and according to her, he is the Comedian, Hero,Spiderman, Superman and everything. She adores her brother and listens to all his heroic activities and stunts at school.

Aakash has a great concern for aged people and goes to the extent of voluntarily helping them when he see someone on the road. He loves animals especially dogs. Both of them can handle even a Rottweiler or Great Dane easily. He stopped bursting crackers from Childhood as a principle against Child labour.

We are glad that we are blessed with kids who are thoughtful and raising them with a hope that they will be useful human beings.

Flowers

No human being in this world would dislike flowers. However tired I go home, I used to have a shower and stand before the Jasmine plant and smell the fragrance. Oh...what a lovely smell. Early mornings, was a lovely sight at Chennai, India ( I did not mean the crowded city) but life in suburbs. The sunrise and flowers blooming used to add beauty to the early mornings.I always thought whether Sun and flowers were friends. If at all, they could speak, what kind of conversations could happen between them.

Flowers in summer may say, "You were very rude yesterday. Don't stare at our kids. Yesterday millions of our relatives had a early death because of you."

The Sun may laugh and reply.." Look I could not do my duty well. Certain places like UK I hardly reach... and they are very mischievous and dull. Try to find out from your relatives, how much they suffer without me."

Anyhow we all know what happens when it is very hot. Still flowers add colours wherever they are. In old Tamil Literature, flower was used by many poets to describe women or young girl. Things happening rarely, were referred as 'Kurinji'. Even today most of the cine songs, have descriptions about flowers. I love them a lot. Many hardly understand that flowers are beautiful only as long as they remain on the plants. I never like to pluck flowers from plants.

In Chennai, early morning, people with walking sticks walk near our compound wall, to pluck those beautiful flowers which we would have struggled to grow. We would have toiled hard, for the plant to reach the flowering stage. Even before we could enjoy the beauty of the flower, there will be someone in the mornings near the compound wall, to reach those flowers with their sticks. I have hated it in those days and have even spoken to such people to have plants in their house, grow them, and then use them. I consider it as an indecent act, of plucking flowers without asking the owner's permission. The common excuse is " It is all for worship". Of late, people have become crazy, in worshiping 'Annai' or 'Mother'. I am not against any God or any Worship. But who started all these. Why do they need to pluck it from someone's garden. If you have any prayer, buy flowers from market and perform them. I do not think any God would have advised to bring flowers from someone's garden, to perform pooja. I am not sure whether this habbit exist in other states. But this is a silly act to be condemned. I hate people doing it especially without asking the owner's permission.

A plant without flowers will lose its beauty within minutes. We had a plenty of Bouganvilla near our fence, and I loved them when they were of different colours. Unfortunately, some worshippers eyed them and they started plucking them. At one stage, I hated having plants because I could never see the flowers. In UK, we do not have that problem. We can see flowers only in spring and summer in our gardens.

I heard about a flower show happening in a town nearby and visited couple of times. It is a great show. Two years before the flower show was conducted for the 116th year (I think so) and the record was published in Guinness book. I was happy that I made it to the flower show during that year. Unfortunately I do not have those pictures, since they are back at home in India. The pictures I have published in this post were taken by me, at few places in UK.

Hope I visit some flower shows this year.

Who am I ?

My daughter loves admiring herself in the mirror. I like to observe her actions. She whispers to herself while seeing the mirror. I have hardly heard anything. Never wanted to show more attention fearing her privacy may be disturbed and I may stop her from her imagination. At times, I used to wonder whether she thinks like me.

When I was young I loved seeing myself in the mirror. Especially during teenage years, wondering over the growth of moustache and pimples. One day I concentrated on the image so much for such a long time, I started wondering about myself. A question came to my mind. Who am I? From where I have come into this world. Did I exist before I came to this earth. If so, should I have to know where I was. Will I exist for ever? Is this true....? No it is not. Again, all started from the mirror. Sometimes it is scary. But the truth is we need to discover. Finally, if you could think more, we realise we are just meaningless. We are a big zero. We go where we came from. We never knew where we came from and we go to a place where we do not know?

Then, what do we do during our existence? Why did we come particularly to this planet? When our existence is just temporary, what is all this about? Why hatred among us? Why all this differences between us? Why colour, race, sex, age, language discrimination? Even today I keep questioning for those mysterious things in life. I try to read many books and slowly acquire a bit of knowledge. Again, do not want to rely on those acquired knowledge. I want to search... But ashamed to know that as human beings we are so complexed.

Deep thinking gives few sense. This thought, helps me to behave a bit matured. But I cannot claim that I am matured. Sometimes I behave immatured. Every human being is complexed. We hardly understand each other. We lack in communication. We do not understand everyone. We also do not make others understand. We develop a gap in communication. This divides human beings. This spoils the relations. We develop a complex and hardly get along well with our own family. We keep away. We give place to ego and ruin our life by not talking to our own family people. After all life is too short to keep worrying. Most of us think about the past and feel for the happenings. I read last week somewhere that experience is like a comb you get once you are bald.

So, nowadays I encourage my kids to keep looking at the mirror. When I go to work and work with computers, I smile when I type this command in Unix, 'Who am I'.

The picture in this blog was taken in St. James Park near Buckingham Palace, when I wondered at those huge trees planted in line, by some King... IV or V.... whoever it was.

What is Life?

While I was walking beside a pond, near my house I stopped to look at those beautiful birds. There used to be Storks, swans and ducks too. They wait for the children to come and throw feed at them. It is a beautiful scene to watch them. Some of the brisky ones quickly catch them. The lazy ones or the less brisky ones have to wait until the first one gets tired. The one in this particular picture made me to think. It was posing as if conveying a message to me. If you see well, it looks like a question mark. I was alone with my Nikon and this made me to think. Just before taking the picture, I was thinking about life. Now adding the question mark what is life?
Oh...what a beautiful coincidence.

Just thinking back, I wonder how life keeps moving. What do we achieve? Our life is almost like those birds. If you are smart you could get it and if you are a bit dull you are deprived of everything. Is being dull, or born dull, your mistake? Disparities...... a lot of them exist everywhere. I wish I remained a child. I never knew anything. That is why I love children. They are so kiddish.

Let us first start from disparity among sex. I feel still women are lacking in so many things in our country. We may proudly say that equality is being maintained everywhere. But the percentage is not that much. As far as I know a major chunk after doing very well in their school and college, get married soon. What is happening to that women's education? What is she doing with that. The conservative parents may say, it was their responsibility to get her married. But do they think only marriage will give those women everything. I feel women are their own enemies. We have plenty of women who feel sympathy for other women. First that should be stopped. I have seen that happening around. There was a lady near my house who was very energetic and wanted to use her education to bring up her children, and financially support her husband. The ladies in their family used to pity her.

"Oh..poor woman ...I feel pity for her. She had to go so early to work. She works hard...". I knew few women who did not want to be pitied. Once it so happened that my wife had to fly alone with our kids from Madras. Almost everyone known to me were pitying her and passing comments about me. It so happened that I was tied up with my work. My wife also preferred to experience everything by travelling alone. Most of the women folks, started feeling about it. What is there to feel? Please leave them.

Again most of the mothers spoil their daughters. They never understand that their age is different to their daughters. They try to instill the age old techniques to their daughters. They need to understand that their daughters are of today's world. They know how to face. Even if today's women want to be on their own, our so called society starts talking about her and pitying her.

I must mention about this experience in my life. I happened to go along with my relative to his friend's house. He did not want to explain in detail about this lady's background but said that I must see this lady and her family. As soon as I entered she welcomed us with a great smile. I could never forget it in my life. There were two boys one was sitting in the sofa aged around 14 or 15, and another 8 or 9 running around and welcomed us. Within few seconds I realised that the elder boy was a special child. The lady after enquiring my relative's family, went into the kitchen to prepare coffee for us. During the conversation I was shocked to hear that she was a widow. She had lost her husband just recently due to Cancer. After few minutes the younger boy, came towards me and started talking about his school. He said that he does not like the school because they are not allowed to laugh. On hearing this, I started laughing. He said that he liked watching birds, and their activities. Looking at the boy's intelligence I asked him which year he was studying. He told me something, for which I showed some surprise.

He asked me back " Uncle ... Don't I look that big? I know I am not grown for my age... It is because of this..."

He started removing his shirt. He showed a big scar on his chest. He continued "Uncle... my heart was small and so I did not grow. Now they have operated my heart...and heart has started growing... again I will also grow..".

I looked at that lady again. She acknowledged with a smile. I could not believe this. Having lost her husband, and having a special elder son, and the next one having had a open heart surgery at the age of 9, how could she smile always. She said that she did not want to go and live with her parents, since they were in a village, and she may not get the facilities that she has for her special child. Also, she did not want to be a burden for aged parents. She was totally on her own, with her colleagues support. I adored her. Even today if any woman talk about their petty problems, I tell them about this brave hearted woman who has been living with so many problems and cheer them up to live like this lady.

Though this incident happened a decade ago, I remember her today and salute such young women who are leading their life in a normal manner. Please appreciate such people for their courage.