Hope a Good year

Days have rolled by. Life looks like being on a roller coaster. One more year has been added to everything. Looking back, it is evident that many things have happened to us last year. New illnesses, new problems, new city, new life, new job everything happened. To end up, all of us in our family were severely down with flu. There was a ‘Coughing Chain’ going on in our house during Christmas and New Year holidays. Every minute either one of us were coughing or it was passing on. It was a terrible way to end a year. We all were waiting for December 31. Every one of us has such bad time. Sometimes we wave ‘bye’ sadly to a very good year and welcome the New Year happily. Sometimes we hurriedly wave ‘Good bye’ to the old year, looking forward for the New Year. All of us were hurrying up to say ‘Good bye’ to 2006. My family got influenced with the age old belief of Britain. Just few seconds before the arrival of New Year, people open their back door believing the bad luck of the previous year to go away, and close in time to open the front door to let the good luck of New Year to come in. We waited for those seconds. In fact we allowed extra time for the old year to get out of our house, and just in time opened the Front door to let good luck in. What a superstition! It was fun to do that.

New Year has come to stay with us. I am already seeing some good signs happening. Every New Year I think of this pure soul ‘Mr. Asokan’ whom I met many years before. I was very active in few voluntary organisations especially blood donation. One day, a friend of mine called me up and asked for few units of blood for an open heart surgery in a big hospital. I took few of my friends and donated without any clue about the recipient. I still remember everything that happened. Just before donating, our weight has to be measured and when I stood on the weighing machine the needle did not stop and was just going around and around. Even the serious looking mallu nurse, burst out of laughter. Later they said that the machine was under repair and asked me to use a new one. After completing the donations, we were introduced to a person who happened to be the father of the blood recipient. He conveyed that the patient wanted to see us personally. I went to his bed. Mr.Asokan was lying with so much of worries. His family were at his bed side. His parents, wife and relatives were so much worried. Mr.Asokan shook our hands and thanked us with a smile. He was about to be operated the next day and his family thanked us deep from their heart. Within few days, I heard that the surgery was successful. The following New Year I received a wonderful letter with greetings and Meenakshi temple kumkum prasadham. Mr.Asokan had written a personal letter and thanked me and my friends for donating blood. This became a routine. Every New Year I received a letter along with Meenakshi Amman temple kumkum prasadham. After change of my residence, I am not in touch with him. I do not receive letters any more from him. But every New Year I remember him. I am sure he must be alive hale and healthy. His way of thanking us has not faded away from our memory. I had donated blood to a lot of people, but he remains always special in our memory especially during New Year. I do have few more interesting incidents, related with blood donation which I shall post in the future.

Hope all of you have a wonderful year ahead and keep up your resolutions.

On a nice day, I took this picture of river Thames in London. Every picture taken is unique here.

Language problem

One day we had been to a museum in London and while we were inside the art gallery deeply involved in looking at the displays, my daughter vanished and suddenly appeared with a mask (must be easy to identify whose mask it is)which was funny and made us to laugh. The kids are very creative, and one day while I was helping her with her breakfast, she suddenly said "Dad if Jesus and Lord Krishna meet now, they will not speak with each other. Do you know why?". Inquisitively I asked "Why?" and she said "Language problem. Jesus cannot speak Hindi or Tamil and Krishna cannot speak English. So I think they will have communication problem."

I am sure my neighbour would have heard my laugh. I was wondering how this got into her mind. I guessed probably with all the Christmas celebrations going in their school, she must have had this thought. I did not want to probe much into her chain of thought. But started thinking about Language problems.

The first time I had Language problem was when I travelled out of Madras to Hyderabad. I felt very bad for not knowing the language what others were speaking. Then when my cousins visited from Bombay and other states, they used to speak in Hindi. I thought I should learn Hindi too to understand what they speak, and enjoy more.

Now being in London, and travelling around I hear many languages. It is interesting to learn few words. I think languages will be there always with few modifications now and then. My children do not know Hindi and everyday they are bringing in new words. They are curious to learn Hindi too. There are plenty of children in their school whose mother tongue is Hindi and Urdu. It is nice to know many languages and great to speak them. We were deprived of those opportunities during our school days in Madras.

I think it is high time we should have a common language in India and should be taught to every one in every state and no fanaticism should be allowed. Because we live in abroad, our interest towards our mother tongue has not decreased. When we learn other languages we widen our knowledge about our language too, and try to know the relevant word in our mother tongue and thus improve our mother tongue too.

Our great politicians should realise this and bring changes in our education system to encourage our future generations (than their kith and kin only) to learn more languages in Tamil Nadu rather sticking to only one language.

Green thought

Every child will have a favourite toy. Certain qualities of children are peculiar. A child should have a memorable life. If asked to rate, I would rate my childhood as the best part in my life. The other day I was laughing to my daughter’s innocent comments.

I had a great opportunity to participate in open meeting in her school. The parents are invited to school and can spend the time in the school, and know the way how their children are taught. I was surprised to see very few parents and more surprised to know that I was the only Dad. But still I started enjoying. My daughter was not conscious of my presence. It was a wonderful experience to watch each child behaving in their own way. Within one hour, I made good friends in my daughter’s class. Oh…how innocent they were! During the play time, I observed that each child had their favourite toy to play with. After the morning session, I returned home with sweet memories and the children happily waved at me saying “See you tomorrow”.

I was trying to recollect my favourite toy. My favourite toy was a small London bus which my Dad got me when I was small. Whenever I see the bus in London it reminds me of my childhood. I had the toy for many years. I wanted to click the famous London bus. Finally I made it one day. The picture you see in this post is the one I clicked when I was roaming in the city. The traffic is very busy.

Looking at the Traffic it reminded me of Prince Charles’s recent statements. He is being called as Green Prince. Recently he was on the headlines for his thought on Global warming. Prince Charles has told some of his staff to use bicycles in the fight against global warming. He is even prepared to travel to London by commuter train from a station near High grove. Charles will stop using royal helicopters and private jets on official engagements whenever possible. Charles has also told aides to find a more environmentally friendly fuel for his fleet of cars.

What are our ‘Manbumigus’ (Ministers) planning to do? Will they set an example or ask who cares?

I have bought a cycle just few weeks before, how about you?