News from the Vacationers in Kerala

Jaya and Chaithanya just returned after a three week holiday from Kerala where it is raining cats and dogs. The South West monsoon struck during the last week of May and it has been raining without respite in "Gods Own Country". Maybe the repercussions are being felt in sweltering-hot Chennai with showers now and then including a big windy downpour on Saturday night that gave relief to many of the sleepers here in Velachery when we went without power. Amma and Achan had a wonderful incident to tell. They had been to the marriage of my cousin's son in the Guruvayoor temple. Amidst the thundering downpour some 225 couples got married that day. The place was a mess. It being an auspicious day for marriage couples booked slots and time on that day for tying the knot. Besides the decorated brides, grooms and their relatives, there were friends, camera crew and equipment, priests and regular devotees to the temple. At one point there was a small stampede when the gates of the "Sanctum Sanctorum" of the temple opened and some one rushing to the temple trampled one of mother's toes. The wound is still healing. I'd like to add something here about the marriages. For all these 200 odd couples only a handful (sometimes even lesser than that number) of priests conduct the marriages. Every time a couple is to appear before the priest (for the short duration of their marriage) their names are called. Now this is really a close call. It is a time when the the couple or their relatives have to listen carefully as there could be more than one person with the same name. This does call for confusion although mistakes are rarely made. One Malayalam movie was also made based on this confusion where one of the guys ends up tying the knot with the wrong girl with the same name as his bride.

We also had to hear the sad news that one our close family friends is now fighting cancer. We grew up together and she was like a mother to us. We treated and considered her children (like us, 2 brothers and a sister) as our own siblings. I will never forget her prawn curry and the innumerable times we have been at her place for lunch and dinner when we were here together in Chennai. Already having low blood pressure related problems I pray God gives her the strength to endure the 6 hr sessions that she has to endure on a regular basis where she is kept unconcsious for the entire period of the treatment. The other sad news was of a very distant relative Sangeeta who passed away in her early twenties in my mother's village of Arattupuzha. Sangeeta's sad story began 10 years ago when she was paralyzed in a car accident. Her newly wed brother was instantly killed and another suffered damage to his heart. The depression that the parents have been going through has been destroying them morally and physically too. May her soul rest in peace and may God give her family strength to "Go On".