𝑨𝒎𝒎𝒖'𝒔 𝑴𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔!

  Above is a photo of my father with his siblings ( standing) when he was about 12.  He was born in 1917. I have very fond memories about my father but looking at this photo I started wondering, what it must have been to be a son at that age?  To have a father who was probably one of the most famous people in the state of Kerala then, to have a father who went to jail for 6 months when he was just 4 years and then again in 1930 when he was just 13 for standing up against the British rule. First one in Kerala to go to jail. Once when I started asking him about my grandfather  (achachan), he said “Ammu do you know, I never knew my father; he was never there for us”.  Now when I think about it, I feel it was words of a loving son, a little boy who missed his father immensely.  From the time my father was 4, Achachan was always working or travelling. If he was at home, he was busy with his leadership role as the head of the Congress committee (just an insti...

Vishu is just not a celebration for me. There are many memories attached to this ritual of a bygone era, a time of utmost happiness and contentment, full of nostalgia from my childhood and much more.   Vishukani   Vishu has always been a very important holiday in our immediate and extended family. In my younger days the two months of summer vacation (April/May) were usually spent at my maternal grandmother’s house in the outskirts of Kottakkal town in Kerala where Vishu was celebrated. My grandmother would wait for all of us to go to bed and then start decorating the altar with fruits, vegetables, mirror, jewelry, money, Konna flowers, a grandham (a book. usually Bhagavat Geetha), Vishari (a fan made out of starched wooden cloth with a gold border), pictures of Guruvayoorappan and broken coconut with cloth lamps in them decorated in beautiful shiny urulis (Uruli is a traditional cookware extensively used in Kerala, commonly made of clay, copper and bronze). And ...