Adoption need not only be children or animals!

                           

Adoption of two Tabibuea Roseas on Hayes rd

Our Rosea in Hoskote

Two young  Rosea trees were planted at the top of our Hayes Road. Then in typical BBMP fashion they are left to die with no maintenance. Thats when we decided to adopt them and water them till they could manage by putting down deeper roots to an underground  water source. Inbetween some nasty person beheaded one and we nursed the stump back to life. Now they have raised their heads and give us a lot of joy to see they are managing well and growing taller by the day. Time to stop watering, except for the occasional bottle I put on a Saturday.

 A baby Indian Almond

Then around a dozen Indian Almond, champas and Jamuns were planted near the St Josephs school. I tried asking the priests to water them but no response. So here were two old people, carrying a dozen  5 litre Bisleri bottles of water and watering the trees after Mass every week. People stared, but we didn't care. We kept watering and  had the most weird questions -- are you buying Bisleri and watering them? Give me a bottle rather than waste!  Today they have doubled their height and manage their own water. We have stopped  watering them completely.

Residency Rd medicinal Honges and spider lillies.

Then suddenly over night dozens of lovely young 2 feet tall Honges and spider lillies were planted on Residency rd. Ofcourse they were just planted, no watering after that. Many began to dry up and die and that bothered me on my morning jog past them. I asked Kiran the road sweeper and he smiled broadly and said "Definitely Amma!"and the trees kept dying. That's when we decided again to be the Good Samaritans and water the babies till they are able to find their own water source. 

Its so strange but people will feed dogs and asthma causing pigeons, but trees which will help clean the pollution in our cities, they don't see the positives. How do we educate us humans that our health and clean air is freely given by mature trees?? 

Trees clean the air by acting as natural filters, absorbing harmful gases like carbon dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide through their leaves. They also trap particulate matter like dust and smoke on their bark and leaves, while producing oxygen through photosynthesis. A single mature tree can absorb over 48 pounds of CO2 annually.

$48$

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Respect your lawyer

 

Dad always said lawyers are liars so I never thought much of the profession till I needed to use them for issues I had found myself involuntarily in. Sadly none of us became lawyers, which I think I most definitely could have. 

 

The very first time I faced a criminal case no less was a fake one foisted on my by a tenant of my family and encouraged by them to file it. It was over dogs -- you read right-- and I was supposed to have hit the tenant who was a consulate employees wife. I did not. But it was only after I got my students to slow down the video to show the DGP whom I met along with former DGP Francis Colaco that they realised who was the actual perpetrator. However the case had already been filed and as Francis said -- fight it out. But the lawyer I had gone to could only fight the civil case not the criminal case.

What do I do Father? I asked the principal of the college I was employed by. I had never gone to court leave alone face a criminal case.Just ask Mr Jagdeesha who teaches Media law and thats when I saw the power of a good lawyer. Tough as nails and in minutes he looked at the video and gauged the problem. Ill take it to the High Court and sort it Maam, relax. And in 10 days my case was quashed with him citing previous orders and closing it overnight.  The power of a good lawyer came home to me with that case and I realised it could have dragged on forever as my cheating family with their spouses especially, have no scruples. Case closed but I have NEVER forgotten.

The second case was over my farm in Hoskote. After 30 years the original owners filed a case to grab the land back. All my savings had gone into the property, sorry! I was not going to bend. I got a stay in the High Court and then fought it along with a tenant of mine who is a HC lawyer. Educated in Cambridge he said leave it to me and I'm glad I did as the property has made me rich overnight. Now I have the money to fight any more cases and smash them.

The third case was the original owner of the property where I have a GF flat, was bullying and threatening us and we really had no way to push him back. He was insisting our sale deed did not include the garden as he was trying to grab it to build a mall. Till, by chance I rented the place to a HC lady lawyer. I warned him to be careful as he started to bully her. He made the huge mistake of breaking up her name board -- that was it. The case was filed and we have a permanent injunction against him to stay away from us and our apartment. Standing in court with her fighting the case, my eyes opened to how skilled they are and how ethically strong a lawyer has to be to put a bully down.  

My attitude towards lawyers has changed drastically. I'm truly sorry I never thought of studying it. But NOW, I respect lawyers as they uphold the law and ofcourse you have to hire men or women who cannot be bought.

Climate change is getting our barren trees to fruit

 Climate change is getting our barren trees to fruit

Lichies are flowering!

Was I seeing right I wondered and my jaw just dropped open in shock to see the lichies are flowering in Hoskote. So glad they have flowered as a farewell to us as we've sold the farm and paper work will take some months. The lichies were grown from seeds by me decades ago and probably just fruited once. Then with Bangalore heating up they completely stopped flowering and fruiting for at least a decade. Now with Climate Change and the winters reverting to old Bangalore cold, the cold snap has shaken them up and they are flowering.

The avocados too are flowering!

Our avocados too just flowered and fruited only once. Now suddenly with the cold snap they are all budding and flowering! Its amazing to see and lucky before our handing over of the farm. Avocados need a male and female tree for pollination. It was fine in the Hayes road bungalow as every home had avocados so bees would cross pollinate over walls into different gardens. Here in Hoskote no one else has an avocado so I have planted four trees to cross pollinate. They are all the Haas ( German) variety sadly and not our regular, huge, Bangalore avocados which Mum and I would eat with no boundaries!

Apples fruiting too!

A Colonel in my Goa gardening group as a happy surprise, sent me a dozen, bare rooted, apple saplings, all the way from J & K! I remembered Dad planting Cherry blossom in Upper Shillong when he was posted there. They are blooming now says an officer friend who was stationed there recently. A tree remains as a memory of the person who planted it. Like Grandpas Malgoba and Dusseri which are growing and fruiting in the compound. These apples are fruiting now and to keep them happy I have bought a tractor load of chicken waste which they really enjoy.

A tractor load of chicken waste bought from the Godrej Chicken factory    

I've sold my farm

Thirty two years ago I bought my farm in Hoskote in Dads name. Looking at the picture above I cant imagine how disappointed I was when i impulsively bought the '' farm" which is pictured above from Davids French teacher. After doing the registration we drove down and I stood in utter shock when I saw the land. What a mess it was and all my savings had gone into it. Steve was a little guy and David 12. You can see his annoyed face at the purchase which I had spent my entire savings on!

It took a good 5 years before we even began to work the land as I had no money to sink in there. Then the surrounding farmers had begun to rob my soil, thats when I bought all the old chapdis from a convent and an old gate and started enclosing the land. It was hard as all the surrounding farmers protested, but I gave them a 10 ft access from the left and enclosed the rest. 

The farm today is gorgeous and no wonder the man who bought it has paid a whopping number of crores to me in compensation, as its a running farm today with a house and beautiful solar lights and he knows he is going to enjoy it. We have put thirty years of work into it and have changed what was rubbish into a Shangrila today.  Twenty five crores is nothing for what he has got.

I have planted only the best fruit trees which are all mature and fruiting now. He is getting a ready made orchard which will give him good returns. 

Two types of graft mangoes -- Raspuris and Mallikas. We have eaten and gifted and sold to our hearts content. Only the very best organic fruit.

Rose apples and star fruit, chickoos and Jamuns, avocado and pomegrante, custard apple and Ramphal, sitaphal and lichies. The list is endless.

In fact I brought a fruit picker all the way from London to pick fruit carefully rather than damage them while harvesting.

 
The first time I tasted the hybrid Mallika is when I decided I had to have at least 15 on the farm and I do. All graft saplings bought from Lalbagh and they give the most wonderful fruit.

It will take a few months before all the documentation is over and the farm changes hands, but its done and what we have received for our labour is a windfall, which has already gone to the boys towards their mortgages.

I'm sad Dad and Mum are not here to enjoy what we have worked on the two acres, but it has given us years of happiness and enjoyment and now once Steve has also left, its best we sold and gave them the money while they really need it. 
 

Our Steve is finally content!

 

Chief guest for our Furtavaddo Christmas event.

Why do we over think a child's request if it does not fit in with our idea of how his life should be? As parents when our youngest Steven wanted to join the priest hood we just brushed his request aside saying,"Finish your studies, then we can see!" My Uncle priest was ecstatic about his decision, but we were not thinking he could have been just impulsively wanting to join drawing his inspiration from Uncle Simon. Uncle Simon was my Dads older brother and a Jesuit.

 So over Christmas when he got 10 days off from the seminary, he asked us to go to Goa. Steve loves the vaddo and is happier now as we have become one with the village. Everyone remembers Dad coming fondly and now us over the decades to look after the house. The Parish priest took him usder his wing and gave him a week packed with so many programmes, it was a whirlwind Christmas for us.

We have not had a vocation in our village for over 20 years and so this is such an auspicious moment in our village history, said Fr Derrick our Parish priest. From exploiting his talent on the guitar to being the chief guest for so many events. Steve just blended in and the whole village loved him going Brother Steve, Brother Steve. 

He was an obedient son listening to what we as parents expected him to do, finishing his Post Grad and then even getting jobs which he enjoyed. But he was restless and wanted to leave. So one day he just decided to apply and after looking at the Jesuits and Redemptorists, he has joined the Diocese much to the joy of the  Arch- Bishop. I'm so glad a nasty relative ( sisters husband) who called him names has had to swallow his nastiness. Like I said Karma comes back to bite those who bad mouth others!

I'm just happy as a mother that he has found what he is content being a part of and I leave him in God's hands to guide forward.

Christmas in Goa

 For the very first time we were in Goa for the Christmas week. And what a week it was as now our youngest son has joined the priest hood and so we were thrown into the maelstrom of the church activities with him. Usually in Bangalore our activities hover around the Catholic Club and the St Josephs chapel. Here it was very different. The whole village threw themselves into all the activities of the church and for the very first time we really enjoyed a truly holy and blessed Christmas.

. The crib competition had creative cribs across the village an also IN the creek!

Since our youngest has joined the seminary, Brother Steven was so kindly and generously invited for all the church programmes and was made the chief guest at several of them. He made extempore speeches at our Somudai ( group) and went around with u s to judge the cribs across the village. We saw so many places and so many utterly fabulous cribs, our minds were in an absolute whirl after that. After patiently driving us around, Fr Derrick took us home to his dining room and gave us very welcome soup and croissants.

Our beautiful John the Baptist Church in Pilerne.

The whole village gets together and every house has to hang a star around the church for Christmas. When we visited the Parish priest on the 24th, Christmas Eve, there were kids helping to clean up the church property and hang the latecomers stars up for them. What  a wonderful way to celebrate the coming of the saviour. We who come from the city can never see this simple pleasures which bind the church together. All we do is come for midnight service which is not at midnight any more and after a slice of cake and wine we go off into the night to our own homes. Not so in Pilerne. Here the Parish priest has encouraged the parishioners to enthuse the week with various programmes which bring them all together till the 6th Jan which is the feast of the Epiphany.

I prefer the pure white exterior of churches in Goa.

So from being the chief guest at a sports event and playing the guitar for Mass Steven was roped in every single day to participate and support the church celebrations. He headed the saying of the Rosary and gave out the prizes at a special Furtavaddo event. And suddenly asked to make speeches too did not seem to faze my boy at all. Im  so glad he was encouraged to showcase his talent of playing the guitar and so he has never had any fear of crowds or speaking.

Playing with the choir

It was an absolutely wonderful week when we had such a warm and inclusive Christmas celebration. "Everyone is just like us Mum!"said Steve and that true. The similarity in thought and likes came out in a huge way, enveloping the three of us with memories of a Christmas we will never forget.

IIT to America - my recent book

 

My latest book I was commissioned to write.

I was headed on my annual visit to the boys when I found an email in my inbox from my professor colleague in Iowa State Unie, requesting me to be agreeable to write a sort of autobiography of a friend  who was his IIT buddy and now lived in the US for the last four decades. Kamala Rajan had grown up dirt poor in a slum in Chennai and through various serendipitious chances which he grabbed with both hands he  got into the prestigious IIT and then onwards and upwards to the US. 

When I first aw the email while I was travelling through London to the US I felt who the heck wants to write about a rich dude who just wants to show off? Hardly what I would enjoy writing about. My travels took me onwards to the US and there my Professor friend said cummon write the book, hes a very decent man. I said give me time to read the brief and I'll get back and that was that. One month flew by in the US and I arrived back in the UK. Sitting quietly in my room one afternoon while the house was quiet, with all away on their work I re read the email and the brief and was instantly hooked.

The story was a shocker and so compelling for me, coming from a fairly comfortable back ground. The hunger Rajan had faced was unimaginable for me. Just by chance his muslim friend asked him to accompany him to Loyola college to put in his application. Loyola was my dads old college so that was another plus.

 Standing there in the que with rich children he was embarassed with his broken chappals. When the registrar came and shouted at them for coming to this hallowed institution, his friend stood up for him and said -- look at his marks card and you will see his true value. The registrar looked at the marks card and walked up to the principals office with it. In minutes the principal came out in his cassok and asked -- Who's Rajan?  and the rest as they say is history. The Jesuit priest saw Rajans worth and gave him the first step forward like all our religious institutions do.

 

Read my book -- it gives you an idea of the poor boys determination to succeed. Today he heads a multi-million dollar conglomerate in the US and India. And my fee of 8 lakhs I divided it between my grand daughter for their University fees. My needs are small and I really need to see the girls are well educated so they can always stand on their own two feet and not get dictated to by any silly man.