Take 123

In the news channels, we see a lot of people opining on various things. It can be from Indo Pak relationships to the price of safety pins.
When I see this, I am reminded of an incident that happened quite some time back. This incident happened 6 years back. There was a company where I worked for a month. This company was a partnership firm and one of the partners was a politician’s son. (My mom was the most relieved when I quit the company, as she always imagined that politician’s sons were no good – but actually, this fellow was a decent person)
Well, one day, there was an India Pakistan match. There was a reporter from a popular channel, with the camera and crew. No names, as this person is a very popular politician now. This persons father and the partner’s father belonged to the same political party.
Well, they made us stand at various locations in the office (for it to look like they were actually interviewing people, from a lot of offices) and speak on Indo Pak unity. You won’t believe it; they took two of the employees to the beach, and interviewed them there, to again give the interview the appearance of mass coverage. I was shocked at this kind of journalism. Then, I was very excited about appearing on TV. But as soon as I saw the telecast, I was kind of ashamed; that I had participated in such a staging, duping the mass.
So even now, when I see people giving opinions and so on, I am reminded of this.
So much for responsible journalism !!!

My Ammachi

This time, when I went to Kerala for a vacation and visited my Ammachi (grandmother), I thought that I should write about her. She was widowed at 32, and still managed to raise her 6 daughters well.
She is close to 80 now and is a reader of the Malayala Manorama newspaper for the past 60 years. Lives all by herself, with a maid for company. She still wears beautiful starched neriyathu and white white chatta and mundu. She has very severe arthritis of her left knee, and the right too is not too good. With the latest feavers affecting Kerala, she had an attack of Chikunguniya. This has left her all the more in pain.
She was a part of the Asharayathu family, Thumbamon. She got married when she was 13, and my grandfather 17. After marriage she went back to her house and then went to live with my grandfather when she was 17.
She was pregnant with her sixth child, 3 months gone, when my grandfather died of a snake bite. She was 32 with 5 daughters and pregnant and all alone.
They sold off the land they had and moved to another place. She had the financial support from my grandfather’s brothers and that’s it. She had 6 beautiful daughters (the genes I say they inherited from her) and had to ward off men, drunken men, old men, young men..all men , all the time.
She is a very very strong woman. Single handedly she looked after her 6 daughters and looked after her land. Many a times she had driven off drunken men off her property. Such strength I have never seen in anyone I know of. My mother says that the men in the area were scared of her. She would never be scared to pick up the vetukathi (a big knife) and be after the men who tried to trouble her daughters. Such courage, my Ammachi had. Never have there been any rumors of affairs or activities of any sort, about her or her daughters, which is quite a surprise in our country, when a woman lives all alone with daughters.
She is still a very strong person, with very strong opinions and principals. Since all these years of her life, she has been the sole decision maker, she gets irritated if any one advises her to go and live with her daughters :-) . She says she is capable of taking care of her self. She is the most courageous and strongest woman I have ever met. Her endurance and her way of life…. A sad story this may be, but, a very strong one.

Titleless

Long since I wrote
Each time I see something worth blogging about, I compose it in my mind…
But don’t have the time to put it down.