Saturday, April 21, 2018

The last day of the Ganapati Kshetram's annual festival.

Had got up smack at 6, gone through the chores and relived the halcyon days of my younger days at home, the only difference being that my parents weren't there and my sisters were away at their respective homes. Went through the morning serials with a bit of deliberateness as John would be arriving at a half past 9.

Eventually, we'd reached the venue of the meeting viz. the government guest house at Asramam by about 5' to 11.

Today was the meeting of the Board of Management of the JSS, Kollam which I'd steered. Reviewed our performance during the last calendar year, identified our weaknesses and have fixed targets for the coming financial year. Maman was the special invitee and he did give us a few inputs for bettering our performance.

By the time the meeting was over, it was a half past 2. Maman had a flight to board for New Delhi from Thiruvananthapuram and so he, along with our staff colleague, Lekha made a dash after lunch. We had further deliberations and finally, left by a half past 3. Since it was the final day of the Kottarakkara Maha Ganapati kshetram's annual festival, the blocks on the direct route to my house - to facilitate the passage of the long procession consisting of caparisoned elephants, horses, a camel and thematic floats - were bypassed by John as he took me east by north east!

Meanwhile, Lekha had left for her sister's place by 2 to get a vantage position - a comfortable seat at the police station, facing the temple - to watch the entire set of proceedings.

John was sad that his task with me had come to an end, all too soon. After bidding him bye, I'd got into the house, finished the-winding-up-for-the-night-procedure of shutting down the windows, burning up the paper waste, readying the lamp at the pujamuri and as I settled down for the evening Malayalam news, realised that my cellphone was missing. I'd left it in John's car. Vijayan was told about it - I didn't have John's number - and after about 15', John had himself come and returned the instrument!

Vijayan, our caretaker, gave me company for about an hour or so, talking about a lot of things. There were a lot of pending mail and other work to do on the laptop. Lekha, finally, returned at about a half past 10 chaperoned by her sister, Letha and Maari.

It was, thus, a late supper and watching Crime Patrol on televion for a short while!


Tailpiece.

Our maid had told Lekha that she was beaten up by her husband again, last night. Her brothers have decided to report the matter to the police on Monday and Lekha has suggested to her that she and her son should shift along with her younger brother and family. Her incorrigible husband needs to be kept out of the house, for a while, with the police keeping a watch on him.

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