Age no bar

One of the most common terms you see in a traditional matrimonial advertisement is ‘Age no bar'. It is a declaration of zero conditions regarding the age of a potential future partner. While this is to find a possible match, I was fortunate to witness another flavour of ‘Age no bar’ during my school days. This time it was all about love, the love I was quite lucky to see between my dearest uncle and aunt.

Chittappa, that’s what we call dad’s younger brother in Malayalam and Chittamma for his wife. This was a time when internet slowly started making its presence felt in the houses in our town in Kerala. Chittappan and family were settled in US. One of those days, Chittappan had to travel alone to India. It was quite unusual to see them not being together since they were seldom seen apart when they travelled.

Chittappan that day, reached our home after a tiring flight. He freshened up and got me to connect the internet for him. Soon Chittamma was online on Yahoo Chat, one of the widely used chat engines those days. Voice chat was yet to be common and hence Chittappan had to type the statements in the chat window.

Let me give you a social background in Kerala while this was happening. I’m talking about a Kerala that was 25 years back. Those were the times when most parents very rarely expressed their love openly for each other. Words of love were hardly spoken, especially in public between the father and mother. I don’t really recollect my parents giving a hug in public. Any behaviour otherwise were not among the accepted norms in our society then.

While such a social behaviour existed, it won’t be an exaggeration if I say I was absolutely stunned when I saw the words Chittappan typed on the chat window. It was that time of the year when jackfruit was available in plenty in Kerala. As expats they must have shared a special love towards this fruit since it wasn’t that common in US. He asked her, “Chakka venodi chakkare” literally translated as “Do you need jackfruit darling”?

It may sound quite silly to be surprised at so simple a statement. But honestly, it was one of the biggest shockers of my life that someone who were of my parents’ age can speak like this publicly. It was something short of a taboo in a society where I lived. That day, I guess, changed my perspective about life. A realization of the meaning of love hit me hard. Chittappan and Chittamma, through their expression of love taught me one of the most valuable lessons in life. There is no age limit for love and more importantly do not hold yourself back from expressing your love to a dear one!

They were one of the earliest love birds I’ve seen. They taught me the happiness of being together. In a world when people get scared to be in a commitment let alone getting married, Chittappan and Chittamma were God sent real life examples for me to strongly believe in the beauty of a married life. The joy of the life they shared always reflected in the smiles they adorned. I’ve never seen either of them walking around with a frown. They appeared to me in a perennial state of bliss.

The flow of life is such that two distinct streams of water join hands in Holy Matrimony and flow together as one river. The love for each other nourishes the banks of this river thereby sharing the happiness they experienced with others. I’m so thankful to God that I’ve been a recipient of such endless love from a very beautiful river that flowed through my life.

A couple of weeks back, Chittappan slightly changed his course to join his Creator leaving behind a legacy along with Chittamma for an entire generation to learn and live on in the spirit of love.

May you all be blessed in this New Year with the presence of such wonderful people who enrich our lives while they are around and even after that!

The Mind Scale

It is almost that time of the year when some of us start doing a retrospection of our life in the last year. We look for what went well and what didn’t. There are few others among us who believe that such an exercise is futile and don’t even bother to invest time in this. This has always been an ongoing debate and could very well be a topic of discussion by itself. Let me not attempt that now. Instead I want to take a look at two distinct personalities among us when it comes to decision making.

Think about this scenario. Someone you know, a family member or a colleague asks you to do an activity. It could be a favour or an action you are asked to do. What is your natural way of responding to such a request? As soon as you are faced with the query, do you respond immediately? Alternately do you try to weigh the pros and cons of the question before even attempting a response? All of us belong to either of these categories.

There are some of us who are super quick with our response. This is a double edged sword. A quick response results in quick decisions. When the decision turns out to be beneficial for both the parties, it can be perceived as a positive decision. But this need not necessarily be the case always. There could be times when rushing to a decision will lead to unwarranted commitments from your side. You may not even have thought through all possible effects of your decision. Since you have given a commitment, you are now left with only two choices. You will be forced to fulfil the promise by taking a hit on your time or budget. Else you will have to go back on your word citing practical difficulties. Both leaves a bitter aftertaste.

The smarter ones do things differently. The moment they are faced with a decision making situation, something deep down in their mind gets activated. There is a mental weighing scale that comes alive in such situations. They’ll promptly put the pros and cons for the request or demand on the scale. A series of magical calculations does a fly past in their mind while they analyse all possible options. A well informed conclusion or decision is reached at the end of this exercise which is promptly communicated to the person who put the request forward. The benefit of this approach is a solid decision which they rarely have to change. If at all someone needs to change, it is usually the person who raised the request who’ll possibly need to make the required amendments.

Most often these difference in personalities are attributes of an individual. You could be born with these or could have inherited it. What is important is to realize the category you belong to. More importantly do an exercise to figure out what was your course of action when you faced such decision making situations in the past. How did you respond? Did you belong to the quick decision category or informed decision category? Did you face any challenges with the decisions you took or was it a cake walk? Did you ever have to go through a lot of pain to fulfil your promise or even had to go back on your words on a second thought? Did you ever tell yourself that you could’ve waited for some time before giving that commitment to someone? If you answered yes, then you may want to consider learning from those people who take informed decisions and apply it very well.

May this festive season help us reflect on our personalities and lead us to understand our decision making skills better. If required, may you be blessed with the courage to bring in the change required so that all your future decisions will be formed and received well!

Wish you all a Merry Christmas!  

The Fragrance

This was a few years before India started to hear words such as globalization and liberalisation. For a school going kid, a visit from an NRI uncle and family in Gulf had the excitement similar or even more than the annual feast at the local church.

Starting from preparations to receive the family to getting up at odd hours and waiting impatiently to get into a Tempo Traveller to head to the airport, obtaining the pass to the visitor’s gallery at the airport, rushing to find a suitable spot in the gallery, the anticipation of arriving aircraft, opening of the doors, counting the passengers getting down one by one and finally sighting the familiar faces of uncle and family, all contributed to the greatest experience of the year!

The icing on the cake was seeing the number of large bags uncle brought with him since everything about those bags was new to the pre-globalization eyes of a school going kid. As soon as we reached home, the baggage were promptly taken to the room that awaited their visit. Soon enough the whole room will have a very unique fragrance, the likes of which only comes with an NRI Gulf family of those times!

The days ahead will be filled with surprises after surprises. The joy of receiving a gift, the happiness of seeing things beyond your imagination and the overall experience of being with someone who crossed the proverbial seven seas were all adding to the experience.

A month will fly by and soon it will be time for uncle and family to return to their NRI status. I hated the trips to airport to see off someone, nevertheless I did go many times. Through tearful eyes we bid goodbye. It was a heart breaking moment to stand on the same viewer’s gallery and watch the aircraft take off.

You return home and try to relive the happy moments in the now empty room. All that remains is the fragrance from the bags that were in the room.

James Mukkadan, my uncle, who gifted me all those priceless moments is no longer with us as he joined the Creator earlier today (27 Nov 2019), for a well-deserved eternal life. He leaves behind a great legacy.

I now realize something more important. Uncle, what you left behind in that empty room was not just the fragrance from your bags. It is a whole lot of memories that you created with your genuine love and care. You will be deeply missed and remembered forever!