Congratulations Chandan Shenoy !

Chandan Shenoy from Varapuzha, receiving the award

 

Chandan Shenoy is the grand son of The Shenoy who ran the Kanchana Medicals at Varapuzha.

Take this opportunity to congratulate Mr. Chandan Shenoy and wish him many more successes in the future.

Shame less Indians !

we dont accept Indian rupees - Cochin International Airport

 

Each time I visit the duty free at cochin international airport, I get hurt (may be becuase I take pride in being an Indian). In cochin international airport (CIAL) airport alone Indian currency is not accepted. They accept all other currencies. When I asked about this, they put the blame on customs. When I spoke to the customs guy standing there, he said there is no such instruction given by them.  Can you imagine about an American duty free shop, where USD is not accepted. Can you think of a Dubai duty free where Dhirhams are not accepted?. 

Oh! shameless Indian, at last apart from me, it took a foregner to quetion this injustice….and we are celebrating. What a Shame !. 

If you want to join hands with me, in fighting this injustice, please share your views….

Letter to Sebastian Paul, Our MP

Dear Member of Parliament – Covering Varapuzha,

Hope you are doing well. None of us have neither seen you nor heard of you for a very long time, to be precise we have not seen you after the last elections. Our roads in the heart of the city (Ernakulam) are all broken up. WAste is piling up every where. People are falling sick. Every day atleast 10 people are dying.  I am down with fever and the hospital I went was  crowded with similar cases. In fact I first went to Dr.Zacharias clinic and it was full so I went to the hospital at Koonammavu. These are the news from here. You may not be aware of all these, since you are busy at Delhi, representing us.

Dont worry about us and our welfare.  Keep enjoying. Go hell with people. We need them only during the next election. Till then make merry.

Cheers !

Citizens of Kerala

Bangalore, Varapuzha and America

I love Bangalore and Varapuzha. Bangalore is where I was born. I did my college there and worked there for around eight years.  Varapuzha is the place where I spent my schooling days. I am nostalgic about these places and at the same time these two places are in total contrast to each other. One striking contrast is – In Bangalore people love fun, and you can see lot of fun and laughter around you, where as @ Varapuzha all you see is grim faces, or people who smile at you to get something from you. As per the conventional thinking, people say that in cities people are very self centric. From my experience it is totally different. At Varapuzha, people are more self centric than Bangalore. People are very narrow minded, and behave more like frogs in a well.

I see lack of role models as one of the major causes for this kind of behavior. In cities, youngsters are very ambitious and for them there is no dearth of role models. In the villages of Kerala, you have only one Mohanlal and Mammootty, and most of their movies are filled with violence. There are lot of achievers in these villages, but they dont get the visibility, these negative heroes enjoy.

Recently, my brother in law Mr.Paul, who is settled in the US for more than three decades was sharing his experience in Kerala with me. Paul, called his uncle over the phone just say ‘Hello’ to him and to just talk to him for a while. He greeted his uncle, and chatted with him for some time. Then he said bye. At that point his uncle asked him ‘Now come to the point, why did you call me?’.  Normally people call him, only when they need something from him. Here is an American settled Indian, just calling his uncle out of love and care, which his uncle is not used to, as per the culture here.

May be, for a change, let us smile more…. it will definitely look better than the grim faces…

Rev. Fr. Pallan and the Christ the King Church

I am sure that many of the latest generation would not have seen Fr.Pallan, the main visionary in building the new Christ the King Church. It is indeed an engineering marvel. Like any great feats, it was made possible by the sheer determination of a one man army called Fr.Pallan, a towering 6 feet + tall figure, who dared to dream high. I always remember him as a gigantic figure both physically and mentally, who loved people. He had an adopted son. If i remember the name correctly his name was ‘Peter’. He had one dear pet dog (labrador), which used to roam around in his quarters.

 During those days (days before the new church), the holy mass was conducted in a shed, which could contain only half the crowd, and the rest was in the open. It had it’s own charm. Everything was very simple. And teens had enough opportunities for amble eye contact with their romeos and juliets, during the mass, as the boys and the girls had seperate places, facing each other.

At that time Fr.Pallan realized the need for this new church. He had the replica of this in his room and he wanted to make it a reality. he got some funding from abroad, which was insufficient. The construction was at a very slow pace, due to poor funds and technical issues. By God’s grace and sheer guts, he could overcome all the challenges and make his dream come true. I was a boy when all these was happening.

Today, when I see this curch in all it’s splendour, I realize, what a marvellous feat it was, is and will be…….One man’s dream, becoming the dream of all and then materializing… and all the fun, joy, sweat and the sorrows on the way. True to his nature, I dont see any physical engravings in the church premises about Fr.Pallan. He has already engraved it in our hearts.

Thank you dear father, for all you have done to us.

(Fr. Pallan is no more)

A BIG thanks to the Kerala Police

Like any other organization, there can be good and bad people within the Kerala Police also, and very often only the bad stuff gets highlighted. I am sure that every day they are doing thousands of good deeds, which never gets highlighted, where as most of the bad ones gets a front page coverage in news papers.

Again coming back to Malayala manorama dated 21/Apr/2007, the front page caption is Abhishek Bachan’s wedding with Aishwarya Rai.. and the next column is the suicide attempt by Abhishek’s old flame. I am sorry to see Manorama scooping to this level, to increase their circulation.

I think Iam deviating from the main topic. The good deeds by the Kerala Police. Yesterday I was driving down to Kochi from Coimbatore and it was raining heavily. One the way, there was a road block becuase a trailer lorry met with an accident and blocked the whole road. It was pouring heavily, and a young team of Kerala police swung into action, when all of us were just taking shelter from the heavy rains in our vehicles. Within one hour the entire road block was cleared by these smart young guys from the Kerala Police. Thanks a ton to them, for their brilliant work, to serve the public.

Here is a caption written on the plice jeep ‘POLITE and FIRM’

Keep up the good work, dear friends!

A day with the kids @ Varapuzha

Today I have three surprise visitors at home, my nephews kids. They are enjoying the village settings. The first thing they did after getting out of the car was ‘attending nature’s call, open air’ amidst the abundant greenery, which no one can experience in a city. Then they were confined in the building by their grand mother as she was scared to let them free into the open orchards as there is a well, a pond and canals within it. So once again I switched on the e-games on the desktop and they started playing the car racing game. They mastered the game within no time. Then wanted to play FM radio through the mobile. A small tension broke out among them for the possession of the phone, and again to my surprise they sorted it out by sharing the hed phones among two of them and the phone with the third one. An amazing demonstration of self organizing teams. No body instructed them, what to do, but they found out a way of their own, which really worked for them.

A good day for all Keralites ……

If yesterday’s news paper carried some very negative news, today all of us have some very wonderful news.  Kris Gopalakrishnan is promoted as the M.D of Infosys and Shibu Lal is promoted as the COO of Infosys. Both are Keralites. Kris Gopalakrishnan hails from Trivandrum where as  Shibu Lal is from Muhamma, Alleppey.

Both were founder members of Infosys, along with Narayana Murthy, when they started with just Rs.10,000 capital. Last financial year Infosys made a profit of Rs.3850 crores and the total turnover is Rs. 13,893 Crores. The total number of employees as of today is 72,241.

Godd luck to both Kris and Shibu Lal. Let them take Infosys to new heights.

Our dear post man

I know him for the past 25 years, yet I dont know his name. He is a very honest and committed person. He does his job with utmost commitment. I consider him as a perfect gentle man and have tons of respect and affection for him. He is about to retire after 35 years of selfless service. Wish him peace and happiness in the years to come. See the photos….  Have a great day !