Oldies but Goldies

The Vintage Car Rally marks the end of the 'Season' at Ooty. We do have a month long program of events which include a Boat Regatta, Dance and Music, Photographic Shows and other events which are never well publicized; which means besides the organizers and participants, very few people attend any of these programs.

The popular events are the Flower Show, the Dog Shows and the Races. These are held during the weekends when the locals don't go out if they can help it because traffic and crowds become so horrendous.

But the Car Rally was something I had to go to, because my friend Geetha was exhibiting her Morris 8 of 1947. She'd spent the last few months getting it painted and polished and reupholstered. Geeth said there was not one bit of rust on the 60 year old car.
I know the great amount of effort she puts into sourcing original parts. And she was rewarded this year with a prize for Best-Original Car.



Grand old ladies get a day out!

This year included an exhibition of old scooters and bikes too.
The car fanatic is a special breed. And these hobbyists certainly find a reason for living. For them , this was a great day displaying their beauties and hob nobbling with people who prize their cars above money.

Way Down Upon the Backwaters

Last weekend was our short getaway-from-Ooty trip to Aleppey, sailing down the backwaters. Initially, meant to be for four of us, in the Velcro-effect in our family, numbers grew and grew till we were 12 and we had to hire another boat.
After the efforts of organizing the trip and coordinating everyone's schedules and travelling the 300 km from Coimbatore to Allepey besides babysitting 8mth old to 80 year old father, it was bliss to get on the boat and just be.

Im just putting in pics in the hope they say it all.

My niece Gigi with her son . Rebel-teen nephew Sajit, happy to be away from parents. And EAT all day!
Sindhu and my niece, Haru. Happy to be away from college.

Junior nephew Sanjay - his parents were the trial- constantly calling to find out how he was. Blisffuly, signals became very weak.


More people on the other boat. Cousins displaying unseemly 'Titanic' spirits; to the horror of their kids.


The very comfortable deck.

Meals are provided. You don't have a choice of menus. You don't have 'something to see'. Just drift down and sleep and eat. Heavenly holiday.

Narayana Gurukulam

Many many years ago, when Darshini had just started school while Sindhu went to nursery ,we were living in a little flat of 4 rooms totaling 400 sq ft. on Upper Bazaar Street, right in the centre of Ooty town. One day we had two visitors. They had been given our address by my sister Karthy who was working in Trivandrum. One was her house owner and the other, his friend. They’d come to look around Ooty. Their easy assumption that they would be staying with us, took my breath away and with it my words and the objections that rose in my mind.

Two memories have stayed with me.

I had a collection of 20-30 pots on the tiny balcony of which I was rather proud. My idea of gardening then was to buy pots from the market, fill them with mud from the side of the road, get some small cuttings from friends ; plonk the pots on the balcony and water them assiduously. There was green enough for me to think it was all working well. Till this gentleman from green Kerala pronounced ‘not one healthy plant among them’. Since my plants are still not winning prizes, I can’t say I really learnt a big lesson from this..

The other was that the visitors wanted to go to the Narayana Gurukulam. I had never heard of the place in the Ooty chukker of Boat-house-garden-Doddabetta. Well, being enterprising people they found their way there without any assistance from me. I was intrigued that people from so far away knew something about Ooty that I hadn’t heard of.

But, it was a couple of years later that I got to visit the Narayana Gurukulam after I acquired a Keralite friend. Narayana Guru was a saint, sage, social reformer who did much to transform the caste ridden society of Kerala. He established several temples and educational institutions. His disciple, Natarja Guru established the Narayana Gurukulam at Ooty. His successor, Guru Nitya Chaitanya Yeti stayed here for long periods. People talk of him as larger than life and a man of great intelligence and zest for life. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the opportunity to interact with him.

The Gurukulam is a place which seems to have bridged the gap between the spiritual and practical, with an air of peace and acceptance. Small buildings are scattered over the campus; there is a beautiful shrine to the gurus filled with light and silence; a Zen maze where one walks to find solutions to problems (you walk through the maze all the while focusing on your problem and you should come out with the answer or the beginnings of one in your mind), the house where Guru Chaitanya Yeti used to live, a hall for programs and housing for the monks and guests.

After a long gap, last week I was at the Gurukulam for its annual function to celebrate the birthday of Narayana Guru . Prayers and talks are followed by ‘annadhanam’ and then a program of dance and music. This time, a friend of ours was the speaker. Mr. B.J.Krishnan, a lawyer and keen advocate for the environment and conservation spoke on his pet subjects. It was a bright sunny day and the function, held among the trees and graceful buildings, was so peaceful. The audience listened in absolute silence to the speakers.

Lunch followed – served on long benches set out under the trees. Without the usual hustle and pushing; it was so good. People had to wait for empty plates – each one had to wash his own – and there was no sign of anxiety or hurry.

In a flight of fancy, I wished that Sindhu’s wedding could be conducted in similar style, without excessive formalities or tension and people relaxing and enjoying just being there.

Option E: None of the Above

The Indian voter has an option to say ’I don’t wish to vote for any of these candidates’.

If you are dissatisfied with the candidates on offer in your constituency and think they don’t deserve your vote; then by provision 49- O, you can go to the polling booth, confirm your identity, get your finger marked and tell the electoral officer that you don’t wish to vote.

Recently, a campaign has spread awareness of this rule through mail and SMS and pamphlets. See this link to know more about the campaign in North India.

To strengthen the case for voting 49-O, the mails say that if the number of '49-O' votes polled are more than those of the winning candidate, then the poll will be cancelled and re-polling done. Furthermore, the contestants will be banned from the re-polling for their life times.

Unfortunately, this is not true. 49-O is merely a rule for negative or neutral voting.The exact Rule can be found here.

When I first heard about 49-O, I thought what a waste of public money! to hold a re-election. We might as well make the best choice of whatever ( or whoever) is available to us.

But, last night when I went through the list of candidates for our constituency, I was stumped to come up with the right or best candidate. Of the candidates from the three major parties, one is corrupt, one is terribly terribly corrupt and the third has 3 criminal cases pending against him. None of them are from our district. The remaining dozen people are absolutely unknown. What chances do they have on a national footing?

So I thought I would use the 49- O option. Not an easy decision to make or execute. First, I queued up in a booth with early birds all going off to work. Then they couldn’t match my voter ID. I was sent off to the party people to find my number. This took 45 minutes and I was escorted back to a different booth by our ex-Councillor who was happy to use this opportunity to spew abuses on the ruling party/govt. for the poor organization of voter lists.

After all the trouble he took, I was a little loath to turn in a null vote. But I did say “ I want to use the 49- O" loudly enough to create a furor. At first no one understood my request, then the chief officer made me sign in a book and wrote ‘Refused to vote’ which has made me rather sad.