C-4-Our old quarter at Moolamattom..

We started from Koyilandy in train to Ernakulam. Distance was around 250kms (which is quite a distance in this part of world). Train took around 5-6 hours to reach Ernakulam. From Ernakulam we had lunch and took bus to Moolamattom. By the time we reached Moolamattom, it was already quite dark out there. Might have been around 7-8pm. We took auto from Bus Stand to our quarters. It was around 5kms around the hill to reach our quarters.

We were in for a shock when we reached our quarters. The quarters in itself was very beautiful with very big rooms. It had couple of bed rooms, living room, dining room, study, kitchen, work area, room for servant etc. There were big in-build wardrobes and glass shelves in all the rooms. It was built long ago during the commissioning of Idukki Hydro Electric project developed with the support of Canada. Every room had tube lights and big fans. Now that was good part about the quarters. About the shocking part now- We were opening the wardrobes that we had in room and check cloths kept inside the bags. We were able to see any bags or cloths but instead we could only see termites in all the wardrobes. Now that was something that we never expected there. It might be because of the climate out there. It was quite chilling there at that time. One of the major reasons why I prefer such climate as compared warm days might be because of getting used to such climate at Moolamattom. We had some cloths in the suitcases and which Achan didn’t keep inside any of the wardrobes. So that saved day for us. It might have quite difficult for Achan and Amma to manage all the things there with two of us running around in the new house.

It was closing days of the vacation time for the kids and most of kids in the neighborhood were not around. As I told earlier, everyone was going to their hometown during the vacations. So I could not see much of them at that time. There were 6 quarters in our place. Our quarter no was C-4.

Let me take you through the others who are staying from C-1 to C-6.

C-1
Balakrishnan Uncle and Jayasree Aunty. They had a daughter- Sreebala(Mithu). She was one year younger to me. We were family friends even before moving to Moolamattom. So it was to nice have them there. They were from Calicut itself.

C-2
Venkiti Uncle and Booma Aunty. They had a boy Vijay who was 3 years younger to me. They were from Chennai.

C-3
Gopi Uncle and Usha Aunty. They had two kids- Anitha Chechi and Anoop. Anoop was of my age and Anitha chechi was 5 years elder to me. They were from Perumbavoor.

C-5
That was vacant when we moved in.

C-6
Sasi Uncle and Girija Aunty. They have two kids. Priya Chechi and Lakshmi. Priyachechi was 4 years elder to me and Lakshmi was of Kingini’s age. They were from Kottayam.

Since there were only six quarters in the locality, all the families were very close to each other. We used to have family get together at any of the quarters once in a month.

After C-6, there were another 12 quarters belong to C class itself. C quarters belonged to Asst. Exe. Engineers of KSEB. C-7 to C-18 were in another part little far from our quarters. There were many kids staying in those quarters also. I still remember many of those faces even now. Rajish, Manu, Ashokan, Deepak, Eldhose, Darshan, Abhilash, Anish, Sajith and many older chettans. I don’t remember all of them now. I’m getting old.

Oh yes, there was one more C class quarters situated away from rest. That belonged to the doctor who was working in the hospital of KSEB. Yes, we had a hospital over there to look after all the people staying over there. In total there should be around 150 quarters and with almost 500 people residing there.

In addition to hospital, there was also an school and club facility available there. But I'm not sure if it was the best school available around. School was called IHEP (Idukki Hydro Electric Project) Upper Primary School. One thing I remember was there was big football ground for that school which was always filled with people in every day evening. Same can be told about club also.

I was asked to take a test before joining the school. School re-opened on first week of June as always. It was time for heavy rain during that time in Moolamattom. School bus used to come to our place around 8.30-8.45. I was sad that Anoop was studying in a different school. By the time school re-opened we had about 2-3 days to play with each other it was a good time. Anoop was a very good boy and we all kids played together. So I had started to enjoy the new place.

It is a totally different world when we join a new school, right? I was a stranger in the class and there were few like that who joined the new school. There were many people from KSEB colony and they all went to school in a green school bus. I still remember Ramachandran Chettan who used to drive our school bus. So in few days time, I was able to make few friends. But it takes some time to get in to any new group and that was the case with me also. Also me being a shy person at that time didn’t help me in anyway.

Kingini joined the same school in LKG and she was very interested in going to school. Almost opposite to how I was when I was a kid. I don’t think she ever cried while going to school. Though it is around 23 years ago, I still remember how I used to take Kingini to LKG class room. LKG and UKG were in a different building as compared to other classes.

As the school was run Christian management, there were lots of nuns who were taking the classes. It was the first time in my life I met a nun in my life. For me they resembled Muslim ladies whom we see in plenty in Calicut. But the only resemblance between them was that both were wearing Parda (scarf of their head). It was told to me that school was a very strict one and they won’t give you breathing space and all. On joining the school, I also understood that what ever I heard was true.:-)

More about Moolamattom and my school days in the coming posts….

Preview- Moolamattom

Where do I start about my life at Moolamattom!!

I am totally at sea as I don’t know from where I can pen down my thoughts on my life at Moolamattom. I didn’t know anything about that place when I first heard about Moolamattom. Obviously no one will expect a 7yr old boy to know anything about a place like Moolamattom at that time. I think it was in the year ’87 Achan got transferred to Moolamattom from Neeleshwaram. I was in the middle of my 2nd standard. I don’t remember the exact month in which it happened. It might be Jan-Feb, I’m not sure of it. One thing that I knew was that I am going to miss all my friends out there.

When Achan went to Moolamattom, we three (Amma, Kingini and myself) went to Koyilandy. I think we stayed for 2-3 months, I’m not sure. Since it was in the middle of year with 2-3 monthly remaining to complete the academic year, we decided that I will be joining school in next academic year in the new class. Also we didn’t know anything about the new place. So Achan decided to go the new place initially and see how things are there and later we will join him if everything was alright.

Moolamattom was very far from Koyilandy. Also we can’t travel in train from Koyilandy to Moolamattom. I hate traveling in bus and I used to vomit while traveling in train. So whenever we used to travel in bus, I used to take ‘Avomin’ and sleep. So more bus travels and more ‘avomins’ to swallow. Achan told that we will be staying in staff quarters in Moolamattom. Also the entire set of quarters was location in big hill. So I was thrilled to hear that as I have seen those hills only in movies. Now I am going to stay in such place. Great!

Achan also enquired about the school and they agreed to take me in the new class. (3rd). It was a school run by nuns and it was supposed to be a good school in the locality. Name of the school was Sacred Hearts. Also there will be school buses that used to take us from our quarters to school. Sounds good. In the last school (Chinmaya mission Neeleshwaram), I used to walk to school as there was no school bus to our locality. Also there were more kids in the neighborhood. So I can play with them. But one thing that I didn’t like about the place was that, we will be traveling to Koyilandy only during the major holidays like Onam, Christmas and summer vacations. So only three visits a year! Now that’s not good. Kingini will also be joining in the new school in LKG.

Climate was also quite different there. It used to rain heavily in the months of June, July, Aug etc. So no going out and playing during those months. On added attraction was that we could see 2 waterfalls if we walk outside out house. Now that sounds good. I don’t think I have ever seen waterfall before that. That’s also good. I was really eager to go and see all these things over there.

Seems this were thoughts that I had before going to Moolamattom from what I heard from Achan.

Lets see how it goes from here. Will pen down more next time.

After a long break...

It’s been a while since I wrote here.

Well I am not looking for any excuses; it’s just that I did not have enough motivation to write here. That’s the truth though I can look for common excuses like hectic schedule, work etc. I feel we go for excuses when someone is going to question us on something and somehow we need to defend our self.

Time is flying really fast. Quite lots of things happened from the time I stopped writing till today.

On the personal front, Adi is growing and he is quite a handful at this stage. He has started to stand up slowly on his own. Before he used to sit in one place and play from there but now it’s not same anymore. He doesn’t sit and play anymore. He is moving around in his own way all the time. Somebody needs to be with him all the time these days.

Anju and Adi are at her home in Cochin now. It’s been around one month now. They will be back in TVM by June mid or so. So I am all alone home at TVM. So I am a commuter between Cochin and TVM during the week ends.

Achan and Amma are now in Singapore for one month vacation. It’s vacation time for Achan and it seems that they are enjoying it over there. They visited Malaysia last weekend. We (me n Anju) had been to Singapore n Malaysia last year or so. It was a good break for us as well. We might be planning for our next vacation in a year or so.

News from office is that I have moved out to a new project. Though the new project is very small project compared to my old project, it feels good to be here. It’s a good learning experience for me as I move to a totally different domain. I am sure this will help me in my career one way or other. Only thing that I am missing from my old project is my friends. But we still keep in contact one way or other but I know that things won’t be same with them anymore.

Before when Anju, Amma n Adi were here at TVM with me I was not getting much of free time. I had lots of things in my mind to do then. I planned to do lots of things when I get free time. Bought lots of books and wanted to catch up with many movies. But now that I have lots of free time at home, I am not doing much. I do read books and watch movies but not enjoying it that much.

Last week I had been to Chennai for US Visa interview. It’s through and I got the visa stamped for 10 years. So I can travel to US anytime in the next 10 years. Before, getting US Visa was very tough. The rejection rate was more than 50%. Now it seems it’s easier. I could also feel the difference in the interview. The interviewer had many questions last time when I went for the interview. Then it was all your luck. Now it seems rejection rate is much less.

I am still not able to come out of one of the country's worst aviation disaster, of Air India Express, in which 158 people were killed. Before, aviation disaster was less frequent but it is becoming more n more frequent these days. On comparing with other modes of transportation, frequency might be less but the fatality rates are very high in this case. Dreams of many families might have shattered ‘coz of this mishap. Hope they are able to come out of it soon.

I had a chat with one of my childhood friends last week. He talked about our good olden days when we were kids. Only tension those days was home works and exams in school. Let me gather my thoughts on my school days at Moolamattom and I will try to pen down my thoughts soon.

My Back Pain

Hi All,

I was having back pain from the last two weeks. I am not sure what was the reason but somehow there was no improvement in spite of using common pain balms.

I went to hospital couple of weeks ago and it was the biggest hospital in Trivandrum. Since my company was making payments directly to the hospital it was automatic choice for me and my friends. We all know that the hospital was very expensive compared to other hospitals but we still went there as there was less headache for settling the hospital bills.

I reached hospital and met a physician. As I mentioned last time, he gave me paracetamol tablets. It didn't do me any good. Also I didn't like the doctor and hence I didn't want to meet the same doctor again. Luckily for me that doctor was not available at that time and I met another doctor, this time another physician. The new doctor was much younger than the first one and I had met him once. He did a very short analysis and he asked me to take blood test and X-rays. I was actually little tensed when doctor told me that he was not ruling out the possibility of Spinal TB. He said that the chance for Spinal TB was very less and he will be able to rule out the possibility of Spinal TB based on results of blood test and X-rays.

The doctor was on leave for the next couple of days and he told me to come on third day with the results. I collected the results for blood test on the very same day and I was quite relieved to see the results of the blood test. The report said everything was fine and I thought doctor would rule out the option of Spinal TB as he promised last time. How wrong I was!

Achan had come here for the extended weekend and he also come along with me to the hospital. We met the doctor and I thought he would suggest some exercises to get over the pain. But doctor told me that he was not able to rule out the possibility even based on results. He suggested me to take MRI scan to completely rule out the possibility. Since we trust doctor's judgement most of the times, I decided to go by what doctor has advised. Another reason why I decided to go by what doctor had advised was, treatment was free for us in that hospital.

We went to take MRI scan in the hospital and the place was not crowded. In fact I was the only patient there. They told me that it will take 20-30 min for scanning. I was asked to change my dress and they gave me a pair of dress to put on while doing the scan.They told me that it will be little hot and loud sounds inside. It was little frightening for me. The whole thing was little suffocating for me even though they told me to relax.But once you are in there's no way out of it. Hence only thing that I could do was to close the eyes and pray. I some how managed it, thats the best that I can say about it.

Once the scanning was completed, I was given the bill. It came to Rs. 8,000. It was bit too much for me to digest and I did not expect bill to be that high. If I was aware of it, I would have taken opinion from couple of other doctors before doing the scanning. Poor company who's going to pay the bills for me.

Next day, I went to the the doctor and as expected he said everything is fine. He told me to meet physiotherapy department. So I went to meet the physiotherapist and he advised me to do few exercises. I think I am going to do few exercises in the coming days and just hope that I will be alright soon.

I heard that doctors are paid commission if they bring income to the hospital. So I made my doctor richer by doing MRI scan. I am not sure if he could have avoided the MRI scan. I feel he could have avoided and as results were more or less evident from the X-rays and blood results. I was also told that, that particular hospital while taking new doctors told them that they had to increase the business of the hospitals. So what will happen to the poor patients who go to such hospitals?But poor people normally don't go to such hospitals. Even if they go there couple of times and doctors refer them for some expensive scans or operations, then they might not go there again. But will I go there again? As long as bill is not paid by me, I will be going there. What about the common man going there? Are any authorities looking in to it? If they have not started, please open your eyes soon.

Another Weekend

It’s yet another weekend. If you ask me which my favorite day in the week is, it has to be Friday. I just love Fridays both at office and also at home. Friday is one day when I have lot of free time at home,where I go to bed little late compared to other days. So I get more time to read or write or watch TV on Friday nights. These days Fridays are even more welcome as I get time to be with my Adi during the weekends.

There was nothing special about last week at home or at work. I saw movie ‘2012’ on last Tuesday. It’s been a while since I saw one English movie at the theatre. Movie was a good one and I enjoyed it. Another thing about this week was, Manu was also to Trivandrum office for some work. I really miss those days when Manu was staying downstairs. It was good to have him at home for dinner.

Adi is growing up every day. These days, it seems he like to play more than sleep. This seems to be happy news for all but when you have a baby at home who doesn’t sleep much then it’s not easy at all. It is much difficult for Amma as she’s the person who is at home during the day time when Anju n me go to office. I like to play with Adi but when it’s holding him to stop him from crying, it’s a different story.

I was having back pain from last week. So I went to hospital and they gave me medicine. I was not happy with the doctor there as he gave me paracetamol tablet for my back pain. I was expecting him to give me some tips for doing some exercises. But we can’t expect the doctor to give us what we need all the time, right? But anyway I didn’t like the doctor and I don’t think I’m going to meet him again. My very first impression of the doctor was not good and when he gave me medicines instead of giving me tips on how to overcome my back pain my dislike become more stronger.

Tomorrow is Anju’s Birthday. I ordered a Black Forest (Her Favorite) cake from Ambrosia. But before keeping it on fridge, she saw it.:-) I was thinking of buying something else along with cake for the Birthday but couldn’t get time to go out buy anything. We might go out for dinner tomorrow, but not finalized. It’s not easy to make plans when we have a baby at home, lets see. When I got some time at techno mall, I managed to go to the book store. I bought one book ‘Eithihyamala’ which basically contains stories about history of old kings on Kerala. I actually like reading those kinds of books. Many of those stories, I already know but I still love reading those books. The books that I’m buying these say, I’m buying it for Adi also. I want him to read all kinds of books and learn new things from reading books. I believe the knowledge that we get from reading books, we can't get it from anywhere else.

Anju n Adu

Hi,

I am enjoying a good weekend at home.Now thats Anju, Adi and Amma are all at home,its real fun to be at home.

This week it was tough time at office.Work was hectic and it might remain same in coming week also. That really worries me as I would have to stay late for few days in the coming week. But when Anju's also going to office its not easy for both of us when one of us has to stay late. Anju's already saying that she can't imagine how she's going to go to office when Adi's at home. It will be really tough for all of us. Hope it will not be that bad as we think. Adi's becoming a really good boy and he does not cry that often these days. Hope Amma will be able to manage him during the day time without Anju.

There is always something special about the relationship between mother and her son,right? And that will remain like always, I think. So I was thinking how Adi will find it when Anju's not at home. I am sure it will be very difficult for him as he will miss his mother when she's not with him. But what will poor Adi do? He cannot do anything except to cry. Hope he will get adjusted to it because it will not be easy for working mothers to stay with their baby all the time. If he is finding it really difficult without Anju, only way left would be try to to get an extension for Anju's maternity leave. But in the current situation it will not be easy to get Loss of Pay leave. But if there's no way out then we might have to think of resignation.

Yesterday it was fun to have Benoy and Basil along their family with us in the evening. Adi was a really nice boy during that time and he was not at all crying when they were here. It will be really difficult for both the guests and hosts when Adi starts crying. No hosts would like to have any guests at home when their baby boy is crying for something. We are no different. Adi thus saved the day for us..Good work Adi.

Adi, Anju n Amma at TVM with me..

Adi, Anju and Amma joined me here at TVM on Nov 1st.

It feels really great to have them with me here. It was quite boring for me without them. Now that Adi is also here with me for the first time, life's totally different. I come home for taking lunch and spend some time with him. He's such a great fun to be with..:-)

When everyone told me that your life will not be same with a baby, I never understood what they meant by it. But now I understand every single word of it.Yes, life's not that same for us anymore. But I don't know how to explain but there are lots of changes in my life. We know that we can't live life just in the way we want to live. Normally when we have that feeling, we are bound to get irritated but when it is for your baby, its totally different. I normally get irritated when I don't have the freedom to do what I like. Now I know very well that I cannot do whatever I like to do but I'm really enjoying this phase.

One thing that I don't like is when my Adi's crying. It makes me more angry when Anju or Amma can't stop him from crying. I know very well that they both love him in the same way I love him but when he's crying I can't think properly. I guess that will be the same with all the parents.

These days I manage to come home from office early and spend time with Adi. At times we stare at each other and we talk with each other. But our language,its a special language.Now when I'm writing this,Adi's sleeping.I just love looking at him when he's sleeping.Adi, we love you a lot....