Monday, March 4, 2024
My most memorable vacation was when we went to Bangalore by car. We started in the evening. We drove in the night. It was Christmas Eve. All the homes in Kerala had a star hanging outside in the porch. It was so nice to look at all the lit stars outside homes and go on this journey. My father told me to count the number of stars I saw. Until we reached the border of Tamil nadu that is what I did. I counted the stars.
One time my father wanted us to experience going in a train, plane and ship. We went on a vacation which involved travel by train, plane and ship. The room in the ship was so quaint. It was called a cabin. It had bunk beds. It was during this vacation that we visited the state of Goa. Goa has lots of beaches and mountains. One restaurant that I will never forget was in a boat. The boat was the restaurant. My father went to Goa on an official tour and saw the Bom Jesus cathedral. So when we went to Goa we went there. You have to go on a very long car ride to reach this cathedral. There are vast stretches of just fields and no buildings. Finally you see this huge cathedral emerging out of the land. My first plane ride was on this vacation.
My father taught us a game. The game is called word game. In this game one person would say a word. With the last letter of the word the next person has to make another word. And the next person has to say a word with the last letter of the word spoken by the person before them. Myself and my brothers found a way to make the other person lose. That is by saying words which end in the letter Y. There are not many words which start with the letter Y. So if you say a word that ends in the letter Y over and over again the person who has to always find a word that starts with the letter Y would find it difficult to do so. If we had to wait in the car my father encouraged us to play this game. My father did not teach us to say words that end in the letter Y. That is something my brothers would have made up.
My father's favorite poet is Rimbaud. My father also likes Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, Milan kundera, Wole Soyinka, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Ernest Hemingway. Of course my father likes Shakespeare too. One day I asked my father why Shakespeare was considered such a great playwright. Shakespeare is considered great because he is universal-- people in every generation and culture can understand the plays of Shakespeare. My father likes malayalam poets like changampuzha, vallathol, etc too.
My father liked the TV shows based on the Indian epics Ramayana and Mahabharatha. My father liked watching good malayalam Hindi and Hollywood movies. My father and mother would regularly go for second shows. The second show is from 9 pm to 12 pm. Before myself and my brothers are taken to see movies my father and mother would check to see if it is a family movie and if it is beneficial to kids, if there is too much violence and only after a movie is cleared on these criteria are myself and my brothers taken for the movies. My father believed in showing historical movies to us. Thus my father took us to see Thomasleeha also comedy movies like Gol maal, and Khatta Meeta in Hindi, Holly wood movies like Snow white, Benji, Abba etc.
My father liked lyrical songs from Hindi and malayalam movies. My father liked ambili Ammava and oru vattom koodiyen.
My father liked to take us to restaurants. A very beloved restaurant was BTH. There was a lawn in BTH. Chairs and low tables were on these lawns. We can sit outdoors and drink tea or coffee and eat masala dosa or any type of dosa. The restaurant is famous for hygiene. The owner of this restaurant said that anyone could tour the kitchen facilities of this restaurant without notice and would find how hygienically everything is prepared. My father liked this very much because hygiene is very important to my father. The other restaurants my father liked were woodlands and Dwaraka. All are vegetarian restaurants. On Sundays if we go to church in the morning sometimes we stop by at a restaurant that offers Syrian Christian cuisine. The name of the restaurant is Hotel Sangeetha and it is owned by my father's friend. My father used to take us to an ice cream parlor called woodlands ice cream parlor. This ice cream parlor is a unpretentious little ice cream parlor tucked away in a busy street in Kochi. If we do well in a school test we are taken to this ice cream parlor. My father liked kasatta ice cream. My father bought us kasatta ice cream.
One day my father made me a sweet. It involves thickening milk by cooking milk and sugar for a long time. I remember seeing my father standing in the kitchen stirring and stirring for a long time. The resulting sweet was so tasty. My father is a very warm and loving person. My hope and prayer is that I would become like my father. Tomorrow is my father's birthday.
This is a picture of my father with my oldest son. 
This is a picture of my parents and my father is holding my younger son.
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