WHEN TWO PEOPLE BECOME ONE

 

WHEN TWO PEOPLE BECOME ONE

It was on 29^th December 1977 we became one.

It was purely an arranged marriage.

She was the first girl I met. Her smile captured me. There was simplicity in her. There was honesty in her.  When we met I told her our family was transiting through severe constraints. I made it plain it would be quite a difficult proposition if she chose to live with me. I said that because I could see she had grown up in the city. Thalavady was a hell hole at that point. Though much has changed since then the divide still persists even today.  And there was a critically ill mother at home. I felt, I shouldn’t bring a girl to my home without revealing to her in advance what she was going to step into.

It began on a Saturday in September 1977. I was working at Mavelikara. Saturday was a half day for us at the office. And I used to have a late lunch at home on all Saturdays. While I was finishing my lunch five visitors arrived. it was around 4.30 in the evening. Their intention was to propose an alliance. They seemed good people. We conversed for some time. As they left they sought my photo. I knew I didn’t have that. Yet we searched. Fortunately we could fish out one from a storage cabinet. That was the only one we had at home.

I didn’t know they had handed over a photo of the girl to Mummy. After they left, Leela was telling me, “Thommante Thommi kollaaam.” Leela at that time used to call me Thomman at times. And Mummy told me she had seen the girl’s mother when she was a young girl and that she had looked pretty at that time.

The next day we took Mummy to MCH Kottayam. She was admitted there. Leela and I returned to Thalavady. She had to attend her classes at Mavelikara. BEd. I had to attend my office. However when it was around 11.30am I had a call. Mummy had to be transferred to CMC Vellore. 

Well, it took us all to Vellore. Mummy was operated upon. Glioblastoma. We both returned to Thalavady after that. While I had been going ahead with my work, the bank deputed me to their Trivandrum Statue Branch.  The branch manager there had been aware of the marriage proposal. He knew the people well. He said he would take me to meet the family and the girl. I quietly told him there was no need for hurrying it. I said, let the parents meet the girl first – the tradition at that time. Papa later wrote to me, as I was in Trivandrum, it would be good if I could meet the girl and her family. I conveyed to him my response to the branch manager.

By the grace of God Mummy had recovered – not 100 per cent - after the treatment at CMC Vellore. They were back at Thalavady.

On a Saturday after that, the father and the brother in law of the girl visited us. They said they wished to go ahead with the proposal. Papa, soon after, visited Trivandrum.

It led us to meet on 20th November 1977.

The wedding took place on 29^th December 1977.

During the gap we had conversed through post. It was the closest to dating those days.

Marriage underlined that what mattered most to us was our commitment to each other, not mere labels. We understood that people talking about us was part and parcel of our lives. When we met for the first time, my initial impression was, she was really beautiful. As companions, we had always been on the same page. We have seen each other through difficult times. As she was employed, she too had made it clear she had no time to fool around.

When two people become one, we learned that it was exactly the profound confluence of two eternal ideals. We could see that it was the reflection of the inner strength and spiritual depth anchored within ourselves. We saw marriage embodied righteousness, compassion and moral courage. We could see that it signified the harmony between inner power and empathy. We discovered that we were led by divine protection. The realization invariably equipped us with resilience. We knew, together, we could face anything and everything with grace, unwavering strength and courage.

We were both very independent when it came to our work. But if we needed each other’s opinion, both of us were willing to key in our inputs.

We understood each other well.

It was love at first sight when we met each other. Our idea of a good time was going on long drives, whenever we could and spend time talking to each other.

While I would state, ‘It’s like a free therapy session. As she likes driving, I don’t even have to do that.”

The astonishingly sweet response had been, ‘“He’s my passenger king.”

Our love story is far better in real life. For me, it is very romantic to wake up with a woman this beautiful every day. Relationships are marked by romance, intent and friendship. We are happy the relationship is settled and anchored in the best way. I am happy I have been chosen by a wonderful woman, who is brilliant, beautiful and kind.

She just couldn’t believe when I told her soon after the marriage, “When I was young, I used to see these beautiful girls and I would wonder, ‘Oh, my God, who are the kind of men these women get hitched to? And I eventually ended up marrying a beautiful girl.”

Her response was, “When we started talking, there was an instant connection. I saw a kind of hard work, dedication and determination in you. They attracted me to you. The looks were a cherry on the top.”

She had gone on, “I have you to run to with all my problems. You bind me, keep me together. The life we have together is the best gift we have given each other.”

I admit to the people I meet, “Seeing her commitment and watching how she is flourishing, I went on encouraging her.”

And I add, “I’m an extreme introvert. She’s my liaison with the outside world. She coordinates my travel and everything. She’s my one point stop for everything. I am completely dependent on her.”

We have travelled. We have spent our time together at the beach or scenic locations or wherever we wished to be.

Ever since we had come together we had been sharing everything we were going through.  We never hesitated to make fun of each other either. We had worked around whatever free time we had without rushing into anything. We knew, as a couple, it was important to give time to each other. To make that happen, we would sit across each other making eye contact.

We would talk.

I know she has a way with words. She is diplomatic and sweet, while I am to the point and straightforward. She has a sense of humor.  I have constantly observed, she is the softer touch in my life.

She has built her reputation on her own capabilities. I have nothing to do with that. I compliment her in whatever she does. We make it a point to say ’I love you’ to each other as often as possible. Everyone always says that opposites attract. But as far as we are concerned we know we are complementing each other.

She tells me I am overly analytical whereas she affirms she has a free spirit. She considers me intense and feels that I am wearing my heart on my sleeve.

She had revealed to me a few days after our wedding that she had gravitated towards me because she trusted me and I in turn had trusted her.

We would like to place on record our view of life. .

Life is full of chores. Love can’t be one of them. .Love is not mundane. For both of us, the partner is the person we wish to gossip with at the end of the day. Our partnership is so strong, the companion is the first person we share things with, good or bad. We didn’t fall in love to impress anyone. We chose each other. Honesty is the base of our life. We are happy to confirm that the ease of being around someone is the best leisure. When you are free with each other everything becomes easier. Having each other by the side is the favorite part of everyday life.

It is said home is where the heart is.

We chose mutually to settle at our place we call home.

We’ll not swap it for anything else.

…………………………………….

 

I’ll have to acknowledge that this write up has been inspired by the life of four well known couples articulated so well in the supplements of The Times of India of February 14 &15, 2026. I have drawn from them in part.

As I respect their privacy, I refrain from revealing their names.

 

 

 

 

IGNORANCE

 

Ignorance leads to bondage

Knowledge liberates

BBA BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION AT UNIVERSITY OF KERALA

 

The story dates back to the 1990s.

The University of Kerala faced with the fall in the standard of education and the lack of professional courses it offered, came up with BBA - Bachelor of Business Administration. Students were admitted to the course after getting through an entrance examination that was followed by an interview. 

The course had been designed by educationists proficient in management studies. The course content was drawn from what had been taught at the IIMs and similar institutions for their MBA programmes.

The BBA of the University of Kerala drew quality students. The teaching was of a high standard. The students were able to match the students from high profile institutes elsewhere.

Then the drift began.

Some of the students approached  a member of the Syndicate of the University of of Kerala. The gentleman was a clerk in a Govt.of India owned finacial institution. He headed the Union there. A basic degree must have been his qualification. However, he was high up in the political strata of Kerala. Militancy was his party's trademark. 

The students represented to him that the Syllabus for BBA was very tough. Obviously, they could have belonged to his paty's student wing. The Union leader cum University Syndicate Member batted vehemently for the dilution of the course content of BBA. He finally succeded in whittling down the well structured and well thoughtout Syllabus of the BBA course to less than  an ordinary  course in the  other states of India.

Imagine what the thoughtless action had done to our students.

Though they had the BBA degree no one was prepared to offer them employment or provide them admission in institutions of repute. And if at all they were offered a job, the compensation offered had been way down in comparison with what had been offered to the pass outs from  premier institustions elsewhere in India.

Recently it was in the newspapers that the current education minister of  Kerala had been clamouring to cut back the school syllabus by 25%. 

At the end, it is obvious Kerala would be churning out students from its institutions of learning who are qualified yet inefficient and unemployable.

On a personal note, after completing my MA,  I went job hunting. My SSLC was in Malayalam medium. After SSLC, I joined a college for Pre-degree - Physics, Maths, Chemistry. Afterwards I went for B.Sc. MA came after that.

While I had been aggressively on the look out for landing a job, I stayed at Hubli for a while. My uncle was there.  His elder daughter was in the IXth standard of the Karnataka SSC. One day I had a look at her text books. To my surprise, the IXth standard text contained what we had in our Pre-degree text books. No wonder the girl went on to finish her MSc and acquired a job at the Nizam Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad. She didn't cease in her pursuits. She upgraded her qualification to PhD and the last I heard was, she was being invited by foreign Universities to present papers.  

No one in Karnataka had striven to dilute the course contents.

Kerala, unfortunately, has politicized the educational field. Here, the students wish to learn as little as possible. The teachers are not particular, they should deliver quality education.

We are content to remain third rate. 

Politics is not bad. We need the system. But the politicians should never interfere in the quality of education offered to its students. As it stands, we are happy creating jobs that do not challenge the intellect. Creativity has no place here. 

Let the politicians rule the state. Let the educationists manage the education here.

If it doesn't happen the number of the unemployed youth in Kerala would forever be leapfrogging

INTUITION AND EXPERIENCE ABOVE INSTRUCTION K B JINAN

 

INTUITION AND EXPERIENCE ABOVE INSTRUCTION   K B JINAN

Returning to senses

KB Jinan’s alternative learning approach places intuition and experience above instruction

KB Jinan grew up in Thrissur immersed in textbooks and timetables. He was studying engineering.

By the fourth year of college, he made a life altering decision. He would never do work he did not love. It led him to NID in Ahmedabad. It was the space where learning was full of life... Jinan says,”NID taught me the difference between teaching and learning. Elsewhere you find teaching environments. At NID you find learning environments.” There was no attendance pressure. Faculty members were immersed in their own inquiries. Students often worked late into the night, driven by curiosity than compulsion.

 As a student of engineering, he had felt something was deeply amiss in formal education. He began asking uncomfortable questions. Why did scientific knowledge always arrive stamped with Western names? Why were students chasing marks instead of understanding? Why did learning seem to evaporate after exams?

His conclusion was stark. Modern education does not cultivate human beings. It produces cognitive labor. Formal schooling, he argues, was never designed to nurture human potential but to manufacture workers – something Alvin Toffler had stated explicitly in ‘The Third Wave’ on the evolution of mankind and the Industrial Revolution -  for an expanding marketplace. He says, “Education created cognitive workers - people trained to analyze information, not to understand life.” “For decades, this system supplied industries with disciplined minds. But artificial intelligence has now disrupted even that arrangement. The market no longer needs this kind of labor. Machines can do it faster.’

Jinan’s mindset was transformed when he began working with rural artisans and indigenous communities in Odisha and elsewhere. Living closely with such people, he encountered forms of intelligence largely absent from modern classrooms. According to him, “The literate learn the word. But the illiterate learn the world.”

 From the early 1990s, Jinan began documenting children – photographing and filming how they naturally interact with spaces, objects and materials. Over time a pattern emerged. Children bounce on sofas because their bodies seek rhythm. They slide on smooth floors because the environment invites motion.

He explains, “The world tells the child what to do with motion. But adults interrupt this intelligence.”

With this view in mind, Jinan began organizing annual workshops where children were given simple materials and complete freedom. Though there had been no guidance, children often produced compositions of remarkable sophistication. The children were mixing colors intuitively to match the shades of dry leaves strewn around even as trained teachers or urban schoolchildren struggled to recreate the same palettes. It was like a living organism finding its rhythm.

The contrast convinced Jinan that intuition, not instruction lies at the heart of learning.

He also noticed that children who had not passed through rigid schooling systems often lacked even a word for ‘mistake.’ They experimented freely, without fear of being wrong. He says, “In life, there is no mistake. There is only exploration.”

According to Jinan, “Teaching is a modern invention that emerged when knowledge became a product. Nobody teaches a child how to balance on a bicycle. The cycle teaches you. Everyone else is bystander.”

Today, he conducts, “Do Nothing Parenting’ sessions and immersive retreats where families live together without screens, toys or instructions. Parents learn to observe instead of directing. Children rediscover their innate capacity for play and inquiry. “Don’t teach,” Jinan tells the adults. “Just respect their cognitive ability.” Moments like this capture what he has been trying to articulate since 1980s.

The underlying theme is, “Learning does not begin with instruction. It begins with the seses.”

Jinan concludes, “My workshops are not for children. They are for adults. Parents are the problem, not children.” His approach reverses conventional parenting logic. Instead of fixing children, he asks adults to examine their own conditioning – their need to control, instruct and optimize.

Every child, he believes arrives with freedom, trust and abundance – the qualities that society gradually dismantles.

K B Jinan, a designer-turned-researcher who has spent more than three decades of questioning how children truly learn, signs off raising a question, not about how children should be educated, but about what kind of humans society allows them to become.

An alumnus of the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, Jinan was recently conferred the Pride of NID Ahmedabad Award 2025-26.

 

PS Sreerag in The Times of India of 14 February 2026

 

 

 

 

WHEN CRY BABIES CRY

When cry babies cry

Laughing girls run 

They run shedding their teeth

Then steel settles in the mouth

The dentist makes money

We lose what we have

Baby, please don't cry

Smile

Girl, do not run

Keep your teeth

Safe

Amma admonishes 

The girl

Amma gently tells her

To obey

At once

She complies

..............................

Ellie Goulding

We heard the girl humming the song

 "Love me like you do"

You're the light, you're the night
You're the colour of my blood
You're the cure, you're the pain
You're the only thing I wanna touch
Never knew that it could mean so much, so much

You're the fear, I don't care
'Cause I've never been so high
Follow me through the dark
Let me take you past the satellites
You can see the world you brought to life, to life

So love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do
Love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do
Touch me like you do, ta-ta-touch me like you do
What are you waiting for?

Fading in, fading out
On the edge of paradise
Every inch of your skin
Is a holy grail I've gotta find
Only you can set my heart on fire, on fire, yeah

I'll let you set the pace
'Cause I'm not thinkin' straight
My head's spinnin' around, I can't see clear no more
What are you waiting for?

So love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do
Love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do
Touch me like you do, ta-ta-touch me like you do
Oh, what are you waiting for?

So love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do
Love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do
Touch me like you do, ta-ta-touch me like you do
What are you waiting for?

I'll let you set the pace
'Cause I'm not thinkin' straight
My head's spinnin' around, I can't see clear no more
Oh, what are you waiting for?

La-la-love me like you do
Love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do, oh
Touch me like you do, ta-ta-touch me like you do, oh-oh
Aw, what are you waiting for?

So love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do
Love me like you do, la-la-love me like you do, oh
Touch me like you do, ta-ta-touch me like you do, oh-oh
Oh, what are you waiting for?

Ah
Ah, ah

.................................................................

String of events

The camera made the girl run

She disliked 

To be on the video

Then the boy began

At the top of his tenor

I heard Amma

Admonishing

The girl

I scribbled

 When cry babies cry

Laughing girls run 

They run shedding their teeth

Then steel settles in the mouth

The dentist makes money

We lose what we have

Baby, please don't cry

Smile

Girl, do not run

Keep your teeth

Safe

Amma admonishes

The girl

Amma gently tells her

To obey

At once

She complies

[2:42 pm, 14/2/2026] AbrahamJacobLal@GreatWall: When cry babies cry

Laughing girls run 

They run shedding their teeth

Then steel settles in the mouth

The dentist makes money

We lose what we have

Baby, please don't cry

Smile

Girl, do not run

Keep your teeth

Safe

[2:43 pm, 14/2/2026] AbrahamJacobLal@GreatWall: Amma fires the girl

Amma gently tells her

To obey

At once[2:42 pm, 14/2/2026] AbrahamJacobLal@GreatWall: When cry babies cry

L

a[2:42 pm, 14/2/2026] AbrahamJacobLal@GreatWall: When cry babies cry

Laughing girls run 

They run shedding their teeth

Then steel settles in the mouth

The dentist makes money

We lose what we have

Baby, please don't cry

Smile

Girl, do not run

Keep your teeth

Safe

[2:43 pm, 14/2/2026] AbrahamJacobLal@GreatWall: Amma fires the girl

Amma gently tells her

To obey

At onceughing girls run 

They run shedding their teeth

Then steel settles in the mouth

The dentist makes money

We lose what we have

Baby, please don't cry

Smile

Girl, do not run

Keep your teeth

Safe

[2:43 pm, 14/2/2026] AbrahamJacobLal@GreatWall: Amma fires the girl

Amma gently tells her

To obey

At once

STUPIDITY

 

Humour 

 A forward that came in

No idea on the author

............................................

A man got a flat tyre right in front of a  Mental Hospital. He struggles to park his car on the side of the road.

Then, as usual, he opened his car hood to get a jack, spare wheel, wheel spanner, and he unscrews the wheel. But the four nuts roll and fall into the sewer drain. The manhole cover can not be opened; the nuts have disappeared.

The man looks desperately left and right and sits down discouraged on the sidewalk.

A patient who had observed the entire scene from the beginning through the fence of the facility shouted at him:

“Hey, you idiot! What are you doing here?”

He replies: 

“Don't ask questions, my friend. I got a flat tyre, and while changing the wheel, the wheel nuts fell into the drain.”

The patient retorts: “You're making things complicated for yourself! Just take a nut from each of the other wheels, and then you’ll have three per wheel. That'll hold until the next car spare parts shop!”

The man does as he is told and shouts to the patient: “And what are you doing in that mental place?”

The answer from the patient is legendary...

"We are here for madness, my friend, not for stupidity!”

*Madness* is one thing. 

*Stupidity* is another.

LEGENDARY FILM ACTOR PREM NAZIR

 

An interesting forward from an unknown source

But there is fact: There is humour

............................................................

LEGENDARY FILM ACTOR PREM NAZIR COMPARES HIMSELF WITH A BANK EMPLOYEE

പ്രേം നസീറിനോട്  ഒരു പത്രപ്രവർത്തകൻ ചോദിച്ചു. "അതിസുന്ദരിമാരായ ധാരാളം നടിമാരോടൊപ്പം ശാരീരികമായി ഇഴുകിച്ചേർന്ന് അഭിനയിക്കാൻ അവസരം ലഭിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ടല്ലോ. അപ്പോഴൊക്കെ ഇത്രയും സംയമനത്തോടെ പെരുമാറാൻ എങ്ങനെ കഴിഞ്ഞു?"അദ്ദേഹത്തിന്റെ അന്നത്തെ മറുപടി "ആയിരം രൂപയിൽ താഴെ ശമ്പളം വാങ്ങുന്ന ഒരു ബാങ്ക് ജീവനക്കാരന്റെ കൈകളിലൂടെ നിത്യേന ലക്ഷക്കണക്കിന് രൂപയുടെ നോട്ടുകൾ ആണ് കടന്നുപോകുന്നത്. അതെല്ലാം തന്റേതാണെന്ന് വിചാlരിച്ചാൽ അയാളുടെ അവസ്ഥ എന്താകും?"