Condolences and tributes to my "Third Cousin"

I did not realise how widespread my readership was. My estimate of 120000 seems unrealistic considering from the so many unrelated corners I get email.

When I blooged the obituary of my "Third Cousin", I received emails from people I had never heard of before and do not know from Adam and Eve! There were condolence messages, tributes, thanks for blogging that information and even from Malayala Manorama for providing the data and photograph about the late Professor John Jacob. The Manorama ran this important obituary of the great grandson of the Founder of the paper, K. I. Varughese Mappillai, who had succeeded in the rough world out there!

Members of John's extended family provided me with this wonderful picture of the late John with his wife, Elizabeth, and their daughter, Neha. A truly touching photograph.



They also provided me with a few photographs, which sort of gives me a almost complete set of this wonderful family.



Kneeling from the left:
Ashish, Salome's son
Anjali, Premi's daughter
Tusheeta, Sarah's daughter
Ashika, Salome's daughter
Tabita, Sarah's daughter
Ishan, Salome's son

Standing from left:
Jacob, Salome's husband
Ranjit, Omana's eldest son
Abraham, Sarah's wife
Roy, Premi's husband
Late John, Omana's youngest son
Ashvin, Premi's son

Sitting from the left:
Salome, Omana's youngest daughter
Achama, Ranjit's wife
Sarah, Omana's middle daughter
Premi, Omana's eldest daughter

What beautiful and most unusual names - Ashika, Ishan, Tusheeta, Tabeeta,....!



In addition to the people listed above, these additional persons are in the second group photograph:

Ashok - Omana's middle son - Sitting front row, extreme left
Geetha - Ashok's wife - Standing, middle row, extreme left
Sneha - Ashok's daughter - Standing middle row - the tiny one, second from the right
Sushil - Ashok's son - Standing last row, second from the right
Karun - Ranjit's son - Standing last row, extreme right

Above all, there was this touching tribute to John from someone I do not know!

I was a classmate of John's in the PhD program at Northwestern. A kinder, gentler person did not exist. The last e-mail I received from him was also very sweet and thoughtful. My heart goes out to his wife and daughter.

Our heart goes out to all those who are feeling the deep pain of the passing of John!