Silent prayer

Today, I said a Silent Prayer for my mother Ammachi), who would have celebrated her 94th birthday, had she been alive.

Ammachi (Senior Student) when she graduated in 1934 from
Women's Christian College, Madras.

She passed away in 2000, a few months after I spent some quality time with her.

I also said a Prayer for my late aunt who shared the birthday with my mother, Langfordammachi, who suffered tremendously in silence as she cared for my Godfather, Mr. George Matthan, my father's eldest brother, when he was ill with Parkinson's Disease.

Only God gave her the strength to care for him as she did. Each time I went to visit my Godfather, she was there smiling and talking about us but never about herself. But I knew deep down the tremendous battle she was going through.

As we now tend Annikki's mother, I realise how much greater was her pain than I had imagined.

Dr. Kurian George's daughter, Lalitha

After I posted the link to my second cousin's, Sarasu, blog, she replied that she was still learning the blogging process. She sent me info about another second cousin (her first cousin), Lalitha, who is the late Dr. Kurian George's second daughter.


The late Mysore Matthan.

The late Dr. Kurian George was the son of the late Maliyakal Kurian George, Former Chief Secrectary of Travancore Cochin, younger brother of my late grandfather, Mysore Matthan.


The late K. C. Mammen Mappillai.

We were particularly close to this family as they lived in Kottayam. We always visited them when we went to stay with my other grandfather, the late K. C. Mammen Mappillai.

As the eldest of the late Dr. Kurian George family, Padmini, is no more, Lalitha, who was widowed, is the eldest in that family. Lalitha was married to Raju and lives in Chennai.

Lalitha has given details of her family which I thought several of you would like to know. You can also find the details of the entire family (as supplied to date) on the web page devoted to her grandfather, the late Maliyakal Kurian George

Lalitha has four children, Ajit, Binu, Achu (Sneha) and Ammu (Prem).

Ajit is married to Dina, lives in Chennai, and they have 2 sons, Anish and Ajay. Anish is a Mechanical Engineer and worked with Nokia for 10 months. He is off to the US to do his Masters at Michigan Ann Arbour. Ajay is doing his 4h year in Mechanical Engineering.

Binu is married to Jibby and have been in Singapore for the last 23 years. They have one daughter who is doing her 4th year medicine in Singapore.

Achu is married to Allen amd they live in Bangalore. They have 2 sons, Ameet (Class 9) and Aashish (Class 6).

Ammu is married to Titus, and they too live in Bangalore. They have 2 sons, Rahul (Class 10) and Nitin (Class 8).

Lalitha has retired after her role as Head Mistress of the famous Sishya school in Chennai.

Many thanks to both Lalitha and Sarasu for all the details provided.

Maliyakal Stories Blog

I had a chain email from one of my second cousins, Sarasu.

Sarasu is Olivet Babychayan's daughter and lives in the US.

Olivet Babychayan is Mathen George, third son of Maliyakal Kurian George, one of the younger brothers of my grandfather, Mysore Matthan. He got the name Olivet as he used to run a company called Olivet Textiles and Olivet Handloom Products in Trivandrum.

Sarasu is the eldest daughter of Babychayan and is an IT Trainer. Her husband, Bijoy Isaac, works for the Government of Columbia in Washington DC and is Chief of Design and Engineering. Sarasu and Bijoy have two girls - Tameen and Zareen.

At the bottom of the email I noted a blog link.

Sarasu and Bijoy.

Sarasu has started blogging and her blog is called Maliyakal Stories.

She has only made one entry so far, but I am sure more will come.

I am adding a regular link to her blog in my "Blogs & Web Pages of Relatives / Friends" list.

Please do check it out, put a small comment against the entry and encourage Sarasu to keep blogging as she has many readers like me out in the wide open spaces.

Betrayal of Trust of the American People

Posted on my Jacob's Politics Blog and Jacob's Blog.

This ad which will be aired in the US on Monday places the issue before the American people.

All we around the world can hope and pray for is the citizens of America will get rid of their, the Iraqi and our nightmare.

Someone help me...

George Chandy and C. Chandy are two children of Administrator K. Chandy, one of the two well-known Malayali families who served the Mysore Maharaja. The other was my grandfather, Dewan Bahadur Kuriyan Matthan, also known around Mysore and Kerala as Mysore Matthan.

I know quite a bit about the history of the Kuriyan Matthan family in Mysore (which became Karnataka), but someone has posed a question about the equally famous K. Chandy family of Mysore.

Both K. Chandy and Mysore Matthan graduated from Madras Christian College, K. Chandy being one year ahead of Mysore Matthan. Both sat the Indian Civil Service Examination. K. Chandy, in his year, came first and joined the Mysore Civil Service. A year later Mysore Matthan followed him into the Mysore Civil Service. Both of them excelled and set the seeds for the Malayalis to enter into various walks of like in the then Mysore State.

I received this email from someone in the US:

Hi,

I'm Yorjai Chandy.

My brother Yohann and I are sons of George Sagman Chandy.

G S Chandy and Mammen George Chandy [his brother] are sons of Mr Chandy [Mysore Electricity and Telephones] who had several siblings.

The only names I remember are Commisioner C Chandy, Johnny Chandy [Railways] and Aunty Susy Varghese.

Question: The names seem familiar. Is there somewhere that I fit in the family? Is this family connected with my family?

Thank you for the information,

Yorjai

Brothers Sagman and Dumbo are the sons of George Chandy and Dr. Mrs. Chandy. George Chandy was in the Mysore Electricity Department and was my dad's boss till my dad moved to Bombay. Dr. Chandy was our family doctor when we lived in Bangalore in the 50s.

Cousins of Sagman and Dumbo, Mohan and Jagan, are the sons of Police Commissioner C. Chandy. They had one sister. Mohan served in the Indian Navy and was Captain (Commander) of one of India's submarines, having been trained in Russia. When Mohan was in Bombay (he was also for a time on the aircraft carrier INS Vikrant) he used to be a frequent Sunday lunchtime visitor at our home. He spoke fluent Russian. Younger brother, Jagan's daughter, Mirai was the classmate of our daughter, Susanna, in Bishop Cotton Girl's School in Bangalore, finishing in 1983.

I have some parts of the history of these four cousins who were great family friends when I lived in Bangalore. But my memory is quite sketchy.

Can anyone out there fill me up on as much of the history of the great Mysore Chandy family so that I can help out the greatgrandson of this great personality?