Renewing old associations

Monday morning found me meeting an old school friend from Mumbai and his wife at the Bangalore Club followed by a trip to his factory at the Tamilnadu / Karnataka border near Hosur. He was inaugurating a new wing of his factory to undertake plating. A Rs. 12 crore outlay is a major expansion of his ÅPW President Systems Ltd which is the major supplier of the modular shells for all the major telecommunication and computer companies. Theey have a series of interesting product lines and several more in the pipeline.

The Managing Director of APW President Systems Ltd., Ooky (Elijah Elias) and I were together in Cathedral and John Connon School. His family and mine have a long and close association over the last 52 years. His guided tour of his factory premises was a treat as he runs is company as a tight ship. Rivca, his wife, is a lovely person and has stayed with my parents in Bangalore many years ago.

Everyone was expecting Rivca to cut the tape to open the new facility. But Rivca and Ooky had other ideas. In his true humble fashion, Ooky gave that right to the engineer who had been responsible to setting up the facility between January 2009 and November 2009.

Back to town and then to lunch with our dear dear friends, Gaytri and Raghu. It was a late late lunch as travelling in Bangalore is a real nightmare. It is not possible to keep an appointment on time as the traffic is totally chaotic and one sits in the traffic with one's heart in one's mouth. True to fashion, on the way a Government bus hit the back of our vehicle and damaged it. Our driver, Prem, was livid. What can one expect when in this city where no one follows the rule of law. Law is for the other person!

Since neither Annikki or I have visited the graves of my parents, we tried to see it at the cemetery. Wrong day as it was a festival and probably All Souls Day. The caretaker was nowhere to be found and the cemeteries were crowded. Annikki and I looked around but it was like looking for a needle in a haystack. We gave up after a long long hour.

Both Annikki and Mika were exhausted. I dropped them off at the hotel and paid my respects three of my dearest relatives in Bangalore - Bibikochamma (Mrs. K. C. Mammen) and Mohanchayan and Shantakochamma (Dr. K. O. Mammen and his wife).

Back to the hotel for a quiet dinner and an early night. A tiring but quite rewarding day.