life is what happens to you ....

..... while you're busy making other plans.

So said John Lennon in the song "Beautiful Boy" and yesterday was a very good example of it. Indeed the writing of this blog is a further example as I had written a couple of hundred words in this blog several hours ago and had moved onto other things before I discovered that my bon mots (or perhaps not so bon mots) had disappeared in the interim. So I re-present them here.

Yesterday, Saturday, was to be the "website" day, when we finalised all the aspects of our website ready to receive the flood of enquiries we anticipate in response to our Times of India ads and I arrived in the office ready and energised for the task. However, with the arrival of Raju and Subho, I was given the sad news of Jay's mother's passing, at the family home in Thrissur (this was not unexpected, but one is never ready to lose a parent).

As a mark of respect, and a want to offer our condolences to the family in person, as is Indian custom, we took a taxi to Thrissur, via the flower shop to purchase the wreaths that we were to lay with Mrs Kandampully's body. It was only necessary for us to stay a short time (only the close family would proceed to the final ceremony and cremation). With our respects paid and our condolences duly expressed, we headed back to Kochi, stooping briefly for a quick meal.

Kochi to Thrissur is a distance of about 73km (Sydney City to Springwood) and would have taken about two hours to navigate on Sydney roads. We were on Indian roads, however, and subject to the "discipline" of other Indian drivers. In consequence, we departed KiBS at 10.45 am and returned at 5.00pm, with not much left of the day to do the work we had originally planned. And so it is with life, also described by another John of my acquaintance (John Hoskin, the Uniting Church minister at Carlingford for a time), who said "Life is an experience like getting on the plane for Italy and arriving in Istanbul". I'm content with our decision to head to Thrissur - it was the right thing to do.