So this weekend I was in Canada... my cousins stay in Toronto and my desire to see Niagara falls from the Canadian side made my decision to take a trip to Canada very easy...
Apart from seeing Niagara falls and Toronto the trip was a much needed bonding time with family... my cousin and I have not seen each other in 17 years... and it was really nice to meet them..... and more specifically to hear about my family from her... she is older so she obviously knows more about the family... so I heard about the real hardships that my dad and his 3 brothers went through to get educated.... it appears that my dad was so brilliant that when it looked like he had to drop out of school due to money problems, his teacher used to come home and teach him.... and that each of the brothers supported the others education (one even married wrong to get the dowry to support the family) and how my father being the youngest felt most indebted to all his brothers for their hardship.... I was just amazed at how difficult it was for my father to come up in life.... and my admiration for him has now become an awe.... sometimes I take my education, my position in life, my ability for granted... and wonder why people choose not to do things in their life... in short I am a snob... and then I hear this about my dad and think, if anyone can be a snob then it is my dad... to the contrary my dad is the first one to change the topic, to think that he did nothing extraordinary.... I wonder whether he is disappointed in his children.... that no one could achieve his level of success....
I also learned a bit more about my own family .... living in Kerala you are often made aware of your family ... old ladies will ask "so what is your family name?"... and when I would say Kallingal, they would promptly ask which part of Kerala I was from... now in Kottayam this is even more pronounced as some of the wealthiest and well known families live there... so studying in Corpus Christie I was forced to confront them and their so called "family status"... so it was interesting to know that my family is apparently one of the oldest families in Kerala tracing their origin to the time St. Thomas came... my family members apparently worked with the Kings of Cochin... one of them was a famous clock maker it appears (I cant spot even one family member who has that talent) and my grandfather was the first graduate of the district of Kollenchery.... in all this ofcourse I never heard that they had stupendous wealth or that they had an industrious mind.... all of them seemed to have been rich with education and service and nothing else... .am I happy? Hell ya!
I will put up my pics of Niagara soon....
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