Monday, March 12, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
A tribute to Appacha
For those of
you who do not know i’m the eldest daughter of K.V Thomas’s eldest daughter Mrs
Madhu Abraham.
Technically
my mother should have inherited my grandfathers sense of humour and wit.
But for some reason
it skipped an entire generation and i’m very happy to say i’ve inherited a
double dose of my grandfather’s humour, wit, love for life and fondness for
good food.
Just to give
you a taste of my grandfathers sense of humour i’d like to leave with you a few
episodes featuring my wonderful Appacha.
Apparently
when i was born there was a family discussion on what to name me? After much
thought Appacha wickedly smiles at my parents and says “ We could take the Bu
out of Buji and dhu of Madhu and name her Budhu." Needless to say amongst peals
of laughter and the good common sense God gave my parents and much to my relief
i was quickly named Sapna instead of Budhu.”
Another
story i remember being told is that My grandmother used to go to St Thomas care
home to spend 2 weeks at a time with the boys and leave my poor grandpa to fend
for himself. One evening my brother in law Timmy at that time not yet married
to my cousin spots my grandfather leaning against the gate all alone and
forlorn. So he stops and says ‘Hello uncle, how are you?" With suppressed
laughter and a fake seriousness on his face he tells Timmy . "You see i have a pain over here.......one pain left
and another came back.” (in reference to my grandma) Needless to say Timmy and all of us who heard this
story were in splits.
Appacha
loved to surround himself with laughter, and even till a year before his stroke
would give us a run for our money with
his endless number of jokes or as we grandchildren used to fondly say,
‘Appacha, blade joke Appacha’ it never stopped him from chuckling away at his
own jokes no matter how old they were. He loved to laugh...so now you know
where we’ve in herited our loud laughter from.
Appacha’s jokes
used to help break the ice and help visitors get comfortable at home while
Ammachy was busy preparing all kinds of goodies in the kitchen.
He used to
enjoy hanging out with people young in spirit. As i can almost hear him say his
favourite phrase “Who’s old? i’m only 83 years young.” As he grinned away.
Appacha was
groovy and good looking and was able to charm the socks of anyone irrespective
of age or gender.
I’d like to
thank Appacha for leaving behind with us, your children , grandchildren and great
grand children your groovy looks, your sense of humour and wit, your love for
life, your fondness for good food and laughter. And we cant wait to share many
more good days when we meet again on that distant shore.
God bless
and catch up with ammachy until then.
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