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.