St. Thomas Academy

Our children have fully settled at St. Thomas Academy on St. Thomas Mount in Chennai, India. I and Shubhra had visited the school in the third week of May after checking through some of the well known city schools. Some of them said that they did not have place. One fo them wanted the children to be brought down to Chennai to take a test, after which they would approve or disapprove based on their performance in the test. A professor friend suggested us to go to another school. The school said that they are happy to support parents who are on transfer. And they said that the annual fee would be just 28,000 rupees. We were happy. And we were asked to meet a teacher. She called us aside to say that the 28k was the annual fee. But we have to give 200,000 rupees per child donation to the school. We were dumbfounded. We left the school considering that 400,000 would be way high for us. As we were perturbed by the situation, another friend called and asked me to speak to the Provincial of the OMI province in India - Fr. Chinnappan. He was very soft spoken, and he immediately called couple of schools and told them to consider our request. The first one, though we were very happy, since our children do not know Tamil at all, and that the school environment would have required some amount of Tamil, we opted out for the second one - St. Thomas Academy.

When we visited, it was still 10 days to the restart of the school. The school looked a bit dry with no trees around. We were very concerned if the children would really appreciate the school. We met the school Correspondent and spoke with the Principal over phone. After that we were taken on a small tour around the classrooms by Ms. Priyanka, the one at the front-desk. We decided on the school. The school administration was considerate to give some concession too, as we were willing to pay for the whole year upfront for both the children. And the academic year began on 7 June 2019.

Though it had been scheduled to start on 3 June, due to water scarcity in Chennai and the heatwave, the government had asked all schools to start on a later date. The beginning of the children at the school began with great appreciation from our daughter as she was so happy at the way the teachers took care of her and the pedagogical methods - for her age.  (Will write about it more later). 

Shubhra joined the school in end of October as a Wellness Teacher (part time). On 7 Dec, the school had an inspection. I thought of sharing a short video on the event which was released by the school by the evening of 7th itself to give some understanding about the school.

Home and Far Away

There was no plan to travel to Tamilnadu till 25 Sept. But, looking at the kind of work pressure expected in November, with too many holidays and festivals occupying the last week of September and several days in October, on 26th morning we thought on ways to resolve the issue. And so, we decided to leave on a break to Tamilnadu, and then we hurried with booking tickets etc the same day. 

On 27th at about 11.00 pm, me, Shubhra and Vasudha left by car to Kolkata, and took an early morning Spice Jet flight to Chennai on Sunday, 28 Sep. We had some excellent dosa for the late breakfast and chilly-chicken along with number of other items for lunch at Seenuda’s (as we fondly call ) house. At 3.00 pm we left for Puducherry. We were asked to take the National Highway in stead of the East Coast Road that had seen some violent scenes on the previous day following the arrest of the State’s Chief Minister in a corruption case. 

On the way we had some excellently brewed coffee, witnessed a horrific accident just ahead of us when a fast moving van lost control and crashed on the road. Anyways, we reached safely at Park Guest House, where we had booked our room. We were given a room in the second floor with sea view! WOW!!!

Me and Vasu taking a walk!

After dinner and a brief walk, we took some good rest, and woke up early on 29th to witness the sunrise and chirping of birds. What a wonderful way to start the days! Usually in the morning, we took long walk for our breakfast (usually I had idli, Shubhra had dosa, and Vasu had a bit of everything, a banana and milk. We just relaxed, played and laughed....lots of fun with Vasu. In the evenings, just walked across to the beach, had snacks, dinner, and carried back loads of joy as Vasu would make everyday a memorable day with some new action of hers. 

On 1st at noon we left for Thanjavur to meet a niece of mine, and then traveled to Madurai, where the time flew so fast, in the company of my nieces, nephews, my sister and brother-in-law. Oh yes, the hotel Heritage Residency (Opp. Fathima College) was a perfect place for Vasu to have a lot more fun as she loved the atmosphere, and specially the bed, the bathtub, the Spa etc. Finally, we left on 4th morning, and reached back home on 4th Oct midnight -- full of energy and relaxed.

Navaz

I rarely get to know people quickly. On Friday, 8 June, a friend who works in a software company in Chennai told me about a lady and he asked me to call this lady to solve a need for a special program that we are planning at our organization: Center for Knowledge and Skills. The program that we are planning (about which I shall explain on 15 June), has been a dream for me in the last three months.  Even after speaking to four different companies to work out a solution so that we can take it further, we had moved not an inch.  I called her up at about 2.00 pm on that day. And since then, almost after every thirty minutes she kept me busy over the phone. Although I felt it a bit annoying initially, I could see by 5.30 pm that we were not only on track, but had already started off on the journey. I had kept the target date of starting the program on 16 June. With hardly a week to go, that which had not taken place for three months was suddenly looking like..… almost happening! And yes, by night 11.00 pm, we had arrived at a deal, papers had been shared, and even advance had been paid. That was really pretty quick.

The Saturday was no less. Since morning 9.00 am onwards more tete-a-tete. And at 13.00 hrs she called me to say, another deal had been struck in which we we had saved huge amount of money as the company with whom we would be participating will give us the service on a deal! Ooh! And then she called me at 4.00 pm to give the final message. We would be on and ready for trial by 13 June. I couldn’t believe my ears. Rarely  I get to see women of steel. And here is one--someone whom you can trust with a job, explain it, and forget it.  It is just done. Thank you Navaz.