^{Have we met before?!}

Hello! I am Roy Mammen Kizhakekkara. I come from the state of Kerala in India. I love my native place Thodupuzha. I think my place is blessed with lots of natural beauty! Of course there are other beautiful places too, far more better, may be. But one's native place has a charm of it's own. So bear me when I exagerate. I love Thodupuzha for what I am now. Some personal experiences made lasting impression. As majority of my country men, I have been to couple of places in India. Since my childhood I was in Kanpur(UP- Uttar Pradesh). I spent TEN precious years there. I met Neema there. Lucky for me, my parents and Neema's parents thought of us as making a good pair. Luckier again, we are working towards a succesful marriage. In Kanpur the school I went to was St:Joseph's Convent my first school. As some of you may know Kanpur is also famous for it's IIT

I have been to cities like Agra, Delhi, Madras. I had my understanding of Indian history, and the Indian culture. Cultural heritage of Inidans came from assimilation and practice of good qualities in heterogenous culture, that India got associated with. I have high appreciation for the once was Hindu culture, in particular. Respect for another culture, tollerance to differing religious and philosophical thoughts was indeed admirable. A cultural or religious sect for it's diversity flourished than betting exterminated. Tollerance, harmony and competitivness is lacking to a great extent, in the present day scenario. Free thinking is not getting as much importance, with the younger generation. Do they lack proper education in terms of what India was and how the philosophical thoughts developed in the past? Could it be an attitude problem? Are the youngsters after things, which impart momentary happiness and pleasure! Is there any thing that can give perpetual happiness? Could the material word be trivial, transitory and short lived! Should I waste your time in debating about such issues which you may have have a personal openion? If we should make a conclussion, we should learn from history. What our ancestors were correct about and what went wrong with them? We probably cannot afford to make mistakes and learn from them. For that reason we should learn to practice and appreciate free thinking. We should practice freedom to Indian women. We should practice raising voice against injustice. We should practice perseverance, which is very important in dealing with 'red tape'.

India is multilingual. In the north languages like Punjabi and Hindi are popular while in the south Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam are well known. Malayalam is my mother tongue. I never knew to read and write Malayalam till I was 13. Since I came to Kerala for my last lap in my School education... I had to mug up all the Malayalam till that class. Though I used to put up a poor perform in Malayalam, I love my language for it's rich literature! I think myself to be lucky learing Malayalam, it's cultural heritage, history though late, than Never..... Have we ever though why any language can be so rich, diverse and expressive?
I am still thinking...........