Back in Mangy

MANGALORE, KARNATAKA - 29th October 2009

So I've been back in Mangalore for 3 days after training it from Bangalore with my aunt. The train journey was amazing, but as the tale can only really be told with photos (and one particularly amusing video), the details will have to wait for another day (UPDATE - see here).

My uncle, his wife and their daughter came down from Mumbai on Sunday, so Howzat has been full which is always nice. Howzat, for those who don't already know the story of my Mum's family, is the name given to my grandmother's house by my late grandfather - my Mum's Dad. He was obsessed with cricket, and in particular Australian cricket, and as such named all of his sons after Australian cricketers of the day. As such, I have uncles Neil (Harvey), Donald (Bradman), Clarence (Grimmett), Keith (Miller), Alan (Davidson) and Kenneth (Mackay). I'm fairly sure that if you asked any Catholic in Mangalore about "Howzat", they'd know it was our place... in fact back in 2005 Howzat, complete with a photo of my grandmother, a couple of uncles and my cousin at the gates, featured on the back page of The Times of India in an article about a "unique family of Indians who'll be supporting Australia in the upcoming series". For the record, I'm named after the legend that is Dean Jones.

In terms of stories to be told, the last few days have been pretty chilled - had lunch with a cousin (actually a second cousin) on Tuesday; dinner with some other cousins, and yesterday evening went up to Kadri Park - a fairly large park with on a hill above the city that has a little choo-choo train that runs around the outside of it like a 400m running track (but probably more like 1km all the way round). My earliest memories of Mangalore are of this train - my sister and I and our cousins of similar age used used to always (literally, several evenings a week) come and do a couple of rounds on the train back in '92, '93, '95... basically back when I was a tyke. Then, for many a year, the train disappeared... much to the disappointment of my teenage self. However yesterday, 21 physical years old but very much still mentally 9, we all got to ride around. I'm probably too young to feel nostalgic, but after about 15 years this really was a blast from the past. But thanks to the all-round brilliance of the place, we're going back again tonight!