There are so many wonderful memories of the time I spent in Kerala at that time, enough for a huge number of posts.
One of the memories is connected with one of the cows. There were a number of cows there. As I've always loved animals, I hung around, when they were being milked, when they were taken being untied to be led out to the fields and when they were led back to their shed. I loved the smell of the cows and the hay(which is dry rice stalks here).
One day one of the cows was being delivered of a calf. I remember her as a big black cow. Naturally I wanted to see. I was in time to watch the calf being wiped down and the cow standing up to lick her. Oh how cute the calf was. It stood up on it's wobbly legs and took a step towards me. I was thrilled. Just then my aunt called me. So I very merrily turned round to go back to the kitchen verandah. The calf--probably because I was the first living thing he/she had seen, started following me. The cow took one look and decided that her calf was being stolen. She charged after the both of us--calf and me, be mooing loudly. I ran for my life--5 yr old me--and cleared the verandah steps in one jump, by which time someone came and caught the cow! But I must confess that as the memory is dredged up, I remember being scared, but more excited by the thought that the calf followed me!

After my sister was born, maybe around 3 or 4 months later--I don't really remember, I was sent off to Kerala. I must have been there for around 2months at least. My time there was divided between staying with my mother's elder sister at a farm near Mavelikara, and my father's sister's house in Tiruvella. My mother told me later it was because that with two younger ones after me, she felt she couldn't give me enough attention and so sent me off. Besides, I was generally friendly and so didn't have too much of a hassle going to new places to stay.
Whatever the reason, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time staying with my aunts.
More on that later.

I remember the day my sister was born (or it may have been while my mother was in hospital with her). That was in Jan 1956. As my mother was in hospital, only my father was there to take us to hospital. I guess he must have got my little brother ready too. But what I remember was that after I had got my dress on, my dad combed my hair. Normally, I had a side parting (pic. in earlier post). My father just combed all my hair back and I remember protesting vigorously, telling him that girls did not have their hair combed that way. He told me that that's the only way he knew how to do it and that I could have my hair combed the way I wanted when my mum came back from the hospital!
As soon as we reached the hospital, I didn't even look at the baby, but ran straight to my mother and told her that Dad had no idea how to comb hair. I was so upset that my hair had been combed like a boy's :) How my mother laughed.
I was almost 4 1/2 then.