Alone in Delhi, Employed in Delhi!

On a February evening I landed up in Delhi to work there in a Government office.  For a few days I stayed in a small hotel and this  had to be ended.  A gentleman in the office belonged to Kerala and he advised that I rather move out of the hotel and start living independently.   I was unaware of the ground realities there, in Delhi.  He advised me further that a youngster lives in a room where he would need a room mate.

This was the normal thing for any youngster to do in those days.   I agreed.  The youngster was a bank clerk and he was at a loss to stay alone as he will have to pay the whole room rent alone.  For me it was a God sent, that I can get the room as well as can stay with someone who had been there for a while and knew a bit of the Hindi language which is used in Delhi in colloquial language.

I moved my little leather box (these days, it is suit case, in those days it will be either a trunk box, a tin trunk or a leather box) and reached the room along with a few of my other colleagues who was of somewhat my age.  I had a cotton blanket, a light woollen blanket and a thick coarse cotton sheet which we called 'jamukkalam' which was to be used for a mat.   My friends advised me to buy a 'charpoy' a kind of natural cot, made of bamboo bars, wooden legs and braided grass rope platform for sleeping on.  This was really good like the leaf mats available in kerala.

Once it was settled in the room the jamukkalam was spread on it.  A pillow was added to it and using the light woollen and cotton blankets I settled down to sleep.  My friend room mate was also in a similar bed on the opposite side of the room.  As soon as I hit the bed, I was fast asleep.  I liked it.   After a few hours deep sleep, I came awake feeling very cold but could not know from where. I checked my watch. It was two  o' clock.   I remembered my father and mother and all my brothers and sisters at home who always saw to my welfare.  I felt uneasy.  After a long while I fell asleep.   Same thing repeated the next day.   I looked at my friend in the next bed.   He was fast fast asleep and was snoring.  This made me thhink.   What can be that I alone cannot sleep.

Next day, I shared this fact with a number of my colleagues who had become friendly by now.   One of them really wanted to help and started asking me the way I slept.  I explained.  He said "That is all right.  But there could be a reason.  Because the climate in February is best for sleeping as it is cold in the nights"  At last he said, "I shall come to your room and see if there is anything lacking"   That was a very kind and sensible thing for him to do for me. Once in the room he checked my bed and the sleeping materials and suddenly he came to the greatg find:  "Oh..pretty well, that is why you are unable to sleep.  Nobody sleeps on a jamukkalam.  That can only be a first sheet.  You shouldhave a small bed called a 'kosady' to lie down and a sheet on it.  And over you, you need a 'rajai'.  Both the kosadi and rajai are filled with air beaten and loosened cotton and hemmed up nicely.

We went straight to the market and got both of them.   That night I went to sleep at ten o clock and within no time it was seven o clock in the morning!!  That was the first day, I had a sound sleep in my independent life in Delhi!!
Oh...what a difference.   With a 'rajai' on top and a 'kosadi bed' below on a charpoy..Delkhi is a place to sleep in winter!  Oh..boy.   I enjoyed the sleeps for the next few weeks through and through.  At ten at night, I just go under the rajai and it is morning!  When youngsters come from hotter areas of India to Delhi in winter if they do not have the sleeping equipments as I related, they will really suffer.

In the morning I walked to the bus stand in the four cross of RKPuram, Sector 4 where all the buses started.  There was a few buses going to the Central Secretariat on the north of North Block. I went to office paying thirty paise every day and got down at the last point which was the Central Secretariat Bus Stop.  There was a small bus bay where the bus stopped.  Once out of the bus, I walked into the North Block, walked up the long flight of steps to cross the central hall of the North Block with the different star signs etched on the granite stones crossing which a further flight of steps arfe covered and one reached Raj Path.   Once I crossed the Raj Path, is the South Block which is to be crossed to reach the Hutment office where I worked.  The Hutments were covered with huge trees and the trees were full of monkeys where were generally harmless.

The hutments had heating arrangements with the hearth burning with firewood and coal in the morning.   As soon as we reached we kept our bags and warmed up our hands at the hearth and then settled down in our respective seats and work started.  Various clerks, Assistants, Section Officers all kept on with their files, papers, dialogues, telephone calls etc. etc. till five o' clock and then closed up the office, locked up every thing and came out to go home.  The offices worked from 10 am to 5 pm in those days with Saturday being a working day and only the Second Saturday of the month being a holiday.

The morning!

The morning air was cool.  It was raining all through the night.  The easterlies are bringing medium rains with breezy clouds which come down as drops of blessing.  But they do not stop in the night all through.  The morning comes with fresh fragrance of the little flowers and grass.   The long beaked pelicans go in formation to the eastern skies to catch the early meals from the col padams (paddy fields).   Their V shaped going is a real sight.   They do not go in mixed groups.   The white pelicans will have white pelicans only.  And black only black.  The freshness and fragrance invited me to the outside. 

I had overslept.  Not purposeful.  But it so happened. When it rains outside, it is like that, if the alarm is not set.  When the alqrm is set, sleep opens before the bell.  The anxiety of the alarm is alarming.  So, it was not set.

Outside, the trees kept on dripping with that last minute pearl drops of water. A buttlefly called the 'nercha thumbi' was swinging among the little plants.   A butterfly with two large black circles on each wing is called a nercha thumbi here.  It reminded one of a long forgotten vow to visit a holy religious place.  In fact, I have many of them.  Thge buttle fly is small.  So the place should be one nearby.  Had the butterfly been too large, it would be a far away place and at times out of Kerala.  I looked closely at the little being on the grass.  My God!  It is not swinging!  It is caught in a web, a delicate web set by a cunning spider.  The spider is hiding before attacking it.   A good trick like all villains, so that the butterfly will exhaust all its energies by trying to disentangle it itself.  Wanted to save it.  Took a small twig and slightly cut through the web and Lo! The buttlerfly was free. 

The 'Mukkootti'  flowers were smiling.   These are smallest of yellow flowers always smiling most of the rainy times in bloom, when the atmosphere is full of moisture.  Considered as a nuisance, we remove them always!  They are not disheartened! Like an obedient dog, they come up again and stand smiling at us all over the compound!  A honey bee was ging in and out of them sucking honey.   Even such a little flower has a little honey for the honey bee.  I felt ashamed.  What heartless beings are we?  Squirrel made a chil chil noise and climbed the coconut tree.  A rat snake looked up from among the 'kozhingals' (the coconut stalk is called kozhinjal).  Once it made sure that someone  moving around it made a swish sound and crept away at a fast slithering pace and disappeared in the nearby grass in the next compound.  That compound was full of green grass which are too tall. A fit place for them. 


The sky was half clear but the easterly clouds kept on coming and covering the sun.   At times a bit of sun shire came out but to be closed up again by the moving clouds!  There was talk on the small panchayat road.  People are returning from the church.  Every now and then a motor cycle or scooter or an auto riksha broke the silence.   The new kinds of transports.  Still the morning gave out a serene atmosphere!

A little child's recollections!

         One day, we had a meeting of all friends who walked together to school.  Our leader presided.  It was a simple affair in which without discussion the leader just announced the minutes and looked at all members for approval.  The proposal for all of us who had come from our houses to go to school,was to skip the day's school and go around through our short cuts, paddy fields, and wherever we liked and avoid class and studies, which he said was very boring.  I was petrified and started looking at other friends faces.  They were all shaking their heads in approval.  A couple of them had a grin on their faces as if it is a great thing to do and kudos to the leader who could think of such a marvellous idea and announce it without any hitch.  I for one, felt for the studies, and also wanted to see my class fellows on all days, was at a loss at this sudden idea.  I looked around to see if any one had my thought in them. Alas, all were in favour of the boss and I was alone!  For the first time in that trip I thought my knees were giving way.  I pulled myself up and kept very quite.  The leader started walking to the short cut paddy field way.

         We went through various compounds eating whatever fruits or junglee seeds we could get there.  caught a few small fish a kept them on leaves with water in them and enjoyed the sight.  After a while we came on the walk way on the bank of the Irrigation canal.  The canal was of medium depth with two-three feet water flowing in them.  I was really enjoying the journey and it was becoming almost lunch time.  Suddenly, the leader stopped and asked one of my friends to 'bring out the other thing'.  I started wondering what this other thing could be.  My other friend (he had an arrangement with the leader and was more close to him) brought out a packet covered with newspaper.  Once opened, I could see it was a bundle of beedis, the country cigarette.  These had tobacco in it covered with the desi or country tendu leaves usually green in colour.  My father and eldest two brothers, I have noticed, smoking them.   I always thought that this is for the big men to use them and I hated the smell of it.  I also hated those who used them.  I could not stand the smell of it and once around that smell adhered to your dress too.

         I shuddered at the sight of this terrible thing!

         First a shiver went through me at such a turn of events which I had not expected.  Not studying and skipping class was not OK, but sufferable.  Here things were slipping out of hand.  I kept my cool even though very uneasy.  At home in the small rooms we had at times my father or brothers lighted up a beedi.  The acrid smoke and the pungent smell of phosphorus and sulfur nauseated me every time this happened.  I moved away as telling anything against will only call for criticism in those days.   The leaders voice shook me from my reverie.  "Distribute the thing"  At this every one was given a beedi each.  I did not accept the stuff.  Others were examining it and they were all were putting it to their mouths as a prelude to lighting up.  One of the boys produced a match box and helped each one to start their beedis.  Once it was over the whole attention was on me.  I could not think of a way out.  There were moments of tension.  Slowly the leader came close and stood before me.  He towered over me.  I started to become smaller and smaller.   He ordered my friends to hold my hands and said "I have a way to make him accept it"  Two of my little friends who had grown bigger than me after my refusal held my hands.  Leader ordered a third friend "Light it and put it in his mouth"  There was a way of lighting up for others by lighting the beedi and taking a puff by somebody before putting it in others mouth.  This was being done to me now!  My face reddened.  I wanted to rebel.  I wanted to revolt.  I wanted to vomit!

               The lighted beedi  was put in my mouth and the smoke started to penetrate my nostrils.  The climate was pleasant.  There was a light breeze.  It had rained in the early morning.  The water was flowing in the canal with a gurgle.  Suddenly on the spur of the moment I spat out the beedi to the flowing water.  On contact with water the lighted beedi was put off with a hiss and it started flowing down stream.  Every body was stunned!  I expected the unthinkable may happen now, which I did not know.    Leader was also takedn by surprise for a moment.   No body expected this to happen.  The cost of the beedi and the irreparable  loss which I made, upset them.   The Leader told me, with .  a bit of sadness,  "No you can't be in our company.     Keep away from the team!"   I had nothing to say.  I was startled, just stared at him for a short while and started backing up.  Then he turned around and started his walk and everybody else followed, I at the last.

After a while he came back to me and admonished me saying that I cannot walk in line with them, so I keep a few steps away from them only which I obeyed to avoid further complication.   I walked with my head down and sad at the turn of events and feeling for myself, as to  lose such nice friends who were my walk mates!

    All of us walked in aline over the side bank of the canal which brought us to the road and at the joining point there was a small tea shop.  Once at the shop, the shop keeper in a lungi ( a coloured piece of long cloth) with a lighted beedi on his lips greeted our leader with a wide grin and a 'helo'.  I was sure that they knew each other.  The other friends were non-consequential as none of us were grown up enough to enter a tea shop on business or greet the owner. We were all considered small children.

    The Leader turned around and said that we all will have our lunch here.  He said, those who had their lunch with them, eat it there and those without to buy something.   I was sheepishly standing around bewildered thinking if at all I will be accepted back in the team.   The leaders suggestion of having lunch jolted me out of my reverie and dreams and things and threats of the moment became very real to me.

     I could never think of entering a tea shop and eat something as we were without money.  We never had it during our school times.  We only had books and writing materials.  We went near a tea shop at times only if we in need of cold drinking water, which were offered free of cost.  Apart from this, I still had my plate to collect my school lunch and it has become lunch time, which meant I may lost my school lunch.  I made a very bold decision then.  I decided to leave the team and face the consequences.  In any case, I had been dispelled by the leader.  All in the team were in side the tea shop where the leader were ordering some food for him and a few of the others who had not carried any food.

     I turned around and  walked fast to the school which was not far off.  As I reached the school gate the class master was coming out and he saw me.  He was a bit surprised and said why I am so late.  I mumbled some household problem and sneaked past him to the class room.  The classes had not   restarted after lunch.  Some of the other class fellows thought something is amiss and asked me.  I told some problem on the way had held me up etc.  But I did not have any answer to their further questions as to where are the others and the leader.

   Classes started.  My friends never appeared in class that day.  On return, I found them on the road but they did not speak to me that day.  Next day on wards we went to class as if such a thing never happened.  The Leader and one or two of the group enjoyed a smoke at times whenever they had the money. However, it never made any harm to our general going to the school.  (The only sad part was, non of them made much in life and some of them died young.  One of them, much much later in life acknowledged that "You made it because you broke away from us".  That was when I really felt sad for all of them).

Meeting a beggar at New Delhi Metro

Bharkhamba Road Metro is a busy station of Delhi.  One can take the metro from the Connaught place from this station to various station.  With some house hold work I landed up in the place and was to enter a building in the very hot sun when I walked a little to the nearby street to see what all are going on there!
There was a lot of knick knack sellers who sold all things about office stationery to all kinds of Delhi foods, mean fast foods which generally office goers looked for for a bite as entering a cafe or food court is not easy or reasonable to Delhi standards for the standard workers and office goers! 

That is when I noticed a beggar-man.  He was walking in my direction. The first  thought in my cruel mind was that he could be a crafty guy. But then he was so skinny, that he surprised any body who saw him that he still has energy left to stand up and walk.  The whole body was soiled and in tattered clothes and he had not seen water for long.  There was a girl giving him pieces of bread which he was leisurely munching.  Now that the girl has left him he is coming to beg himself! There was a soft voice in my mind telling me: Give him something. He is so poor in any case. My hand reached to my pocket and it came out with a two rupee coin. Now the man reached near me. I am ready with the two rupee and my mind is undergoing the great fight, give him something, no don’t give him. These kinds are like that only. They do not deserve better. I felt, I am in his position and he is in my position.

For a second, I thought myself to be in his position: I was eating the scrub of bread somebody had given my daughter. She said, Papa this is good. That gentleman over there gave me his left overs. Really good papa, do eat a little. You have not eaten anything since morning. So I started to eat it. I was walking in the direction of a group of people. On the way there is the silhouette of a man with a bag. While I was passing the silhouette with the bag I felt his handing nearing me. Instantaneously I showed my hand. There may be something he may be wanting to give me. The silhouette told me “here” and I extended the hand in that direction and lo! There is a two rupee coin. God has been kind today as ever. A two rupee coin. A meal costs only twenty rupees at concession. That too we have to buy only if the hotel does not have any left overs. I was happy. A few more two rupees and I can buy a fresh meal today. My two daughters will enjoy. And if they can’t finish it my wife can join. I do not need fresh food. I can eat all kinds of left overs unless they are stale. I digest anything. I am a worm. A worm eats anything. Our human position is not very important in this town. There is no Mother Theresa around here. Here all are human, very busy in their day to day affairs. There is not even place to stand in one place here in this city these days. This is not the old city of yesteryears! I moved on.

Once back in my position -It was automatic. I could not prevent myself from extending my hand and trying to put the coin in his hands. His hand was extended but not in my direction. I made a sound to attract his attention and his hand came in my direction. I put the coin in his hand!! I could not believe myself. The man was totally blind but for seeing a shadow. What further can be done? What ..what further. I have my urgent works on hand. I only thought of seeing this place around to acclimatise myself, if ever I had to visit this place again. I slowly walked away with a last look. The skeleton man’s wife, a stocky black lady had assembled her two darkish looking girls aged 8 and 12 around her and were seriously discussing about their business of begging. The skeleton man was still munching the bread parts of which falling from his mouth, and some showing up around his lips as he was unaware of the sight.

I reached near him and showed the coin. His long slender hand came forward and accepted it. There was a look of helplessness and a feeble smile on his face.

I qucily walked in the direction of the Metro train. I can’t wait! I have urgent work to do like all others!!

In the Metro coach, my mind was still around the forty forty five year old darkish skeleton of the man munching his bread and his wife and his little daughters happy and discussing ways and means under the hot sun with the temperatures soaring at forty five degrees!! How they will find a way of life and survive was a question which troubled me for long.

Nostalgia!

Return journey from Delhi was always nostalgic!  One year would have gone by, when I return home!    Jayanthi Janata starts from the Hazrat Nizamuddin station at seven in the morning.   Coming to the station gives a heady feeling, a feeling of expectation, a feeling of unexplainable joy!  The early auto rikshaw ride is always cool.  Once in the station, walk with a friend or room mate to the Station canteen for tea and snacks. Then go and sit in the train already in the platform.   All the train was full of second class only (which changed later).

The train pantry had a wonderful set of people as staff who ascertained our seats as soon as we entered.  Thereafter a rappo starts with their bringing us time to time meals and tea all the time.  We enjoyed a lot of tea, the very nice tea served by an all Malayali group of pantry car bearers who were always affable (This changed lately.  All kinds of odd guys started coming and the affability was gone).  Once the train started moving we looked on to see the sights around, the train passing Tuglakabad, Faridabad to Palwal and picking up speed.  The sun started to rise up and it started to get warmer and warmer.

 We looked on to see the Sikandra Fort by the side of which the train passed.  The train ran and ran with all kinds of little traders entering and departing the train from time to time.   We had fruit juice at Vijayawada or Warrangal.  Bought oranges at Nagpur. Purchased ground nuts and gauvas in Andhra.  By Tamil Nadu we are tired of waiting to reach Kerala and this is the second night we are spending in the train.  Many people played playing cards.  I disliked the card games.  Many beggers came and begged at different stations regularly. Some of them blessed you, some came with blesses and when they did not get anything cursed and left.  A few children's gangs led by their leaders or parents came to show small acrobatics after drumming for a few seconds and started asking for alms! If they got less, their leader or parent punished them severely, taking them to the entrance area of the coach where they rested until they got out at the next station.

Some beggers somewhat better dressed brought small printed cards and left them in the train seats for the travellers to read and make their own assumptions and help them.  They invariably collected the cards back before they asked for help.  Then there were sellers of different kinds of wares from playing cards, tooth picks, ear cleaners, chains to secure your boxes in the train, locks, soaps, tooth brushes and tooth paste and assorted other items.  They all came and went from time to time after selling their wares as much as they could.  These were always the norms in the Jayanthi Janata at that time.  


The feeling of the lost world will fill the mind when we think of home.  The smell of Kerala will start from Coimbatore.   The train will pass under a number of criss-crossing over bridges and enter the Coimbatore station.  There will not be many people awake at that time as it will be generally early morning hours!  Some die hards, interested in travel will be up and looking through the windows searching for little lights far away or checking for houses or people if any being seen.

After the Station  the train will be running through darkness with the eastern sky turning slowly crimson which filled my heart with a kind of joy that I am reaching home again.Father and Mother waiting for me, brothers and sisters discussing my return etc. etc.   I will always be up and anxious to see the Walayar Station which is a boundary station.  There after the mountainous terrain on either side of the train will be panoramic, dipped in the morning due and foggy blue far away!  The Palghat Station always filled our hearts with joy!  It is morning by now.  The Bharatapuzha on the way will give way and we reach Shoranur where a piece of the train is detached and joined to some other train going to Mangalore! 

At Palghat the smell of fresh Pazhampori (fried bananas) used to come.  In those days, the train used to reach Palghat around seven or eight in the morning.  It was nice to have a first bite of the fried banana and follow it with the best of teas which were available in those days!!  The present method of cheating by giving a paper cut with over sweet milk liquid and a throw tea bag in it with below measure quantity was not there then!  Tea was always served in glass tumblers which were washed and reused.  That hygiene is now gone! That has become nostalgia now.

Then we passed on to Wadakkanchery and Mulloorkkara with the peacock dance of the trees and plants greenery on either side of the train and one awaited the board of Poomkunna where the train stopped for two minutes.  The station which did not have a plat form in those days!  There after it majestically crawled into the Trichur Station where we heard the Malayalam of the Trichurians in its traditional sing song slow slithery sweet manner where everything was still, peaceful, no urgency for anything style!

Once on the platform or even before it, every one wanting to disembark start looking intently at the platform to see if any of the relatives or brothers or sisters or even parents have come to receive him and find one or more of them and are overjoyed.   But the general difficulties of travel mostly limit the receivers to one at a time and the arriver really get elated by the sight of the relative or friend.   But as time passes by at times, there will be no body even though how hard one looked, and slowly a kind of unhappiness and pessimism creep in.   Once on the platform, I take a deep breath, the same old air, which I was missing so far for the last one year, the old air of trichur full of oxygen, the smell of paddy fields and cut grass.  The smell of the mango leaves and cashew nut trees!  The breeze that comes touching several coconut trees!  Then some one came close to as in your ears "Saare vandi vende, evidekka?" (Sir, you need a vehicle? Where to?)   He will be asking as if he is your brother or near relative.  It is common in Trichur when they need a fare.   I looked at him.  He really looked like my brother.   Very thin built, a khaki shirt on.  I can make out that he may be a taxi or auto rikshaw driver.  


I asked him "How much to Ollur?"  He won't answer straight "All that we can settle later, Sir"  That gives me the danger bell.  Now I have to be careful with him.  He is going to take my brotherhood for a ride, indeed!

"OK.  If you tell me how much it is, we can walk further" saying this I put down my suit case and stop walking.

He comes back "Oh..Sir.  I never charge more.  Only sixty rupees."

"All right..Go on and find another ride for your car" I replied.

"Oh..Sir, we get something when people like you who are generous come down only"  This is a black mailing number which many a time works well.  But not with me.  I am dead se t not to throw away my meagre earnings to this brotherly guy for no reason.


I bargain now:  "Just understand, if you are on a level stand, you get a ride from me.  Twnety five ruppes or you leave and I can very well go by bus"

That bring him down.  "Sir, make it forty and we go"

"Think of it well.  Final, Thirty rupees for you. Otherwise the bus is waiting.Do not spend my time, if you are not serious"



Ultimately, he agrees for rupees thirty. Then I come out with him and he put my suit case in the boot and I climb into the back seat.   I sit elaborately in the back seat.  I am thrown into nostalgia.   Earlier times my brother or sisters used to come.  Now time has passed.   All have become tied up with their individual families with various household matters.The pleasant air was stroking me deepening my brotherly feeling to the only human being in the driver's seat.  He is a neat guy.  He is slowly turning and twisting the wheel and manoveuring with great ease.  He is a expert of course.  I start a conversation with him as always.  The best way to acclimatise me with the lost ground of the village is to start a conversation with the driver.   If he is a good talker, he will give a general picture of the place and by the time we part we would have become friends.

The important incidents in town, the building of the largest mall or greatest building, the terrific accident or rain havoc all will be referred to.  In between, there may be questions about me and my family too.  In old Kerala it is like that.  The Taxi Driver is also somebody belonging to some respectable family and they would want to know about the rider too.   Once it is given, if he is good and belonging to my own village will find out a couple of  my close relatives who is known to him and relate their relationship itself.  Earlier times, they used to know my father and will tell about him which used to make me happy.

But now a lot of time has passed after the death of my father, the village has progressed, new people have settled down in various pockets, the old people have either moved out or gone outside the State like me.  At times the guy may not know my people or near and dear.  Then the topic will shift to the conditions of the roads and the Government.Mostly the driver will become eloquent when it comes to roads in Kerala.  No one will say roads are good in Kerala.  The incessant rains always did its work and the roads get broken up.  The drivers suffer.  When it comes to Government, each driver will have his view point and suggestions how the Government should be run.   So also their grievance agains the Police who trouble them at times.   If the Driver become too critical on any subject, I change the subject and steer to some good and hilarious conversation and slowly we turn the last road corner to my by-lane, pushing up my nostalgia.  The bamboo clusters on the road turnings are gone!

New houses have come on the block.   New people around.  Some of the thorn hedges of compounds have been replaced with stone walls.  People are slowly changing and wanting to bring up stone walls among them.  Now the car reached in front of my half finised house, which we always called the "pani theeratha veedu"  The Driver has become a friend by now.

He comes back to the boot and take out the suit case.  He addresses me: "Appo sheri saare.  njan  potte"  (So, right Sir, Let me go) This meant, it is time that I paid him.  I pay him the designated thrity rupees.  He takes it and looks at the money, count it and look down and say again "Appo....Sheri Saare,  Varatte.."
This is a prompt to allow me to give him anything further, if I want.  His face is without a smile.   I pull out a ten rupee note and give him.  Once it was in his hand, his face let up as if the full moon has come up on the blue skies.I know this.   Every time I come, this is repeated. This is another nostalgia.

Mother will be standing at the door looking at me intently!  She always kept on looking out from the door if I am coming.   Once I settle down, it is as if, I have come back forever!  I normally do not open my suit case or any thing when I come.  Just put it in the corner of the room.  I go and settle down on the corner of the bench near the huge table where father used to sit.   Now, mother sits there when I am not there.  When I come, I sit there and she stands on the other side of the table.  Even if I tell her to sit she will not.   She will just stand there opposite me saying "let me see you"   For a long time she will stand there and then she will find out that I am tired.  Then she will just go inside the kitchen and come back with the black tea and put it in front of me!  I start taking the tea, as if I have just come to have tea!  It is an endearing action repeated every time I come home.

Then the fish fellow will call "Poooyi"  Mother will ask "you have some money, I shall buy some fish".  When I come, there after, I make it a point that I pay for these small things, which alleviate a little of my brother's burden, who looks after the house, otherwise.  Mother is happy!  Then she will start slowly narrating the incidents around the house, the village, the church, the convent,  and the town city of Ollur. Those stories will take me through the 20 days of my leave time.   I get the feel of going through an intense film movie and then I pack up  for the return which is always painful!!



The day before my departure used to be a kind of festival.  Mother will arrange all kinds of foods she can and fry the recipes which I like.  Mainly are the achappams and kozhalappams (Two kinds of rice receipes, which I still know only to eat and enjoy..making them are difficult and takes a lot of patience and perseverance, which mother had) which she packed in biscuit tins which I brought from the market.  These are for me to carry with me to Delhi.  The day of parting, she will stand opposite me serving my food and asking that painful question.  "Now, when are you coming next?"  that is a really painful question, as I was a part in the house always evident in each and every single particle there.  I will pretend to be happy and answer "Coming here is not as difficult and all as in the olden times, you just say and I am here"  My mind cried out loud at a super decibel which nobody could hear!  But all that pretention did not fool mother.   She slowly said " I will watch the calendar, to see when you are coming next."  That was a real fact.  And that is the same with most of the parents left back in Kerala, if their loved ones are away.

By the time I finish lunch, she would be packing a special pack of food for me in the plantain leaf from our back yard and that is the last meal from home in that trip while returning.   This I usually took after settling down in the return train and when the dinner time arrived around eight o' clock.  My eyes used to well up while I ate that meal alone as otherwise I would be taking it with all at home. I ate slowly and deliberately, remembering each word that transpired  among us in the house. 

Luckily such soliloquies did not last long as there would be a lot of other passengers and a few will be just near by who would be in conversation and I also used to join in and suppress my anguish and family thoughts for the time being.   Slowly a family camaraderie pick up among the co-travellers and me.

Stories on the way to School..! The ho..ho ammama and the Pranthathi Mariam..!

On the way to school, every day there were incidents which usually went out of our minds by the next day. The main road had too many huge mango trees which have disappeared now. The road was not tarred, but gravelled, or not(?). We sused to see at times heaps of rock stones off loaded for metalling the road.  But that happened at a much later stage.   Earlier times, when we used to walk to school, the road was gravelled only and whenever a vehicle, which were of course rare, it brought up a lot of dust if it was a fast vehicle.   Mostly there were bullock carts only and they did not bring up any dust.

In such a road, one day we had a sight!  The children with us were getting excited and they whispered among themselves!  "The old ho-ho antie is coming! Run!" Every body ran to the sides of the road and hid themselves behind the huge mango trees.  One or two simple people were on the road and the ho-ho auntie shouted at them saying 'ho'...'ho'....again and again and showed the long bamboo stick at them.  The people slightly astounded and looking at the frail lady in her late eighties,  slowly moved away without saying anything, but kept on closely observing her having empathy and sympathy to her situation. 

The frame of an old woman came up fully clad in white with a long bamboo stick in hand.   She was touching the road, with the stick in front and also shouting "ho.."  "ho.."   I looked closely without her seeing me.   She should have been a very majestic lady once.  The whole sight was pathetic.  She was too old to have ventured out on the road and none of us knew where she came from and where she was going.

My friends told me that she belonged to a very rich family who were jamindars who have now become paupers and the old lady is set out to some work as all the workers of the family, have left them.  The family has lost heavily due to the improper governance of the house in the "Karanavar" (Head of the family) way of handling things.  Now that the family head has passed away the old lady is alone.   A pity.  The old lady, in olden days, used to go with a servant man walking ahead of her shouting 'ho..ho.." to warn people not to come too close to her as she is an important woman belonging to an important family with the authority to govern the near around places!  That is all gone now, and the old lady is really helpless!!     We looked on the passing frame but she did not have any defence when fast moving vehicles or bullock carts came.   Slowly times changed and she  or anybody like her, was not seen any more in the streets or major roads!  The bullock carts disappeared and gave way to mini trucks.  The mango trees were not on the road sides any more when I came back after forty years.  The children walking to schools had disappeared.   Now the children went in mini vans.  They were all dressed in neat nickers and slacks well inserted with belt and boot, with identity card cords round their necks, with the school emblem on their shirt pockets.  The gravel roads changed to tarred roads.  Times did change, indeed!

Pranthathi Mariam

This was another poor lady not very old but in tethers and mostly seen wandering in the major city market and near about.  As children, we never thought we have to do anything nor did any body else thinking in those lines.   Most of the people in the city knew her as she was seen always in the market and none of us missed her.   Her looks were blank and her hair was always seen to be cropped close.  We did not know who cropped it for her as she was not in any sane mind to do it herself or request others for the same!

But this was no body's affair.  All were people of great standing moving around and those who were not of great standing were poor and not able to help.   Even if they wanted to help, they did not know what to do.   There were no organizations looking after them.   People simply thought that it is their 'fate', a too very misused and mistaken word, indeed!  Since everybody was busy practicing piety, no body thought that  this poor middle aged insane woman deserved any help or support.


Life was slow and things were routine.  Children went to school, if they could, provided, the family was good enough to send them to school.   There were many children who missed school totally to learn different types of works and start working early to support parents.  But, by and large, all of them went to school, thanks always to the Malayalee nuns and priests who were bent on spreading education through out Kerala.

The elders went to work, mostly hard work.  Business was less and the more shrewd went into business, provided their parents had money enough to go for it.  The common man or generality did not have ambitions as they all understood that it was not proper for average people to have ambitions as they may not have to feel sad about it later.  Those who were rich or more than well to do, always thought they were specially blessed to be good and the others were cursed and that is why they had to do hard work. 

The village centre had a common man's place called 'Sathram'.   Even though it was called 'Sathram', the people who lived there were unusually poor and those who did not have any thing at all in life except the tattered clothes they wore.  This being a publicly donated place by some important individual of the olden times, there was no body looking after the place now.  There was a huge 'madras eentha' tree in front of it, a stone plaque showing the name of the place and the name of the donor and an 'athani'  for those who carried head loads on long distances.  The 'Athanis' were prevalent in olden days when carrying head loads as a means of transportation were common.   When the person carrying the weight when they feel too tired, looked for an 'athani' and
when they found one just pushed the load on to the athani without the help of any body else.   If they had to put it down, they needed the help of another strong person.   Here with the help of an 'athaani' they can off load and take it back on their head by themselves.  The lady in question in her tattered clothes went into this 'Sathram' at times to spend the nights.  This place being a public place were also a place of stay for bad people and such people came and left at will as all were allowed free stay there and as far as we children saw, there were nobody controlling anything or any body there.

The elderly Mariam kept walking by the side of this shop or that all through the day!!  Everybody referred to her as if she is a pillar or part of a boundary wall or so.   I could never connect with the puja and sermons I attended to her, nor could anybody else.  We were small children in any case.   None of the big people who were around also felt any thing amiss.   But those good people of the city village centre  did not have any thing against her either.  They just allowed her there as she did not actually belong to the place.

It was rumoured (in the village, everthing had a rumour behind it which only the inhabitant of the village knew)  that she was a daughter in law, married  of to a rich family.  The mother in law of the family is said to have struck her on the head with an 'ulakka' (the wooden pole usually used to beat rice paddy to dehusk them).  The poor Mariam lost her mind and got injured and was thrown out of the house.   Time healed her or was she helped by someone with any treatment were not known.  She appeared in our village and either we all saw her near this wall, or that shop corner without speaking to any one, at times speaking to herself or looking blankly at the skies far off, or at times sleeping in front of a closed shop.

Once or twice she got pregnant and in those days nothing was reported as of today and there were no TV broadcasting as there was no TV at all.  One time, she delivered a baby, we don't know how, but as she was insane, she carried the child around for a long while.  In between, the child died and she still kept on carrying the child, without knowing the little soul is no more!  Afterwards she was found moving without the child.  We do not know what happened.   Some do gooders of the time would have got the poor child buried.  The poor Mariam the insane, kept on moving on the streets without any special remorse but could have been sad at times, as she kept on talking to herself at times!

Surprisingly all the good people and the philathropists passed that way and would have seen that sight of the tattered Mariam.  All the ulsavams and perunnals took place on time so also the festivals of all other concievable religions around there.  Onams came and went.  Church festivals were celebrated with pomp and show.   But....the poor Mariam....was forgotten and she moved about in the market place like a shadow, unseen and unnoticed by any one, even though all the children could see her very much in the streets.It was a paradox which we could not understand then as we were all busy scrambling to get into some job or the other as soon as we finished our studies with great difficulty swimming against all odds and taking them jovially as part of the game.

I got a job which was not enough to make a proper living by the standards of the time and had to move away in search of better prospects.  I kept on coming and going like the Maveli of old times once in an year and in one of such years one of the general news I heard was "Nammude  aa pranthathi Mariyam ille,  avaru marichu poyi'.  So simple.  She was no more.   No body knew who did her last rites, but every body knew that 'SHE WAS NO  MORE'!..There would have been such unowned lifes in other villages and human centres through out the country..Who knew?