Some memories

Vacations at grandma’s place was fun. Mom had five siblings. We were 14 cousins in all with the oldest being about 23 years older than the youngest. That means you have all age groups. The mid eighties is what I remember most. Kerala then was known for power cuts and monsoons came sooner. My vacations started in April and by end of first week, we were in Kerala till mid June as school reopened in July. Sometimes, dad too managed leave or it was just us traveling with other families.

In April, it was hot and humid. But we cared less. We had all sorts of weird games like jumping over fallen banana trees ( high jump) setting it higher each time, Bus games where we just ran behind the fast bus( my cousin clothed in a shorts with two sticks as wipers), playing Tarzan, sliding down the curved sloping wide bannister by the steps, feeding the cows(my short clad cousin would just squeeze milk from the udders directly to mouth), trying the taste of latest cattle feed, having chemmeen puli eating competition and so on. The elders were busy talking, playing cards, playing music on the latest 2-in-1 bought by Gulf uncle. And if Gulf uncle came that year, there was this multitude waiting for their share of goodies which included perfumes, cigarettes, alcohol, and garish lungies, gulf sarees, soaps, talcum powders et al. Grandma will ask the numerous women servant to grind, sieve, powder rice and coconut to make different eatables. Other favourites included banana chips, jaggery coated banana chips, achappam and Jackfruit Jam ( Chakka varatiyathu).

But with sun down, the atmosphere changed a bit. The men might go out or a drink and I was afraid of Gulf uncle who will hold me high up in air(he was 6’3”), once he was on a high. The younger males and my aunts would start singing the Malayalam hits. While some of my elder cousins sang well, others knew the lyrics and so we spent the powerless moon lit nights on terrace. We kids tired after the day’s toil listened to nice songs lying on someone’s laps or on a straw mat. Suddenly some one might draw attention to the glow worm and we would get up to see or pluck the tenderest of mangoes from the overhanging branches of the nearby tree.

By 8.30 pm, grandma will call everyone downstairs. By then, my eldest aunt’s husband, a teacher to astrologer would be there. He will tell all those ghost stories which everyone knew was whims of fancy. Around 9.30 p.m, we will have dinner and youngest of cousins will go off to sleep. Around 10.30 p.m almost everyone is tired of ya-yapping throughout the day. My lazy elder cousin would be picking at her hair for lice, (wonder whether she found any in her life). Her mom will be asking her to take a bath which she wouldn’t be taking till its about midnight.

Suddenly, there will be a thud on the window and a sound like ouuuyiii. Lazy cousin jumps out of her chair.
“Indrakuttyamme”, calls out the voice
“ Ow, Chakunni, why do you scare us so?”

Chakunni is the local grocer who closes the shop at 10 pm and home delivers things he had taken order for in the morning.

“ Da, ithum pidicho( here, hold this too)”, he says thrusting a paper into my aunt’s hand. And rushes off.
“Appo paisa”( what about your money), aunt calls out to the diappearing figure with a torchlight.
“Pinne” ( Later).
But that later is only till next morning.

It’s the bill. It’s something like this
Sa-10
Mupo-7
Cha-30
Pa-17
So-40
U-2.50
Ma- 4
………
110.50

None but my aunt could understand that bill. The miser he is, he saves ink of pen and paper too by making it so brief. And is always uses the backside of notices and handbills to write on.

Sa is savala or Onions, Mupo is mulakkupodi or chilly powder, cha- is chai or tea, pa is panjasara or sugar, so is soap, u is uppu or salt, ma is mathangna or pumpkin.

I have never seen that guy walk, always on a run like the industrious ant On the local palli perunal ( feast at church), he will wear a shirt and on Christmas and Easter and weddings. In any other season, he had only the lungi on and torch as accessory. He worked on the day he died too. Died in sleep.

Maybe we can learn a lesson or two from him. HE NEVER WASTED ANYTHING OR A MOMENT. His effort led to his children being like him. They worked their way up. Only one remained in village to look after his dad’s shop, but has another business interest too- timber trade.

History through Textbooks

The holiday homework for my elder son included learning two poems- one in English and another in Hindi. I searched the web and found him some poems to choose from. And he said he found the Hindi poem a bit too difficult. It was the weekend before the school reopening. The kids and I had gone to my parents place for the weekend. With no net connection, I had no choice but search the bookshelves. Being an old house, there were many books to look through. And I came upon this book on geography published in 1916 and used by my grandfather in Form II.

Hardbound, it was published Longman. The pages were smooth. The book had changed many hands. Grandpa’s younger sisters had read it and so had my dad’s elder brother. My curiosity of how they wrote about regions and people then made me read it here and there. It was a simpler world then on the map. Large unified regions were marked as British Empire, Chinese Empire, Japanese Empire, Persia and Africa. Europe looked different, Middle east and Africa were totally unrecognizable. India looked different with Madras presidency, Bombay Presidency, Calcutta Presidency, Gwalior, Travancore Cochin etc. So much had happened in the last 100 years.

Somewhere between the pages, it was written that the Zulus of south Africa were war like earlier and now( around 1911 when the book was edited) had become law abiding peaceful people( Does that mean some bad leadership allowed the tribe to lose its identity to British occupation?). And that the British had difficulty to control slave trade( human trafficking) done by Arabs off the coast of Africa(Can you believe that?). Another important factor while describing a country was the fact whether it had trains. Maybe trains were the symbol then that modern age had arrived in that country.

The written word, a textbook can so mould a person’s thinking. No wonder governments try to frame minds through these. What are the text books of future going to look like? How will be the world after another 100 years?

A risky job

Come vacations and one team is working overtime – the thieves in the neighbourhood. Their work has to be meticulously planned taking in so many factors – when the wife and kids of a house go visiting relatives, when the guy hangs out late celebrating, when the old couple are leaving for pilgrimage, which guests have to go to church on wedding eve etc etc. But as it is, sometimes calculations don’t work and sometimes its too easy to be called a risky job. Here are few real instances. Read them to have a ringside view of things.

1. Broad Daylight – Mr. Warrier is seated in living room with the door wide open. Thief walks in and walks out with brand new music system. Stammering Warrier tries to shout but could manage only de, de, wh, wha, hey, hey….
2. In dead of night, the women of the house hear a loud thud in kitchen. Cautiously, they venture to check out. They switch the lights on. A guy is lying face down. He is dead.
3. The owner of the house arrives in the wee hours of morning, called to duty early on. He finds two guys who have packed almost anything valuable and are sleeping like babies beside the loot. As they get socked, one thief manages, “ Par, sahib. Aap to raat waali gaadi se aane wale the”( But sir, you were to come by the night train)
4. A proud father of five grown up sons was always laughing at the stories of local burgularies and said,” None would dare to burgle my house”. And his house was burgled soon- seems that each lazy son thought it was one of family making noise and didn’t care to check out.
5. The petty thief had jumped into the courtyard to pick some things lying around and was stunned by the scene of the young girl taking an open air bath in the moonlit yard. She sees him after a while and pours water on him, but the poor guy is totally lost and recovers only after she disappears from scene.
6. The thief gets into house being constructed( in finishing stages). While he is in, the owner comes to show the work progress to friends. He tries getting out through the exhaust hole in kitchen and gets stuck.
7. A new sofa set was taken off by pair of enterprising thieves from a housing complex. They signed at the entrance and told the security that the sofa set had to be changed as wrong colour was delivered.
8. A solitary lean old fellow manages to scare of a couple of thieves as he charges towards them- the dhoti fast leaving him.

The feeling of Oneness

The feeling of being one with the Universe, being part of whole Nature, knowing your little stature is perhaps best brought about by the magnificence of Nature as in High mountains, gurgling rivers, the vast seas, the expanses of desert. It just helps us to understand that we are a mere drop in the ocean. Here are few snaps which helped to puncture that bloated ego, that useless sense of 'this is mine' and so on.

On way to Badrinath

Waiting for your turn, Kanyakumari

Wagamon, Kerala

A time in future

Society evolves. What we vouch by today is not accepted tomorrow. Change is continuous. So, we see some definitions change.

Definition of family: Parents and children make the family. But the hitch is, it is no longer compulsory that you must have a father and mother. It can be mother-mother or father- father duo taking care of children, biological, surrogate or otherwise

Definition of marriage: A prolonged live in relationship that stumbled into a certificate session

Definition of a Classroom: Has students who have never appeared in person in front of teacher. The teacher is at least 1000 miles away blinking away sleep as he/ she is in another time zone.

Definition of a vegetable: A variety of a species genetically engineered to grow in colder climates unlike its natural origins of growing in a tropical climate.

Definition of Keeping track: Inject the kids with a chip so that you may track them in a radius of few kilometers.

Definition of higher growth for developing countries: Cultivate single crop that you have no use of, make MNCs buy it and use the money to buy the food you need that has originally been grown by your neighbour, exported to a foreign nation and imported into the country and sold at a higher price.

And discover at the end of it that we are living a life much akin to children playing train. Wee go around in circles and find that time is kind of constant. Past, present and future are just our way of relating to it.

To catch a thief

The day dawned as any other morning. After the usual hullabaloo I create while getting ready to work, I jumped onto my scooty and rode out of the porch. Hubby dear was there to see me off as he went to office only about 11a.m.
“ Hey”, said he pointing to the drainage canal in front of house. Through the yawning where the slabs weren’t there, he could see two small crow bars.
“Look, thief’s tools”
“Where?”, asked I putting on the brakes.
“Here.”
“Where?”, I asked again craning my neck
“You get off that or bring it closer”
I tried to push the scooty to edge and almost ended up in the drains
“OK, you continue your investigation. I am off”, and I rode off

I returned home early the day. I was already into my home wear when I heard hubby pulling up his car outside. The boys too came in at the same time from play. So, I got busy pushing them into shower. Ten minutes had passed and hubby had not walked in. I went out to investigate.

There was small crowd gathered at the neighbour’s gate. Hubby’s wrinkle free trousers were stainful- seems he had jumped into the dry drain( thankfully of rainwater) to pick the crowbars. The neighbour who lived alone held them in his hands. Real beauties, they were. Fashioned to prick and open any heavy door with minimum effort. Everyone was super excited. The ideas of who left it, when and will the thief be back to pick them up….topics of animated conversations were many.

One guy came up with the suggestion, “Let’s wait and keep watch and when he comes, we flash torchlight to his face!”
“And catch him” , added another
“ No. no.”, the first guy continued. “See, when we flash light, he will run and we will be able to recognize him, later when the police catch him”
And so on went the intelligentsia.

The boys too were there at the boundary wall listening to this major problems adults had.
Soon, they too were ready for the thief, armed with cricket bats.
Bumbum even had a tune on lips,
“Oh, yeah,
The thief is appeared”(excuse his grammar)

“ Let’s inform the police”
“No good” said another
“We keep watch. The thief will come today to make the attempt”, said the enlightened husband.
“OK. That seems the best idea” and the crowd dispersed. The crowbars were in safe custody of neighbour. Hubby came in for shower and tea. He did not want any snack as important things were to be discussed for the night.

I thought of renaming the junction as dumbo junction. Did these people really think that the thieves will show up after all that commotion they had created? And what’s more, hubby went to the nearby bakery which sends out flash news just to spread the word. With that action, the thief could no longer be unaware.

Meanwhile we had two small power breaks. And then we had dinner and watched TV. After the enthusiastic kids were asleep, hubby dear was ready with his counterpart- our neighbour. And they kept watch till 3 am. I checked once a while till 1.15am and after that slept like a log.

Next morning, hubby misses gym, sleeps late, is in a bad mood. Anyway, he has to go to school to collect books. As he gets out, the police jeep arrives. The neighbour hands over the tools. The police examine them, ask few question, throw it in the jeep and speed away. I take the nylon rope ( to tie the thief to the electric post), kept on the water meter, inside.

What a tight spot!

1. Tell your foreign photographer friend about an Indian festival and call him/her over for it. As they plan in advance, tell them a rough date to book and when they have done so, tell them 15 days before travel that the festival is already on and they missed it.
   
2. Open the door to see a man with a polythene bag and tell him ‘Sorry, we don’t give alms’ and discover he is courier delivery boy.
   
3. Give the maid few pieces of marinated fish and she discovers that they are pieces of jaggery you put in the deep freeze long ago.
   
4. Take some friends to distant national park of which you have read about and find that the park is closed for the mating season.
   
5. Tell a joke about squint eyes to a girl in goggles and discover….
   
6. Hearing your cousin from Hyderabad speak, say “What a difficult language Telugu is!” And he tells you that they just spoke English.
   
7. Tell a neighbour, just to make them happy that you love their regional cooking and be invited over for a meal where you can’t eat a morsel.
   
8. Have a tenant who has a dog named after your nick name. Each time he calls out, both man and animal show up.
   
9. Draped in saree, you discover half way into the party that the most important pin has slipped off and the saree is giving away and that chattering aunt doesn’t let you go and introduces to all Tom, Dick and Harry(groom hopefuls)
   
10. Visit a relative and tell them your kid doesn’t like bananas and the two year old has at least three.