Oru Cheru Punchiri

Oru Cheru Punchiri. Sitting on the thinnai of his tiled, gardened home Krishna Kurup (Oduvil Unnikrishnan), mid 70, retired, combs the pensioned tresses of wife Ammalukutty (Nirmala Srinivasan); a kid spots them, smiles; alerts the neighbours; laughter tickles coconut tops. After years, Govindettan visits Kurup for old friends sake; 'its such a pleasure to see old friends,' says Govindettan; they chat over liquor and smoke; Krishna Kurup drums a note on a steel vessel. Tale of a couple in a village, deep in a quietness, beside a river; no mobiles, no Dubai speed vehicles, no Mohanlal wrestling matches; Krishna Kurup enjoys reading letters from son and daughter; Rama settling down with me in Dombivili in 1976, wrote five to six pages of detailed letters to her mother; inserted it in a stamped over; licked it shut; me dropped it at GPO near VT station; stayed calm for a week before turning restive for the postman; her mother and the postman never disappointed; assured a seven pages reply with every detail of Sreevatsam. Rama and me were watching the film written and directed by M.T. Vasudevan Nair for the fourth time and more; the film is based on Telugu writer Sriramana's short story Mithunam. Sriramana and MT should have been at their near-fine moments, writing and directing the film. Wonder how MT is spending hours at his Kozhikode home. Krishna Kurup and wife prefer their home, shot along the banks of Periyar, to sharing a living with a Kuwait son and a city daughter. There are no family quarrels to thorn the flow of the narrative. They own each other; Krishna Kurup, Ammalukutty and his green padam (garden) are friends, know each other. When a giddiness spins Ammalukutty, Krishna Kutty is beside her with ayurvedic potions dismissing the doctor and tablets; he hot packs her. These moments stick in the mind; hard to unpeel. And one  morning, after a kalyana saddi, Krishna Kurup lies down to rest; is 'off' as the Mumbaikar says; Ammalukutty decides to live alone at the same home. A 90 minute film with Oduvil Unnikrishnan at his normal best. No exaggerations; just like any cheery karanavar in a Kerala veedu located in a Kerala gramam, not abandoned. Left Rama and me with punjiris (smiles); some two years ago we were for a week at the Kurumpala home of  retired, 35 year old friend Narayana Karunakara Kurup on invitation. Absent is a river; compensation a well; and the spread out padams where we strolled. His elder sister stays in a tiled home, on the edges of the padams jammed with trees. She is around 85 and content. Guruvayurappa is always there. There is much to argue for a retired life beside river Periyar or a green. That sure is not for Rama and me.  

Elephants at Sultan Batheri

Four lady elephants with a baby. A FP lead, double column, colour pix in Mathrubhoomi today. Rama and me waited on the snap taken at Sultan Batheri in Kozhikode. For any newspaper reader, a Front Page human interest story in the morning, is a happy start. The day will go good. Of course, news editors cannot indulge this wish every day; but at least twice a week (Sunday must), helps. News editors of Mathrubhoomi and The Indian Express often delight in FP spreads; others, me is not sure. In 2014, Rama, Ganesh, Vidya and me sighted a lady in thought, in a dense bush; paused the vehicle to watch as forest officials told us to move on as the Lady could turn temperamental.With Krishnan Ananth me roamed Masinagudi some years ago, to be close to elephants in the wild including a tusker. With Kerala temples crowded with chained pachyderms, Malayalis hold elephant tales; elephants have God names; Lord Ganesh is sometimes titled Ayyappa; perhaps, the best stories can be had from mahouts. Me has not heard of any elephant book in Malayalam; maybe there is in the genre of The Elephant Whisperer, My Life with the Herd in the African Wild, by Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence. Some two years ago had read the 368 pages book over more than a month, rather munching the story. In 1999, Lawrence was asked to accept a herd of troubled wild elephants at his Thula Thula Reserve in Zululand, South Africa. That's the story line. 'The adventure has been both physical and spiritual. Physical in the sense that it was action from the word go; spiritual because these giants of the planet took me deep into their world,...In our noisy cities we tend to forget the things our ancestors knew on a gut level; that the wilderness is alive, that its whispers are there for all to hear -- and to respond to, ' writes Lawrence in a prologue. Askaris, young elephants, aid father figure (old) elephants to strip bark, hand hold them to swamps where the grass is juicy. Better Lawrence takes over:' ...For elephants do not die gracefully of old age, they starve to death after they lose their sixth set of teeth. ....After he has gone they (askaris) will visit his bones for as long as they are there, paying respects to a fallen leader. The fact that almost all elephants which perish naturally do so in the soft-wood wetlands has led to the myth of secret graveyards and ivory troves where elephants instinctively migrate to die. The truth is they all usually die in the last areas where food is soft enough to ingress.' In the Last Rhinos, son Dylan talks of elephants visiting a dead Lawrence. They hung around for two days before leaving. Dylan muses: 'Cynics may say that the animals were merely wandering past. Maybe the grasses were rich in that area at the time; it was, after all, the summer rains. But we know better--dont we?' Okay we know everything. Will we do them away ahead of retirements into marshes?  

Provident Fund

Rites of December. Today, told the government me am a live pensioner. Government has agreed. With valid documentary proof, no passport sized photos. Till November 2016 will earn a monthly pension of Rs.1,025 per month credited to me ICICI account. Under the Employees' Pension Scheme, 1995. Do not know how it comes to Rs.1,025 per month. Filled up the briefest government form, a pension form; a page with name, bank account number, bank stamp, mobile; end. Pensions go with separate bank accounts. At ICICI Bank, the touchy lady clerk, signs and stamps the form; the Borivili branch of this bank tries to stampede its clients into stock buying and mutual funds; if turned down, as me did, they get nasty. Today, took a less populated Churchgate slow train from Borivili station at 9.50 am; after halts at and in between stations, exited at Bandra in about 35 minutes. A couple of railway policemen, jumped into the Luggage compartment, pulled out some four passengers; apparently, they had turned criminals travelling in the Luggage compartment; men and women with luggage alone can board the Luggage compartment; backpacks of some four passengers did not count as luggage; as they were being led to the chowkie, someone remarked, 'Hafta ka chukker hai (a bribe run)'. Currency notes will probably change hands. Peace will reign. Watched the ways of policemen, before making up a walkover, leading into Bandra (E); in single storey, tin homes pasted to the outside of the walkover, live poor Muslims, excluded by economic development; stranded; for years they have been there as the Bandra Kurla Complex flowered with banks and National Stock Exchange in cemented and glass plated wierdness. The two dont converse. Bandra the Queen of Suburbs is about Bandra (West). Picked up a cigarette, walked along the road (no pavements) to a band baja of two-wheelers, four wheelers, autos, BEST buses and humans; am developing a taste for noise; passed by Bandra Court and the marriage and divorce shops manned by lawyers; arose the gardened, off-yellow Provident Fund building. Government offices intimidate. A ghostly fear overtakes. Stepped into the ground floor, housing a few clerks. No queues. Went up to a behenji; she took the filled form, signed it; was passed on to a second counter for the signed form to be stamped. Five minutes. Am filed as a living pensioner. No forward, middle or back agent; no suggestions or demands for bribes; it has been like this (for me) for 8 years since becoming a pensioner in 2007; in that holy year, while being initiated into the styles of government files, me climbed the first floor to face babus and behens sitting behind tables reading Maharashtra Times and Loksatta; some were into novels; phones rang; stopped; they, humans and phones, did not like to be disturbed; me waited before the assigned clerk; having finished his reading, the clerk okayed me existence. Since 2012, no first floor visits; certifying me a live specimen has been a five minute clerical feat. In unclouded happiness had a second smoke. Now starts the problem of staying alive. 

Parattu Ravindran Sreejesh

Parattu Ravindran Sreejesh won India the hockey match against Holland; helped India win the bronze in the Hockey World League Finals at Raipur. His goal-keeping in the penalties was watchable. An injured Indian and a hockey goal-keeper on the world stage. Mihir Vasavda in The Indian Express reports of the injuries Sreejesh went with into the Holland match; the detailed telling made morning happy. Watched the match on Sunday evening and liked the way Sreejesh crowded out the Dutch players in the penalties; he took them away from the goal and shut the angles. Mihir Vasavda seems sure of game hockey. Holding the ball, tapping the ball, running with the ball like perhaps the Australians are not coming easily to Indians; but these days,our players last a match fit. India could be somewhere near the top four; Rio Olymics 2016 will settle the debate; there is the thought we may display the bronze medal on our necks. For that Sreejesh and Sardar Singh will have to do their best. Me is hoping for a detailed Vasavda piece on Sreejesh in this weekend The Indian Express. Confess to a dollop of Kerala huff, provinicial pride. Checked out sites for spare details on Parattu Ravindran Sreejesh, perhaps the lone Keralite playing international hockey (stand to be pulled up). Has more than 140 international caps and could go on. Australian Dwyer is reported to have 350 caps. Vasavda mentions a street in Kerala named Sreejesh. From Kizhakkambalam village, Ernakulam, he started on sprint, long jump, volleyball before being chosen for hockey at 12, joining G.V. Raja Sports School in Thiruananthapuram. Works at Indian Overseas Bank. Bare details dont tell the man but fated they are to playing hockey. There is Rani Rampal, a fine lady hockey player; Sarada Ugra wrote a column on her in Mint. Rani Rampal will pivot womens hockey at Rio Olympics 2016. If you are a habitual Doordarshan Sports watcher, may know about Rani Rampal, from Haryana and other Indian sports. Something is happening in sports other than cricket and going grossly unreported. Over the last three days, front pages and two sports pages in Mathrubhoomi have been marked for school athletics, Kerala Schools meet at Kozhikode. Reports, colour pixs. India-South Africa Test eclipsed, inside page, bottom. Six reporters: R. Krishnakumar; Anjana Sashi; Rajesh K. Krishnan; M.S. Rakesh Krishnan; Shihabuddin Thangal; Sunil Niruvambadi. Camera: K.K. Santosh; M.V. Sinoj; K.B. Satishkumar; G. Shivaprasad. School girl P.R. Aishwarya breaking records in Hammer Throw and Triple Jump, an odd combination. Ernakulam is heading the table with 20 golds, Alleppey last with one gold. Somewhere in the greens of God's Own Country is seeded an Olympic Gold.  

Singara Chennai

Good old friend, Ashok Reddy and wife Girija, are in a lodge; home in Kotturpuram is under water, said Ashok when me got him on the mobile three days back. For a minute we talked. Today, tried again. 'Ground floor gutted; will take time to clear the sticky muck; the Telugu speaking Malayali family has shifted to a company guest house.' Ashok related facts. Ashok lives on the first floor but with no power and water, may have to stay at the lodge sometime more. 'It happened in 1985; rain water finished everything; it has happened again. We are better off than many, but we have been touched by rains,' he added. 'Life goes on,' chimed Girija. Knee deep water in the ground floor home of PRS at West Mambalam; maybe he has moved to the first floor. Me tried to contact him; out of mobile range, comes the reminder. Daughter Vidya and Madhu are okay at Valsarvakkam; there was no flooding in the area; ground floor homes, including that of Vidya, safe. Kannan (Shiva Kumar) and wife Krishna, in Mumbai, for Dubai Ganesh marriage, skipped train reservations to Chennai; will move on Sunday; their car in the parking lot at Chennai home has been under water for a few days and Kannan is not sure of insurance; seemingly, those not insured against Acts of God or Nature, may not get anything from insurance companies. 'That's a worry,' remarked Krishna and she should know, having worked as a company secretary. Rama and me have been regularly updating selves with Sun TV News. Perhaps, it would have helped if the TV beams were located, dated and timed; and reporting is tough standing in flooded spaces; hard, as reports have to be rushed. Yet, Sun News passed on the grim message. The first time heard of waters in Kotturpuram, thought of Ashok Reddy; mobiled into silence. A year ago, Ashok drove us to his place in Kotturpuram; dropped us back; a dash of green, poshness but dusty. He rolled names of top executives as near and distant neighbours; Ashok had no friends in them, being a loner. 'Prefer to be left alone,' he remarked over iced gins. Girija had prepared a dietic lunch; after afternoon gins, nothing matters. 'Every time it rains heavily, I am a bit worried. Worry for the ground floor tenant,' he told me that day. He is that man, Ashok is. Today, he admits to 'money being the least of worries'; it is trying to get into an old rhythm. Losses wont go that easily. Tattooed hurts will remains. Long months before Singara Chennai gets Singara on its brows.  

Ashramam village

Spelling out shlokas saved in his mobile, the chief priest inquired the gotra of Dubai Ganesh; Harida gotram, said Dubai Ganesh to push forward the chanting; then came the query on three generations: father Devarajan, grand-father Bhagavatheeswaran and great-grandfather, Devarajan. for me it is father Padmanabhan, grand-father Devarajan and great grand-father Thanukrishnan; grandmas were not invoked, sad. 'Ashramam viththukkal (Ashramam seeds)', said Rama. A memory story with a beginning perhaps in Ashramam village. Facts zilch. Did they make the long walk from Thanjavur to Ashramam in the 17 th and 18 th century? Dubai Ganesh, Krishnan, son Ganesh, me .... shoeless denizens of a village we know little about, offering the freedom to imagine a family tradition. We can stitch the cloth anyway, stitch into it wayward thoughts. Thanks be. Ashramam village is a bus stop on the road to Suchindram and Kanyakumari. Have been thrice to Ashramam; the agraharam is a five minute walk with a blue Lord Krishna temple at one end; tiled homes with thinnais (verandas), stuck together, dress the edges; today it may be on GPS. Have a black and white photograph of grandmother with grandfather in a white beard and shaved head; take it out when the desire to think a family tale moves me. One fact is certain: Faith flowed in them. They were in a drown. Grandfather Devarajan, something close to a temple priest, walked daily to Suchindram Shiva temple; offered prayers, earned a chakram, going by the telling of father. They were below or on the poverty line; father existed on Uttuparai chappadu, twice a day, at the Padmanabhaswami Temple in Thiruananthapuram before migrating to Calcutta with mother, Sita. An early version of a Food Security Act. Faith ran in them. They were also political. Grandfather admired Hitler; me father read Churchill and Lloyd George; they disliked, well hated, Gandhi and Nehru; admired Dewan Dr. C.P. Ramaswami Aiyer, having watched him from close. If God was an obsession, politics was a passion, quality food a strong emotion. Wild tempered, moody all. Father read The Statesman in detail. Am wondering how much of them runs in me? Lots of it. Kottarakara (maternal village), Calcutta and Mumbai am certain of. They have stuffed me in healthy scepticism and an arrogance. Where does Ashramam come into it; an Ashramam, signed in blue ink in every religious text: D.Padmanabha Aiyer, Ashramam. Me donated them all, unbandaging Calcutta from me being. Perhaps faith. Faith rests as sediment in me soul, after all the reading of Marx, Gandhi, Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, Ramana Maharshi and the rest. Most often, it stays diluted; sometimes gets a bit thick urging me to light diyas to the tiny pack of gods and goddesses in the kitchen. Fluctuations are hard to explain in Ashramam terms but not the temper and moodiness. 

Dubai Ganesh

For days and nights, Rama and me tabled visions of a kalyana saddi at the marriage of Dubai Ganesh; son Ganesh was in a fever; in recent times the buffet has sadly displaced kalyana saddis and their famed cooks; a saddhi in a way has something to do with inequality; cooks ordered about and serving; buffet is egalitarian, freedom to choose from a wide spread of Chinese and Mughlai; me Thiruananthapuram uncle at Girija's wedding in Kottarakara; Manikantan of Alleppey at Rama-me tie up; Hariharan of Airoli at the espousal of Dubai Ganesh. Place, Gorakshadham Hall , Kulupwadi (was unaware of the corner), Borivili (E). In a spacious hall, we sat on wooden chairs as gentlemen spread green, double banana leaves on tables, sprinkled water, wiped them; placed plastic cups, one each to a a leaf, for ladles of payasams. Payasams always kick off the spree (diabeticians may protest); come first, a dip of it in the right hand bottom corner; the rest followed with banana chips, paruppu wadas and pappadoms making the last trip. Me tongue will not drop quickly the delight of pineapple pachchadi; churned it with fine rice, cracked two pappadoms on the mix, gloated on the delicacy with nibbles of paruppu wada. Gentlemen obliged every request, liberal with helpings like avial, pappadoms pounded down the hall.... a marriage is always recalled for posterity by the food served; for evening tiffin came a surprise: mixture to go with filter coffee; rare indeed; me took a three cups helping with Rama stalling the fourth. Walked up to Hariharan, with sweat holding the sacred thread in place; thanked the gentleman, from where else but Noorni, Palghat; with hands leading to the skies he hailed a 'Guruvayurappa.' Made a particular mention of crispy murukkus, they cracked the mouth; shared the mobile number of boss Vasai Ambi (09821150755) for murukku and mixture orders in the future. Hariharan's mobile beeps quite often as he spades the avial on a gas oven. After lunch, an old man folded paan and supari (there was no tobacco) for me and we leisurely munched for a time; watery Singara Chennai bugged all. They did mention it, tichtiched the fate of Singara Chennai; yes, everyone has someone (Vidya my daughter is safe with her office friends) in Singara Chennai hard to tap on air, rail or mobile. For the old man, there is The Hindu, Mumbai edition ; Mumbai is Singara Chennai; 'we will now get some reliable news in The Hindu' he said over his second round of paan and pakku. Reminded him of young times in Triplicane learning English, reading edits of The Hindu; US reports by K. Balaram. 'Saar, nalla paper. Public waited. Hindu enna chollarathu (What does The Hindu say),' he said tapping me. Nadaswaram by Sivakami Ammal was to the point; the wind instrument has been with her since she was 10; trained by many; today lives in Dharavi with husband tending flower business; we sure are becoming gujjus, if not Americans.  Most importantly, made a fine friend in Kannan (Sivakumar), husband of Krishna. A jolly good fellow. Miss him.