nostalgia
gv...@ri.cmu.edu
I am posting this for Sunil (PSK...@phx.cam.ac.uk)
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Well, having submitted my first year report and feeling a little bit
light hearted and headed, I thought that it is time that I contributed
some thoughts to the forum. Having lived most of my life in the city
of Madras which I grudgingly started liking after twenty odd years,
I still have lot more to think and talk about Kerala. Every year even
a small holiday of 8-10 days would see me rushing off to Kerala to
my grandparents house in Kuthuparamba, a cosy little town 13 kms. from
the coastal town of Tellicherry. Those were the days of joint family.
At a single meal nearly 18-20 persons would be there to enjoy the dishes
cooked in chatti on the viragu adduppu. I think all of them loved us to
the core and in some sad way, the other children in the house were
not given the special treatment that was given to my brother and me.
It was perhaps the way a good host acts or the fact that we have gone
to see them after a long time or simply put it could have been love.
It was also the times that Madras and Bombay used to be the States
and Gulf of the Keralites and anybody from these places were treated
a little special.
Having lived in the confines of a city , the house in Kerala with its
big lush gardens used to be such a fascination to us that we turned
out to be most mischievious lot of all the kids. Games like hide and seek would
go on even after dark until someone gets a good thrashing from a
frustrated mother and then everybody decides it was time that we
stop for the day. Anyhow my mother used to say that it
was only during these holidays that I grew a little bit taller. I
would like to say two incidents before everybody starts nodding off.
My grandfather and his friend Ambuutty veliacchan. The kind of
friendship that is quite unfathomable, too mature for me to
understand at that time. Ambuutty veliacchan used to come in the
evenings with a bottle of fresh kallu. My grandmotherwould then
bring all the accompanying dishes at the all important call of her
name. Well, the old hands (I can remember them as old only) would
then sit in the corner of the big verandha slowly munching away
and in the one hour or so that they would sit together very few words
would be spoken. A gulp, a munch, few words followed by silence of
nearly 5-10 minutes. Their eyes seemed to be that of the most wise.
Ambutty veliacchan used to work in our gardens and was elder to my
grandfather by 5 years. Behind the pillars, watching them grind
away, they were always so mysterious to me and it was during these
evenings that I used to respect my grand father the most. Their pure
white dress always amazed the Madrasi in me who had to live with
hard and horrible tasting water and any white cloth after few washes
was good as brown. I should mention that they never got drunk and never
would drink more than the angjnuuru milli. Incidentally, my mother
used to say that all other persons who drink frightened her except
these two wizened men. When my grand father died Ambuutty veliacchan
was there the next day. He sat in the corner looking into the
distance. Nobody dared to go near him. Everybody were standing at different positions looking at the sky, looking at the garden, looking anywhere
but at him. I was very near to him staring at him intensely.
I saw his lower jaw shiver and his stare into the distance
became misty. I was waiting for him to cry but it never came.
The mist never became a rolling tear. After sitting for a while he
slowly got up and walked away. He looked very old.
Well, I wanted to say two incidents and perhaps could have
elaborated many of the happenings, but there is this goody called
time crunch. Also on second thoughts, I did better wait for some
feed back before I post my second nostalgia.
PS: I thank the kind soul, George Paul who posts the ack to me
and all others whose efforts make this forum a pleasurable one.
Sunil Kumar Parapuram
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gvp
Sameer Kuruppath Vadakke
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>I am posting this for Sunil (PSK...@phx.cam.ac.uk)
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>
Sunil - keep the writing going - it's why I read ack :-)
Take care
Sameer
--
Vadakke Kuruppath Sameer vad...@cse.uta.edu