Terror on the Hill --[Kerala II] -- [Nostalgia] -- Icarus.

[Paul C. Chemmanoor]

1] I got around to writing kerala II, though kerala III has already
appeared.

Any Comments ? Anyone wants me to continue ?

2]

Terror on the hill -- [Nostalgia] -- Kerala --II -- Icarus.
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"Ivadde aduthu valla schoolu nokka"
-- Lets look for a school near by here.

My dad had been given another transfer and we were for some time to be at
home at guruvayoor. As usual schools had to be found.

So every day at 7:30 I would dress up in blue shorts and a red elastic tie.
And a white shirt. I would walk down the wilderness of grass and rice fields
that still surrounded our house, looking anxiously, longingly at the small pools
that would form after every rain in the dirt road that our gates opened into.
Watching for those small flecks of blue-green that were the baby fish spawned after the rains. In my black leather shoes I would walk sadly to the bus stop
crossing the paddy field (Now that field has been filled in and houses compete
with one another to block our view of the horizon, along with the Kaja wedding
hall that processes couples by the tens every week) wishing I was as free.

At the turn of the road where the path through the paddy field joins the main
road that takes you through mammiyoor to kunnamkulam, there is a wild burst of
'bogainvilla' -- No doubt some wild corruption of its english name-- a burst of
pink and white flowers set in vines with thorns one inch long.

[[Athu aayirunnu ende onnam sthanum]]
-- That was the first station in my conception of my personal stations
of the cross. The beginning of the days sufferings. Teh end of happiness,
of pointless wandering, of careless afternoons of fishing of reading story
books. All gone at the first station of the cross.

H. would be waiting for me. H. was a fat boy who was in a class younger to me. We would get into the private buses that raced down competeing with each
other to get passengers. Every morning my aunt would give me a copper coin
which was twenty paise. Thats all twenty paise. Every day. ALl that I would
ever needed to go to school and come back.

I was all of ten years old.

Bethany was a school run by a very strict sect of priests.
They all dressed in brown robes, and wore long unkempt beards.

The wiring in those days was always done on the outside of the walls.
The wires were gathered together and bound into flattened bunches by
pins.

In Bethany, the pins always formed the pattern of the cross.
The one fear I had as a child in those days was that I wouldnt be able to get
down at kunnamkulam at the hill , on which bethany was situated.
What if the bus carried on till trissur ? What would happen to me ?

A secret voice would pipe up:

[[ Nalla rasam aavum, trissur kannalo ]]
-- It will be great fun, I will be able to see trissur after all.

At lunch I would eat with H. and our friends.

The boys would tease H. because he was fat.
And tease H., because his father was fat.
Maybe thats why I tease fat people.

Sitting cross-legged in the grass. Watching weary eyed for the
crows swooping around us in the cashew-groves with branches sweeping the ground.

[[ Vappa kaayeyum, chammundi thanne innum ]]

-- Its papaya and chutney again.

I would eat a lot of it from my plastic tiffin carrier, because in
truth I liked Vappa kayya and chammundi.

The rest I would throw nonchalantly, in all benevolence to the
circling birds.

In retrospect I wonder what whether there were any pretty girls in my class.
I remember only one girl from those years. I remember her face and
an anachronistic image of her rounded knee. She used to sit next to me in
class. Something of those years must have sunk into me perhaps at an
unconscious level. Although I have spent most of my years
outside kerala, when I return and see women with long black hair tied
with strands of hair taken from the edges dressed in long flowing skirts
I can feel familiar stirrings.

There was a great feast one day in bethany a holiday had been declared for the
books but we were to come to participate in the celebrations.
So we left our uniforms at home. Some one died at school and the program was
cancelled. We were told to be quiet and stand at attention by the tree.
Eventually we began to discuss houses and comparing the size of our fists
and whatevr else it is ten year olds do.

The principal saw us from his office.
The called for me. I went up to his office trembling in the sure knowledge
of what was to come.

He asked me if I knew what I was going to be punished for.
I said "No."

He hit me anyway. So hard with a cane, that a welt appeared instantly.
I didnt cry.

I promised that night that I would return as a grown up and corner that
priest and ask him while he cowered:
Do you know for what you are being punished ?
And proceed to tatter his habit with my great right arm, the great
right arm of nicholas nickleby , the wounded right arm of stephen
dedaelus, the remaining leg of Captain Ahab, with such a limb I would
tatter his habit, I promised.
I would whip him with the flexible sword of the keralites: The urami.

Such is the vehemance of a ten year old.

3] Stay Cool.
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. ~ ~ .
. o o signito ergo sum. .
. | i sign therefore i am. paul chemmanoor .
. = washington d.c. .
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