Ottapalam Musings

 

Vinod Nair, my brother-in-law, left us almost three decades ago at the young age of 30. Were he alive, he would be in his late 60s. One which would qualify him to that club of grey heads of Ottapalam, the one he lampooned so brazenly in his article "The Grey Heads". Vinu died a couple of years after these articles were published.

 

Rummaging through some old records - to overcome the boredom induced by the lockdown- I came across cuttings from old newspapers preserved so possessively by his mother. The posts below are from these cuttings: articles that were published in Deccan Herald and Times of Deccan during the late 80's. Vinod had stints with The Indian Express, Free Press Journal and finally The Riyadh Daily. My selection of his articles are mostly Ottapalam centric and holds a mirror to this outgrown village of the eighties. Being one of that generation of angry young men myself, allow me to be a bit nostalgic.

So here is an assortment of middles by Vinod:

 

 The Windfall          (Deccan Herald March 7 1987)

Ottapalam, my friend MK will tell you, is a small Kerala village that lost its way trying to become a one-horse town. Ottapalam used to team with pensioners-air force pilots, colonels and sailors, not to mention countless lance-naiks and even a pint sized former pantry assistants in the agricultural ministry of British Burma.

It was 1978- the second year of unemployment for Mk, Sasi, and myself. It was a period of stark penury and frustration; of “competitive examinations”, interviews and regret cards; of idle days spent sipping coffee and smoking beedies (couldn’t afford cigarettes); and days of growing bitterness. And the pensioners would stop us and rub it in with questions such as: “still jobless boys?” Or pulling over in their Fiats, remind us of Kariyath Appunni Nair’s son who, then into the seventh year of unemployment, was still looking for work. “That’s the spirit lads”, they would declare, smiling through their dentures. And they’d drive away, leaving us more wretched than ever.

It happened one August Evening. We were sitting at the old railway yard beside the river, and had just lit up the first beedies for the evening, when we were startled by the figure of an approaching man. Wherever he was heading, he’d have to pass us.

“That’s Lt Panikker!” Sasi cried quickly throwing away his glowing beedy. “And I think he is drunk!”

I recognized the man from his size: he was built like a house. He was among those who professed undying sympathy for the unemployed of Ottapalam. He swayed past, stopped, turned, and staggered towards us. Before I could do something about my beedy he was upon us. A huge red bag swaying heavily on his arm. For several seconds he surveyed us unsteadily. Then, raising his walking-stick (the size of an oak) he bellowed at me: “You! I’ve seen you before…”

“You came home yesterday…” I told him, desperately wishing he’d leave us alone.

“Aha!  Karunakaran’s son, are you? Tells me you’re still loafing around…! “.  Then he looked at Sasi and MK .

“All three jobless eh…?”  He asked.  Silently each of us was cursing this inebriated intrusion. To make it worse he offered us his sympathy.  “Have you tried the Civil Services Exam…?” he asked solicitously.

That did it. Mk buried his face in his hands and moaned.  “Oh No! Not that all over again!” But Sasi answered the old man: “We wrote it: failed.”

“What about the State Bank Officers Exam?” The Lieutenant persisted.

“Failed in that too,” Sasi replied again a trifle irritated.

“The Clerks’ Grade Exam….?”

Sasi went berserk:  “We failed. We also failed in the Railway Service Commission exam; Failed in the UPSC exam; Failed in the Air India flight Purser’s Exam. Failed in the KPSC Exam; Failed in the Reserve Bank Coins & Notes Examiners Exam and we failed in the Station Master’s Exam.  Anything else….?”

The Lieutenant was crouching on his stick. His eye brows in a furious knot of exaggerated concentration. There was silence for several seconds.

“I ….I’m sorry chaps”, he said at last. “Bad patch, ugh?”  None of us spoke. Mk was doodling miserably in the sand. “You chaps drink?”  The lieutenant asked abruptly.

We looked at each other, surprised, then up at him. “Yes….sometimes,” I replied.

“Where do you chaps get the money from, ugh?” he asked, his voice dropping conspiratorially.

“Toddy doesn’t cost much, you know”, Sasi told him.

“Toddy? Toddy?” The lieutenant drew back, appalled and contemptuous, sending his red bag swaying heavily again.

“Can’t afford the good stuff” Sasi snapped, glaring at the pesky old man.

Lt. Panicker straightened up. Then he cleared his throat once, reached into the red bag and brought out something.

“Here” he said thrusting at Sasi.

“What’s that?”  Sasi asked.

“Take it you rascals” he roared angrily, “And replace it when you chaps get your first salary.” Then, turning, he staggered away leaving us clutching a full bottle of Bagpiper Whisky.

                                                                 *******

Village Weekends

For five days a week, there was enough entertainment on the campus of the modest college, I went to, 20 kms from the village where I lived. It was the weekends in the village that got you. Dash it, I ought to know: I spent seven years there, having all the time on my hands, and not having a way to spend it. In summer the heat got you, and in the monsoon, the rain. You couldn’t do window shopping because there were very few shops in the village and fewer windows. No restaurants, only tea stalls that had glass cupboards heaped with banana splits deep-fried in dough.

Worse, there were no M G Roads.  Weekend mornings were spent with my friends, hanging about the largest tea stall, watching the hot dust swirl up behind buses departing for other villages; or staring idly at the salesman of the only textile store across the road, dozing in midsummer bliss.

In the monsoon, we’d gather at Amit’s home, guitars and drums and all, and play on till the thunder and rains stopped. Which, often, was by dusk.

When the skies cleared , we’d take long, monotonous walks across the fields, past the railway gate right up to the edge of the river where we we’d sit down, often startling the lapwings that roosted there.

Our guitarist friend Johnson Chacko heard of our plight, and very soon we were playing in the choir of the tiny village church every Sunday. In two weeks, Amit began concentrating on the girl with the chocolate-brown skin and wide forehead who always kneeled third from left; his rhythm went berserk, Johnson Chacko glared at him, and we were back at the tea stall, watching buses and the snoring salesman.

Of course, there was a theatre but deciding to watch a film under its thatched roof was like volunteering to spend three hours inside Auschwitz. The fans didn’t work because there weren’t any, and in the monsoon, the roof leaked from so many places that it was like watching a film sitting in a shower.

Finding work in this big, beautiful city came as a great change. Here I could spend weekend evenings ambling up and then ambling down MG Road; I could watch movies in 70 mm; I could visit plazas and palaces; floor shows and flower shows; I could spend an evening at a film festival or a fast food store; at a discotheque or a discount sale; I could spend my evenings chewing pomfrets smothered in green chutney. Or I could just stuff a plain cheese pizza and guzzle draught beer. I mean there are a million ways I could spend an evening in Bangalore. Only now, I don’t find the time.

                                                              *********

The Grey heads

After the buffaloes, the most compelling presence in the Village was that of the old men: fine specimens they were, relics of the raj, when heroes came king size; men who detested mediocrity, men who had instant solutions to instant problems.

Men like PKN (88), who, when workers united in his fields united one monsoon under a red flag demanding higher wages, stormed into his house, emerged with his mammoth 12 –bore rifle, took a shaky aim and let them have it. No one died in the firing, of course, and he wasn’t sent to jail. But even today, in the village, they speak of this man in whispers. Especially trade union leaders. The act, they confess, required great guts. Because PKN never held a license for the weapon. And he had severe cataract at the time.

We-the gang and I-would often sit on the huge decaying rafter near the railway line and watch the old men as they lived their days in endless rhythm of precision, punctuality and purgatives. S Nair, for instance, never passed us on his rounds before 5 p m. And never later. Approaching us, he’d tilt his enormous head back, and study us curiously from behind the bifocals. No greetings were exchanged and Nair (73) would walk down the dirt track up to the little shop beside the post box. There, hooking his umbrella on his left arm, he would buy the evening’s quota of cigarettes, light one up and await the arrival of the rest of his gang, tilting his head, this time to study the buxom young things going home from work at the match factory.

Then there were old men who had spent mysterious pasts in distant Borneo. SNM (age not known) for example, got a fat pension from Burma, where, he claimed, he was for many years in the civil service. But the few sepia photographs which he said were taken while he was in his office told another tale. The pictures showed a dapper SNM seated at the table, smiling. In the background was an oven, a boiler, a considerable collection of vessels and ladles, a tin that was distinctly labelled “Flour” and a sink leaning out of which were two score dirty dishes. Clearly, the picture was of a civil cook resting after service. Inside a Rangoon pantry, that is.

P P Panikkar was the most well-dressed among the old men of Ottapalam. In fact, he’d have won a geriatric fashion parade hands down, had one been arranged. His “jubba” was immaculately tailored, its sleeves rolled up to the elbows, the hair on his arms thick and white, and that on his head dyed to such precision, that, it is said ,ravens went into hiding, ashamed at the strength of the tint.

It was a treat to watch the grey-heads sitting to lunch at weddings, expertly hauling the “payasam” from banana leaves all the way through the air into their mouths in great slurpy handfuls.

However, members of the younger generation (average age 32 years) drank it from fashionable glasses. Because it saved them from the embarrassment of having the stuff dribble copiously down their arms while attempting to copy the old men.

Of course, let us agree, all this is written not to disparage the seniors. For, I am aware that I too shall join the club of grey heads, slipping out the dentures and soaking them in a glass of disinfectant, before retiring at the end of another arthritic day.

But that, is another 30 years way.

Till then, I plan to have a ball…..

                                              ***********

A Case study

One summer day many years ago, the elite in the Village decided to form an exclusive club. So they bought a piece of land, put up a building and had the industrialist (a man with three match factories and a funny moustache) inaugurate it.

Members played cards in the monsoon and tennis for the rest of the year. That was the time Kandunni set up his beedi-and–soda shop in front of the club. Years later he was still there, and we- J, S and I –would buy the evening’s quota of cigarettes from Kandunni and he’d regale us with tales about the club’s members. The story about the libidinous landlord was pretty torrid but the one on the amorous advocate was the most interesting in his repertoire.

Some years back (said Kandunni) a chap called Govindan returned to the Village from the college in Madras, armed with a degree in Law. Govindan was the son of Kuttappan Menon, an advocate so renowned that, it is said, the rich Goundars of Coimbatore fought fierce clan wars to secure his services. Govindan, unfortunately, refused to follow his father to the bar, because, he argued forcefully, there was better money to be made at the card table in the club.

Throughout that monsoon, Kuttappan Menon, himself a regular at the club, endured the mortification of having to play cards at a table not far from which sat his idle son doing the same with his father’s money. Towards the end of the season, junior began losing so heavily, his debts piled up higher than the chimney of the Tile Factory.

So Govindan went outdoors and took up tennis.

One afternoon his opponent’s serve sent the ball soaring over the bamboo screen into the compound of the headmaster’s home. Ball-boys weren’t invented then, and so off went the young advocate in search of the ball. He found it below the window and as he straightened up, he saw her: a slim girl, her skin the colour of chocolate, and a mouth that held fantastic possibilities. Ball in hand, Govindan returned to the court (tennis) and briefed his friend about the brown thing at the window. Ten minutes later, the ball was dispatched over the screen and the advocate chased it like a hound behind a hare, his eager eyes riveted on the girl at the window.

In the weeks that followed, Govindan picked a piece or two of discreet conversation with the brown girl, and Kuttappan Menon began to notice that his son was spending lots of time chasing the balls behind bamboo screens.

One day the ball, as planned, was sent over the screen, and Govindan was getting set for the chase when it came crashing right back, tearing a violent hole in the screen. The tennis duo ran up and peered through the ruin. And froze. At the other end was the headmaster, crouching menacingly, gripping a tennis racket that suddenly was looking like a club. The girl was at the window, clutching her mouth in shock.

“Er……y…you p..play tennis too..? Govindan blurted.

“Yeah” barked the headmaster, but I took up the game after I began earning a decent living. You’re Mr. Kuttappan’s son, aren’t you..? What a shame that the only briefs you’ve got are the ones you’re wearing…”

“Er..”

“Shut up…. And beat it. Come back with a job if you want my daughter…” the old man roared, slamming the door behind him.

That night Kuttappan Menon sat stupefied as his son vowed before him never to go near the club again till he had won his first case. In the weeks that followed, Govindan sat in his father’s study, mastering the intricacies of the Paramban Mammadu v the Queen case (Law record 1872) and the subtleties of the Sogaimuthu Padayachi v the King case (1926).

Eleven months later, he had won a case and by year-end, the invitations had gone out to the nobility in Ottapalam: the headmaster was arranging a match between his daughter and the beaming advocate.

                                                           *************

The un-bringable!

I told my friend “R” that I was going to my village in Kerala for a month, and asked what I could bring her when I returned.

“Bring me the River” she exclaimed.

A week later, as I sit on the sand beside the river, I begin to wonder how nice it would be to take all of it back to her. I could catch the wind and the roar of the surf for her….. Or I could trap the stillness of that white bird perched on the ledge nearby, its head tilted comically, eavesdropping on the waves.

…..How wonderful, I begin to think, to be able to take back the froth licking at your feet….or if the shops could sell a little of the fiery evening sky…

…..How wonderful to be able to buy the laughter of the workers returning home from the match factory, at the end of the day, their slippers slapping up the sand at every deep step…. Or buy the giggles of the women following them, wadding like a gaggle of geese...

…..How wonderful if you could bottle the anger of the skies before a storm….or the smell of the wet earth in the first April rain….or take back the laziness of the cattle that stand soaking in the rain in the middle of the glistening asphalt…

….How wonderful if there is a discount sale on the deep shadows inside a forest... or the silence inside the ruined fort far up on the hill…

…. How nice it would be to buy the gurgle of an infant looking at itself in the mirror….or if we could buy the roar of the oceans trapped inside an empty sea shell…

…. How wonderful if I could take back the shrill squeals of delighted children on the Ferris wheel as it comes swooping out of the sky…or if I could return with a bag full of the smell of roasted groundnuts as the vendor paused before me…

….How wonderful to be able to sell away old pains….or buy the warmth of a woman’s mouth…

….Or be able to buy fresh rainbows…or swap stale dream for the morning sun…

….How wonderful to be able to gift-wrap Nature….

                                                     ********************

Survival Skill

Some time back my friend Rajeev sent me a forward. About life in the corporate world.  Around the same time I too had been mulling over the days I spent in the corporate world. I have straddled with equal ease, now I realize, Public and Private sector, Banking and Non- Banking.  I found life interesting, worthless, comical, idiosyncratic, meaningless, rewarding …….you name it. It is much the same everywhere.

When I left the protected world of Public Sector Banking and jumped into the unknown Private – Proprietary, de facto, as closely held by the promoters- I was warned by many well meaning friends that I wouldn’t last long. My answer to them was – what choice I had? - and who would have thought I would have to walk out of the safe havens of the ‘nothing will affect’ Premier Government Bank.  In the circumstances that I left the cocoon and jumped into world of the unknown, I was charged with a desire for retribution and determination to prove a point… that there is life   outside the PSU, worth giving a try.

I left the ‘cocoon’ for all the wrong reasons. I had just been promoted to the next higher grade- many a peer fell by the side- which could open to me at least two more promotions before superannuation. I thought that was a great reward for my work but the local higher ups thought otherwise. I was dispatched, as it was the wont, to a distant ‘foreign’ land, the North-East. But I never imagined that I was to be the scapegoat in a three way tug of war of the State Government, the management and the Officer’s Union in finding a person to head a branch in a disturbed capital town.  Parochial considerations would also have played a role. To the utter disappointment (surprise!)  of the contending parties I chose not to play sport. I refused to be the sitting duck and dodged the posting to my best. When I found I had unwittingly become the fourth contending party and there was no escape, I put in my papers.  Back to square one, the other parties, with the onerous task of finding another potential victim.  And me, out into the wild. That in short is the story of my straying out.

During my last years in the Bank I had opportunities to be exposed to new management theories. Consultants were dime a dozen. The sleeping giant was set to wake up. Transformation and Business Process Re-engineering were the buzzwords. The existing organizational set up and business plans were all the works of domestic homegrown consultants. And not suited for a bank aspiring to go World Class. In these times of Globalization only a global name would work…..so came in McKinsey . Everything looked fine till they started tampering with the nomenclature of the hierarchy.  Managing Directors became Chief Officers in their area of responsibility. What a let down!

Meaningless processes and rules-as felt by the consultants- were to be discarded. The Bible of the Bank- the book of instructions, upon which most of us had sworn our allegiance - went into cold storage.  Re-Engineering the Corporation took its place.  The talk of value-adding the customer, value chains, core competencies, paradigm shift and so on were bandied about. It didn’t matter to these worthies that originators of BPR had moved on to Beyond Re-engineering and the peddler of Core Competencies was toying with core incompetencies. As long as they, yours truly included, mouthed these jargons they were considered moving with the times. The others who still swore by the Book and the traditional banking were considered unfashionable. Well, this was the atmosphere prevailing when I left the bank. In my wildest of dreams did I ever think of revisiting the fad management theories let alone be a most willing participant?. No. But that was what it was to be. That’s the story of another post.

My moment of F(l)ame

The flames that consumed the Lokpal Draft finds its match only in the fury of the Australian brushfire. The carbon gases emitted would have been adequate to wipe out all the carbon credits earned by Indian Corporates so far. All the electronic annual reports and direct credit of dividends to bank accounts went naught. Well, the civil society cannot be expected to behave civil always. Bills can’t be torched on facebook or twitter. On occasions they need to express their ire by fire on the streets also.

That brings to my mind how I narrowly missed my moment of f(l)ame during college days.  We were a small group charged with secular progressive ideology; or so we thought during those days.  We could never have won college elections and were an inconsequential minority whose voice never mattered. We lacked the organizational skills of Kejriwal or the dramatics of Bedi to convert a simple villager wearing a Gandhi cap into a cult overnight. We didn’t have the wherewithal to call for a strike and if we did, the consequences could be serious. Those days the Principal did matter. He could rusticate you and that would be the end of your dreams to a degree. Only your parent’s entreaties could make him alter his decision. This in a nutshell is the background information.

Our group was itching to mark our presence in the campus. In academics and extra curricular activities our individual members did make a mark. But as a group we had no voice. It was around this time that the monthly college news paper came out with an editorial which we considered offensive. It was about the formation of the new Calicut University. The editorial cast serious aspersions about the secular nature of the University. This was a Godsend opportunity for us.

Before anybody could take up the issue we decided to act. But how?  A strike?  We didn’t have the strength. Gherao the Principal? We didn’t have the guts. A fast to death didn’t look cool. Gandhiji or Gandhigiri had not become a craze then, four decades back, as it is now.

It was then that somebody came up with the idea: Burn the Paper!  Inside the college campus, with all the fanfare that we could command.  A senior chap, politically correct, suggested that before we do anything drastic we need to exhaust the usual remedies. Make a representation to the Principal. There were dissenting notes as the dissenters felt that the surprise element would be lost. Nevertheless, the senior’s voice did carry weight. We sought an audience, but our reputation was so great that it was promptly turned down.  We then waited for the Principal to make his rounds and accosted him in the verandah. We made our point but the Principal dared us to go with our protest. We claimed we represent “the students” as Team Anna says they represent “the people”. The principal had a Diggy Raja (Singh) trait in him and we were dismissed with contempt.

Back to square one, we made our future plans. Before the opening bell we were to shout slogans and make a bonfire of the paper in the college quadrangle.  And thereafter what?  We were blank. We had no road map or new issues to rake up. Cut to the present there is no dearth of issues to fight for … electoral reforms, right to service, right to food security, right to education…..all unheard of those days. Right to strike work was the only mantra of the times.

The next day with great trepidation the small group assembled outside the college campus. Unlike now , where the visual media directs the show , the angles , the sound bites and the protestors and the police are only the dramatis personae , those days there was not even a beat reporter of the local eveninger to cover our show.  Altogether, a surcharged yet depressing atmosphere in our camp.

It was then to our great relief the anti-climax unfolded. The Principal put a corrigendum on the notice board that an article which inadvertently found its way to the editorial did not represent College view point and was the personal view of the contributor! No word of regret though! We claimed credit and called off our protest with great sense of relief .Did the Principal capitulate to our demand? If he did, he surely overestimated our strength and capacity to carry forward. Or was it a clever move by the Principal to dissipate a budding group.  Well, we made a point, however chimeral it may look now.  But was that what we really wanted? Beyond the issue did we cherish an urge to be counted? What ever be it, we missed our moment of f(l)ame.

The Aftermath

It has been three months since I have been away from my blog. During these times I have had very less access to my comp. A quick check of the mails, a stealthy visit to the face book or a hurried glance of the stories …..this has been my routine. The change has been caused by the onslaught of the hurricane which I forecast a couple of months back.  I have been busy with my grand children, all of 6 years between them. With the rains keeping them indoors most of the time, it has been the responsibility of the grand parents to keep the brats adequately engaged. Not an easy task, as they can be hands full if they so decide. 

 Television is out of bounds …restricted to just one hour between 9 and 10 Pm to get them adequately subdued for the night’s sleep. Mostly, Hindi reality shows, which would not seek to expand their knowledge of curse words.  The X Factor or Kaun Banega Crorepati. They also love to watch the cookery shows.  No surfing the channels, as they love to watch the ads also, much to my discomfiture.  

The outdoors are mostly temples which they seem to like. So much so, that the general refrain on a bright day is…Which temple are we going today?  They seem to be generally outdoor creatures, especially the Hotel lobbies or restaurants which they appropriate to themselves. They make friends with the bearers and charm their way to quick and speedy service. When visiting relatives they expertly make their way to the kitchen and ask……… What can we have to eat?

Between them they fight but would not allow third party mediation. Very often they gang up to extract a story or a play act from their grand parents. The grandfather is made to act as ‘the enormous turnip’, the giant from ‘Jack and the beanstalk’ or the ‘sly fox’             as the story demands. He sees ‘mean looking fellows’ with ‘unruly hair’ all around. Straight from Enid Blyton story he overheard being read out to his sister.

Nik is very reasonable while making demands. The other day I heard his grand mother tell him …    “Nik ! If you start fussing I’m not making Gulab Jamun at all. Stop now and I promise to make it tomorrow.”  No issues for him. Not for him ‘my way or the high way’. He promptly agreed but with a small twist:  “Ok Ammama, I stop fussing, but I want tomorrow, Now”  What do you say to this?

They are at their extreme boisterous behavior towards the night when the whole colony has gone to sleep.   Nothing can stop them from their shouts and shrieks except the fear of the bogeyman, now with diminishing returns. My daughter says, their behavior, at times, comes in handy too when they have an unwelcome late night guest. Not for us, used to the tranquil nights in Manisseri!

  

A week almost now, I have the comp all to myself. The remote is safe in my hands but not the excitement in surfing channels. We have the tranquil nights back but that’s not what we look forward to these days. The silence is deafening.

Season of Protests

I have been feeling slightly down cast these days.  A sense of uneasiness or perhaps an inferiority complex as any Behavioral Therapist would easily point to. Before you jump into further conclusions let me tell you it’s all about my inability (again a contrarian?)  to see eye to eye with many of my friends…..on raging current issues, be it India Against Corruption, Food Security, Money stashed abroad or the Wikileaks. And why I write this now is because I have not been a great supporter of Anna Hazare’s movement. And this precisely is the cause of minor quarrels at home. For, I have not participated in a sit-in or lit a candle. Neither have I joined the Facebook group to support the anti corruption drive.  My wife feels I have missed the bus and when the movement comes to power I would be one in the firing line, hopefully a little away from the point blank range. Some consolation.

It is not that I’m not against corruption. But it is the definition of corruption that bothers me.  From petty corruption to massive swindling. Sleaze, bribery, fraud, petty theft. The list is endless. Would I fall into any of these categories?  Or would some misdeeds be excluded from the purview   so that there will be still some left in the movement? I wouldn’t worry too much as the core group will burn the midnight oil over these minor issues. They will, for sure, come out with some innovative ways of ‘eradicating’ corruption. And not just newer and stiffer punishments which we all know are not effective deterrents. I would keep my fingers crossed.

I never thought corruption is such a high brow subject with many nuances , has class conflict characteristics and philosophical undertones until I came across ,in the internet,  a paper titled ‘The Social Construction of Corruption’ by Prof  Mark Granovetter of the Stanford University. I won’t burden my very few readers with the gravitas of the paper, save quote: “yet it is common in human history that groups with conflicting interests present different sets of standards for what behavior is appropriate, and label behavior that benefits competing groups as illegitimate or more specifically “corrupt”.”

Again it was around the same time that I came across a very novel idea mooted by none other than Dr Kaushik Basu, Chief Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance.  I found this absolutely radical and out of the box.  Make bribe giving legal! Don’t knit your eyebrows too soon… Not all kinds of bribery, but the petty ones; what the Dr. terms as ‘harassment bribery’.  A kind of speed money you have to part with to get a certificate, a tax refund or a bank loan. By making ‘payment of such bribes legal, the giver gets immunity while the taker does not’. Dr Basu avers this divergence of positions could be a deterrent to the bribe taker. The immunity is not to be retrospective and the details yet to be worked out. Make no mistake, this loud thinking by the learned Dr. has already met with stiff opposition from the moral brigade.  I’m, however, an enthusiast and would like to give this a try.

If I were to confess retrospectively on my misdemeanors I would have a few cases to report. These are not bribe taking instances and some are not related to bribery at all.  And pray what are my misdeeds? Obtention of a railway berth through a tout, an unauthorized electric connection, an out of turn gas cylinder and may be a few more similar ones if I rack my brain really hard.  When the matter of my not joining the sit-in was discussed I confessed to my wife I could not be considered blemishless and as such it would be hypocracy if I shouted “Bhrashtachar Murdabad”. Her response: “Only Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion and not Caesar”

Her latest take on the subject is that since I missed the Anna bus I should atleast jump on to the Baba wagon.  Something unthinkable for me.  But I had to do something to buy peace. It was around this time that the “Bodies of the Soil (copy right: my friend Kozhipurath Rajagopal) issue cropped up…. Ivor Madom crematorium won’t take bodies from outside the Panchayat any more. A body blow to many of us who had mentally reserved a nook for our heavenly journey!  Taking up the cause the local Citizens group decided to go in for a ‘Dharna’ demanding construction of a decent crematorium in my home town

Not to miss the God sent opportunity and more so to buy peace than to heed the still, small inner voice, I joined the sit-in in front of the Municipal office. None could fault me for this and there is truce at home. For the time being!

Hurricane NiNa

We have just been warned. About the impending storm. The severity has not been forecast. The land fall is expected in a month. We get daily alerts and   situation reports.  We are brazing up for the event and looking forward to it with great anticipation. The alert is about the impending visit of our two grand children and their parents on their annual holiday.  When we saw them off last, one was a sweet play school girl and the other just about on his feet. Now the elder girl, Nandini, is in her LKG and the younger boy, Nikhil, just made his foray into the play school.  Between them they are a bit of an ambush squad. 

During their last visit, which was a year back, they had not yet teamed up into the deadly duo. Other than pulling down my computer key board, dismantling my small pocket radio, running away with the mobile phone or the remote control or subjecting the walls to their art work, they had not been into any major destructive activity. Not so now, we are told.

A small update:

Nandini would go to sleep only after the usual quota of the same story- alert at pointing out even a minute deviation. She likes it without any change from the original.  She would start a conversation by asking you seemingly simple but profound questions that could shatter the foundations of the universe. What? Why?  The ‘What?’ questions are more or less harmless and are endless. Like what did the pussycat say to the puppy? What did the puppy’s mother say? And so on. It’s the ‘Whys?’ which take the life out of you.  Mercifully she is past the ‘Why’ stage. 

Her brother is not the questioning type. He is action oriented. I understand that he is more into ‘deconstruction’ / reverse engineering or finding innovative ways of playing with his toys.  (Like Derrida, the French philosopher, I’m averse to use the word destruction, and therefore, deconstruction. Similarly reverse engineering for dismantling.  After all, who knows, Nik might even turn out to become a great scientist!)

Nandini is more into arts. She likes to paint. (I’ve preserved her first effort, though the fresco has been painted off.).She attends a Bhajan class every Saturday and knows a few patriotic songs. Her favorite is ‘Jana Gana Mana” which she sings not less than half a dozen times at a stretch and expects us, at the other end of the Yahoo Messenger, to be in attention. She likes to play act her teacher with Nikhil, a reluctant student.  He is often game as he gets an opportunity to handle her crayons. Both have picked up a few words from their Hindi speaking teacher/ friends. They like to utter words such as ‘chup baito’ or ‘shut up’ which they know are a taboo at home. They can be a boisterous, marauding squad as their Doctor discovered recently, much to the discomfiture of their parents. Being frequent visitors they had developed great camaraderie with the Doctor.

Both are keen observers. Nandini liked the white bridal gown of Kate Middleton although she felt if she were to wear it she would like it shorter! Looking at the chorus boys she asked…Why are they looking so sad, Amma?  Nik felt that Princess Anne resembled the child catcher and he didn’t want to look at the TV any more! Nik can identify alphabets, particularly if it happens to be M, written in the manner of McDonalds! Once he told, looking at the Gurvayoorappan photo, “Amma, the Ambatty is smiling at me. Why?”  Another occasion he declared, peeping   through the windows, on a rare bright day with a clear sky-- “Amma, look the sky is falling!  He can become Hanuman or a cricketer, any instant, with the aid of kitchen gadgets usually kept out of his reach.

I have mentioned just a few of the instances from the situation report shared by our daughter during the daily chat. She says these are just the curtain raisers. Mentally and physically we are getting ready for the event. I surfed the net for some information on what people do when they get a hurricane warning. They fortify their homes, stock essential water and ration and keep praying that the storm doesn’t leave a trail of destruction. We are following suit. We have arranged with our carpenter to fix an extra barricade for the stair case railing, wicket gates for the sit out, moved the breakables into the loft and kept our books locked in a glass cupboard with a fervent prayer that they won’t take a fascination for the books.  Well, as the saying goes: Expect the unexpected! Keep your fingers crossed.

The Oracle: a flash back

Nirmalyam, an epoch making film of the seventies won’t be made again, much less shown in the theatres of Kerala. The reasons are two fold: one, the story is no longer contemporary –that’s the subject of my post- and two, I doubt, the present religious (Hindu) awakening will permit such a film being shown without a cut. Kerala society has moved on so much since the seventies, thanks to the dilution of Marxist dogma with liberal ideological moorings, that even the hard core Marxist is temple going and sports the sacred sandal paste on his forehead. In such a revivalist point of time, it is doubtful whether the ordinary Hindu will   tolerate the perceived blasphemy of the Velichapadu (Oracle). Such is the intolerance that has crept into the society that MT, the author, director and producer of the movie would consider it a misadventure not worth taking.

Nirmalayam is the story of an impoverished Velichapadu, set in the backdrop of a village temple in ruins and the people around it, who depend on the meager income of the temple to eke out a living. The temple has fallen on lean days with fewer devotees thronging in. With poverty stalking at their doors, the son of the Oracle turns into a rebel, a deviant; the daughter falls an easy prey to the charms of the young temple priest. Amidst the despondency, all that the Oracle is looking forward to is a resurgence of faith among the villagers which could brighten his fortunes. As if in answer to his prayers or as a result of the wrath of the deity, the village is afflicted by small pox. The villagers turn to their Oracle to appease the deity. This was the moment the oracle was waiting for, his moment of glory!  Fully charged, he rushes home to get his temple sword, only to find the money lender walking out of the house, satiated by his (oracle’s) wife who had sold her body to discharge the family debt. Utterly defeated and shattered, he pours his pent up fury into the ritualistic frenzied dance, slashing his forehead repeatedly with the sword and splashing and spitting the blood on to the deity till he falls dead. A very powerful end which stunned the audience! And for his powerful acting as Velichapadu, P J Antony walked away with the National Best Actor award.

Well, as I said in the beginning this story no longer holds good. The story of Nirmalyam came to me as a flash back, during the local temple festival. The oracle of the temple is a stocky young man who is in business almost all the days of the week.  On Chuttuvilakku (adorning the whole temple walls with oil lamps) days, for which there is a waiting list of devotees,   he performs the ritualistic dance. It is then that the deity speaks through him to the devotee. The devotees, blessed by the deity, make liberal offerings. During the festival season the Oracle goes around the village showering blessings and collecting offerings to the temple and to him. Devotees vie with each other in their offerings and devotion.  No wonder the modern day oracle is a far cry from the Nirmalyam days. He moves around in his private conveyance, has all the modern amenities at home and a happy contended family. 

If MT decides to remake Pallivalum Kalchilambukalum, he might have to change the script a bit, though, to make it contemporary. And sure it will not have a torrid ending!