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:
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….
