53. MY EARLY SEX EDUCATION - 17

In our days we did not have as much worldly knowledge as the modern day kids have. I think every present day kid of eight years is exposed to much ‘sex’ than what an adolescent was exposed in our days, thanks to the media. In a way it is good to know proper things in a proper way.

I still remember how not only I but all guys of my age in those days never had any chance to know about ‘the secrets of sex’. There was no chance to see or to read or to hear anything about sex. It was all hush-hush thing among close friends. So it was mostly like the characters in the story of an elephant and four blind men. One blind leading another blind led only to more confusion. Especially puberty of girls was a great enigma for us. Talking about that brought goose pimples and we were thrilled to share our information with others. I got most of the gossip about sex from my rural friends, especially during my summer visits to my native village. Each one had his own theory about sex, puberty, menstruation, masturbation etc. We were totally a confused lot. This confusion made sex more and more a mystery and we had no chance to know about it. This made sex more enigmatic and mysterious and we always talked about these matters only with our very close friends. So naturally since we had our references from fellows of our own age, it was mostly like one blind leading another blind from one dark spot to another dark spot! We were very stupid. Hot discussion on the nature of genitals of the opposite sex happened often. There were times when we were not sure how a baby would come into this world. To make matters worse comparing a cow and a woman especially in the matter of their anatomy and mode of delivery was common. This state of affairs even continued to very late period of our adolescence. Such was our ignorance in those days!

I had a cousin. His father and my father were first cousins, and they had the very same name and worked in the same school. To avoid confusion people used to call my periyappa as senior so-and-so (periya ..) and my appa was known as junior so-and-so (chinna ..). Like our fathers we also had the same first name. He was just two years senior to me. But he played the role my ‘friend-philosopher-guide’. He was the one who was unraveling the mysteries of sex to me. His house was on my way to school and church, the two places around which my early life was revolving. So I used to go to his house on my way to school or church and then we would go together. He came out with so many newer things about anything and everything. I very submissively accepted all his ‘doctrines’. Never questioned them. Except the one time when he was explaining the ‘dirtiest thing’.


Whenever he came out with anything he used to always show an air of superiority which was quite right since I was too wet behind my ears for my age and what all he said were ‘scriptures’ to me. I never dared to question his statements. But one day on our way back from school he started giving me extraordinary information on sex. He told me with the same and usual air of superiority what a married man and wife would do in private to get a child. My God! It sounded so obscene and dirty that I thought there could not be an iota of truth in what he said. I said I did not believe what he said just then. He majestically told me that was the truth and nothing but truth. I kept silent for some time mulling over on what he said. I was simply flabbergasted by this unbelievable and dirty thing. For a few moments we were walking in silence.

Then I asked my cousin: “Then … er.. how about my father and mother?”

“Well, it has to be so”, he shot the answer without a moment of hesitation. He was very cool answering my question.

Few more moments of silence. I was still trying to digest what he had said. But I could not. A flash came and I asked him: “In that case, how about your father and mother?”

This time he took some moments. Hesitated a bit. But came out with an affirmative answer. But this time it was not as authoritative as it was for the previous question.

Still I could not believe it. Our own parents. This much dirty. Oh! No, I thought. I did not believe it and wanted to prove him utterly wrong.

My next question was very much pointed and poignant too. I asked him: “If it is so, is it the same way between Mother Mary and St. Joseph?”

He was thrown off balance by this question. Clean bowled. He was dumbfounded now. I was happy that I could at last nail him down to his utter lies. How could such a dirty act be true? Could any decent human being, leave alone the divine persons, do such nasty things?


I was waiting with batted breath for his answer. This time he did not have the guts to say yes.

52. DUAL WITH RAJA - 16

DUAL WITH RAJA

In our school the 'A' section of all the classes was meant for the 'creamy' layer, or for the so-called brighter students. I don’t know whether other schools also followed this. I was admitted in I Standard in A section. That would have been of course by virtue of my appa's influence. I think that streak continued till I finished my VI form in the high school. For those of this generation, in our days the schooling years were only 11 years - five in elementary and 6 in high school. In the former each level was called ‘Standard’ and the high school levels were called 'Forms'. So the school finishing class would be VI Form.

My V Standard teacher was Mr. Lucas, a very tall, lanky man with a smiling face. But his knuckles were very strong and every one of us dreaded his knuckles. He either used his knuckles or a thin striking – rod, a bamboo cane. His theory was thinner the cane pain it creates is greater. I got reprimanded only once with two strikes of that cane for a peculiar / funny situation. (I don’t think that incident can be narrated in a foreign language, since it is related to my mother tongue, Tamil. I have elaborated this incident in my Tamil blog. Now ...it is the 'dual' I had with one of my classmates. It was more like the two eternal cowboys with their guns drawn taking steps before they try to outshoot the other in their mortal combat!

Whenever Mr. Lucas wanted some lessons to be read to the whole class he always asked me to read the lessons. That was a sort of privilege I enjoyed for long. I don’t know whether I read it properly or was due to my appa's influence. None had any grudge for this, at least that was what we all thought till it was challenged one day. Raja was one of my classmates, considerably a bigger boy in our class. One day when our teacher asked me to read a lesson and when I was about to start Raja stood up and to all our shock and astonishment asked face to face our teacher why always it should be me. I think Mr.Lucas was taken aback and he was speechless for some time. Then he said that he did so since he thought I was good in that. But Raja did not lose his rebellious mood. He challenged that he could read better than me given a chance.

Mr. Lucas was speechless for some time. Then he said that he would set a 'dual' between me and him and gave the details of the modus operandi of how it should go. He suggested that both of us would stand on both the sides of his chair. Simultaneously he would pat our backs. For the first pat I would start reading from a lesson. Then after few sentences - another pat. Now I would stop and Raja would start from where I left. And it should go on like that. To make it more democratic my teacher said that there would be four 'judges'. They will be seated in the front bench with a score sheet. They would count mistakes, stammering etc. during our reading for each of us. Whoever had lesser score would be considered victorious.

Raja came out with another challenge. He wanted a bet for this dual. It was fixed that the bet money would be one anna . (That is 1/16 of a rupee then.) That was real "big" money in those days for a guy in elementary school. I who was so far listening as a silent observer more as an outsider came to the world of reality only then. I said I did not have the required money for the bet. There were immediate sponsors for me. I remember the names of them: Kathiresan and Vetrivel. They paid the money to our teacher. Raja paid his bet.

I remember how the whole class was in an expectant mood. I could clearly visualise even now what had happened more than a half century back. Our class alone had the luxury of being in a separate room, next to our Headmaster's Office while all other sections of V Class were in a common hall. Benches with back rest for all was a specialty for our class. The excuse given to other classes for this special treatment was that if and when school inspectors from the education department gave surprise visits, they could easily watch our V Class - A Section and so this special privilege for our class.

The dual started.

After certain time Mr. Lucas stopped the dual. The judges were asked to make a total of the minus points they had given us for our shortcomings during the 'dual'. I won the dual - that too, with a very 'handsome' margin. Raja immediately came to my side of our teacher's table and shook my hands. I did not know all those etiquettes. Our teacher gave one anna to me, the prize money and my sponsors got their money back.

In retrospect, what look great to me now are the rebellious spirit of Raja and the very fair mind of my teacher. I used to always wonder how could a boy aged just ten or eleven doing his fifth standard could be that much rebellious and dare to question the authority of the teacher. The second thing was the way our teacher settled the issue and also his conscience. How could he take a question on his authority with such magnanimity? He was so fair that he made some of our own class mates as judges. Both Raja and Mr. Lucas should have been great souls and I realized and experienced that at least with regard to Raja since he and I had maintained a life-long relationship. Till his death two years back, we occasionally met. If there were other friends during our meetings, Raja with all gusto would start narrating the whole episode. He never became tired of this since it looked as if he was waiting for a chance to narrate our old story to new friends. It was only he who remembered the names of my sponsors and told me after many years.

51. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DAYS - 15

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DAYS


I dont know how some of the very early happenings in our lives remain permanently etched in our minds. I already mentioned that I dont rememeber even a wee bit of things that happened when amma was around. Memories of childhood start only after amma's death. The life in Kasiapuram , and appa's wedding are all quite vivid. Immediately after appa's wedding with my new amma I came to Madurai. Then started the schooling. Appa was working in St. Mary's High School, a renowned school in the whole city in those days. I was admitted in St.Mary's Elementary School in the same campus.

I very clearly remember the very first day of my schooling. Appa took me in his bicycle. In the campus, the elementary school was a rectangular block at the back of the church. But there was a single block standing alone in between the main school buildings and the church. Probably it is as old as the curch itself. It was standing alone there. It was a high raised building with just one large class room and an adjacent small room. I dont know why that building alone was so constructed, so high above the ground level. There should have been at least 10-15 very wide steps leading to the class room. Appa took me by hand and led me into the class room. The teahcer was in all smiles and he showed a lot of respect to appa. Mu first class teacher's name was Mr. Manickam, a fair, young gentleman. He asked me where do I want to sit in the class room? Appa's influence helped me opt a seat of my preference! I chose the bench in the very first row - not that I wanted to be there as a good studious student as a front-bencher! In stead that was the only bench in the class with backrest! All other benches did not have a backrest. Anyway, that front bech with backrest was full. But still one of the poor poor guys in that bench - in all probabilities, whose father was not known to the teacher - was asked to go to one of the back rows and I was offered my preferred seat. That's how my first day of schooling started.

Not much is in memory about the rest of the next 5 years in that school, except two incidents. When I was doing my III standard in Madurai there was a big show of some Indian and foreign muscle men. Names of Tarasingh, who later became a famous cine star, and King Khong are just the names of two Indian muscle men I remember. There were some foreigners with names hard to pronounce. So they had some nick names, names that would attract the local wrestling fans. I remember only one such name, Red Scorpion. He visited our church one day and I remember most of us from our class with our teacher thronged around him as soon as he came out of the church. His visit made us talk about the wrestling matches and the different styles and prowess they had in wrestling. Somebody showed me one of the famous ‘monkey-hold’ of these wrestlers and also the way to wriggle out of it. I had a friend. I vaguely remember that his name was Sivakumar. He used to be shorter than me, though I myself was one of the ‘shorties’ in my classes. I gave a demo as to how to hold that monkey-hold. Poor guy, he did not know the defense for that. So he was totally under my control when I held him so. He was surprised. Then I asked to him to hold me like that. He did. But now I used the trick which was taught to me and overthrew him over my head. Fellow fell flat on the ground and started weeping. I thought the matter was over with that.

But the very next day his mother, a teacher herself, came to our class and met me. She made me feel sad for what I did to her son. I was worried that she may take the matter to my teacher and then to my app a . But she left me with that little reprimand. But Sivakumar who was so far close to me never talked to me after that.

One more incident is also one another unforgettable incident. And since it needs little more importance I plan to save that for the next chapter!

50. MAKING OF A SMOKER & A FILM BUFF - 14.

MAKING OF A SMOKER & A FILM BUFF

Two great changes happened in my life due to these hours of freedom. One was the old desire rejuvenating and getting deep rooted into a new habit. I mean the old and unflinching desire for smoking. These hours of freedom and the gang that was formed during this time was handy. I started where I left unmindful of the promise I made in my native place years ago. If it was inside a well or a thoppu in those early years that I tried my hand in smoking, this time we had ‘royal connections’. The Thirumalai Naik Palace was very near to our school. In those days it used to be busy since the court was functioning there and people used to throng the whole place. The terrace of the Palace also was free for visitors. Only many years later the courts were moved to a different place and the palace was taken by the archaeology department. Till that time this became a nice hideout for fellows like me to have our first lessons in smoking. The terrace of the Palace was so expansive we had no fear of being caught by anyone known to us or to our parents. As days went by we became more and more 'courageous' that we changed our venue to more and more open places. It was thus I got hooked to cigarette smoking and that continued till 11 p.m. of January 6th, 1990 which started in the early sixties.

The other change that happened also became a habit of lifetime. In those days, I would not be allowed to go for any movies other than the sporadic ones with the family. Now there was ample chance to go for movies without parental knowledge. I still remember the very first movie that I went like that. It was Norman Wisdom’s On The Beat. He was a famous British comedian of those days whom our famous and successful comedian Nagesh could have had as a role model. I mustered courage as well as gathered money for the ticket and one day sneaked out to the film. It was so funny that I burst into laughter when I was having my supper with appa. I was doing my first year B.Sc. then. Appa asked what the matter was. I managed to tell him some cock and bull story. The movie was so good that I became a regular visitor to Regal Theatre, an exclusive theatre for English movies in those days. I became, in short, an English movie buff. The timing of these English movies was also so conducive that one could go to the movies without raising any doubt for the people at home. Unlike the Tamil movies, these English movies would start quite late and would end very soon. So I could start very late from home and reach the theatre in time cycling at the fastest pace and also come back even at 8.30. Tamil movies would end only by 9.30. Only precaution that I had to very carefully do every time was to discard the counterfoil of the ticket without leaving any telltale evidences to my watchful appa. With such preplanning and meticulous operation this habit also grew and became a lifetime passion. Now I realize that of the two changes I acquired due to and during my hours of freedom, at least one habit did some good to me.

48. I STUDIED SO HARD(LY) ! - 13

I STUDIED SO HARD(LY)!

Always there was magic between my textbooks and sleep. As soon as I took a textbook in my hands immediately the goddess of sleep would lovingly embrace me. Till I finished my studies I had this disease ! So I took to outdoors for my night study to overcome this problem. Till late evenings, say, up to 9 o’clock in the night our school campus became my study place after I joined college. This campus became part of my life since appa worked there and I had my whole school life there. And not only that, we had the church, the big cathedral and I was a regular church goer in those days. Till I reached my middle forties I preferred to attend services there for festivals like Christmas and Easter. The campus had been an inseparable part of my life and this attachment made me have my first grandson’s baptism there in that church.

The other place, which was my study-spot, was under the streetlights of our road. During nights, especially after 10 o’clock, a group of five or six of us, all from different schools but neighbors used to come together under the streetlights. The favorable spot for all of us was a corner building, which housed the local post office. There were two advantages. It had a brighter mercury light since it was a sort of road junction and the other one was a overhead shed which could protect us on cold wintry or rainy days. Studying under the streetlights had its own advantage. Since we were always in groups one cannot so easily sleep but we had so many things to share – secrets of teenagers. The hours we spent on roads to study were much less than what we spent to share our little secrets, adventures and escapades. Though our group had around six or seven fellows only two from the group came up to post-graduate level and the rest either just passed their higher secondary exam or flopped even in that. I would be so fresh when I was with this group and once I got into the terrace of our home to continue the studies, within no time the unconquerable goddess of sleep would embrace me.

My other study center was the St. Mary’s School-Church campus. I was almost a campus-kid since all my childhood and adolescent days were revolving around the church and campus. In those days there used to be two services everyday, the first as early as five in the morning and the other at 6 o’clock. Appa and amma used to get up at 4.30 and they would go to the first service. They would wake me up before leaving to the service. Amma would come back from the church. I would be then going for the second service. For many years we used to get our daily milk from the farm in the campus and so immediately after the service I should get the milk and rush back home. The farm was closed after some years and so I was relieved from that duty. When I reached the last two years of my schooling I stayed back after the service in the campus. The excuse was that I could study for an hour or two before going home. The school provided a room to study in the evening for some day scholars who did not have good facilities at home. This facility was extended to me even after I joined the college as I was the son of a popular teacher. So some hours in the morning and evening became hours of freedom for me. The strict discipline maintained at home would be missing and I was the master to myself in these hours. These were the hours of total freedom for me. I enjoyed these hours to the hilt.

47. THE HOUSE WE LIVED IN FOR LONG - 12

THE HOUSE WE LIVED IN FOR LONG

Once appa got married, life changed a lot. Days of pampering and petting were over. Life took a different turn. I was so far a pet to everyone in the village. Everyone looked at me with utmost sympathy and special care and love were showered on me. I was a 'motherless-child' for every one. I stood out from the crowd in the village. All these things changed once we came to Madurai.

It should be 1949. I should have been five years old because immediately after our arrival I was admitted in the school in the first standard. Better I say something about the house where we got settled. It was an old house in the South Marret Street. Compared to the modern standards it was more a ‘mouse trap’. It was in a busy area and so like any other house it was packed among a row of houses on a considerably busy road. It was a rectangle and the portion we rented out was at the back of the house and the house owners lived in the front portion. The two portions were divided by a well. Like any old house of those days in Madurai this well was small, probably three feet in diameter. It was called nazhi kinaru ( 'cylindrical well' ). I don’t know what could have been the depth. But for a kid it looked very deep. For some time peeping into the well during noon time and seeing my image deep down there was a good past time. I was always afraid of looking into the well from outside in our village till I learnt swimming. But here there were protective stone slabs around the well and they were almost shoulder high to me then. I felt safe here unlike the large and open wells, which were like open-mouthed giants. This well had an important association with my early days since for many years – almost for the whole of my school life – I was in charge of keeping a large drum near the well always full for the use of the whole family. I used to have a big callus on my left knee since I used to keep that point of my knee as a fulcrum to help me pull the bucket and how I hated that responsibility imposed on me. Even at odd hours I would be asked to draw water. That is about the well. Let us come back to the house now.

I still wonder how we managed to live in that house for so long. It was a long period of 16 years – starting from my school entry to the end of the first year of my post-graduation. We entered the house as a three-member family, appa, amma and I. When we quit the house we were, I think, nine! There was only one pucca room and even that would be half-filled with sacks of rice for most part of the year, in addition to a wooden almirah, a sewing machine and a table and chair. I am wondering now how there was any moving space at all in that room since it was not even a big room. Wooden lofts on three sides of this room probably helped us keep most of our things. I had one rack in a cupboard on the wall for keeping my books and other things. My dresses would be in a small suitcase, which would be above the sacks of rice.

Then there was a sort of verandah with tiled leaky roof making it almost unusable during rainy days. The only safe place during such days was a corner made safe by curved stairs overhead. Even part of this was occupied by a manual grinder. The only furniture in this low roofed room was appa’s cot. Many a time that formed a tier system – appa on that cot and I safely cuddled under that, the lower berth! Then there was a kitchen. Don’t imagine a kitchen with a lot of cupboards, gas stove and all that. It had on all sides bamboo mats making it a separate entity with one cupboard on the wall and a firewood stove at the ground level with a stack of fire wood, and cow dung-cakes on one corner. We had also a luxury item of those days, a kerosene stove.

Wondering that I have not mentioned anything about a bathroom? Well, it was an open space next to the well and that was also the passageway for our portion. Appa made some arrangements with some more bamboo mats giving it a little more privacy. This passageway along the well had a great significance since it was a nightmarish experience to get somebody to our portion of the house. The passageway was narrow between the well and a wall. Part next to the well had a stony pavement but the other half used to be quite slippery with constant flow of water. Anyone stepping on that part was sure to fall like an uprooted tree. Whenever somebody visited our home for the first time they had to be carefully ushered for a ‘safe landing’ on our portion of the house. Once I got into college I never invited my classmates to my home worrying about the great fall they could experience.

There was one good thing about this house that it had an open terrace. It had half-built pillars. I was told that the owner wanted to go for another floor and paucity of funds deterred him from that and half-finished pillars stood as a silent testimony for that. Appa made a shed there with some bamboos and coconut-mats. This became a comfortable place for the students who used to come in large numbers for private tuition. Appa was a great and popular teacher in English and Math in our school. Till this day I consider him as the best teacher I had, especially his way of teaching English grammar was fantastic. It is not merely a son’s blind appreciation. But a real, impartial and judicious statement which I hold till this day.

The terrace became my living place once I got the courage to be there alone in the nights too. Because always the very big banyan tree on the next road with its rustling noise at nights could scare any week hearted person. Added to this was the story of somebody who committed suicide on the very next house. The room where the suicide took place was within a few feet. The stairs running down from this terrace was mostly very dark, who had very bright lights on those days! So whenever I alighted the steps at nights after switching off the only light at the terrace, I used to have a feeling that somebody, mostly the person who committed suicide in the next house, following or rather chasing me down. I used to run down faster in the beginning. Then I thought I should have a ‘face-to-face’ fight with this ‘follower’ once for all and do away with ‘him’ for all times. So with this decision I stopped running madly down from the terrace; instead I used to step down very slowly and at times would stop and turn around to warn anything that could be at my back. Once I did this a few times the fear was gone for ever and then staying alone in the terrace became routine and casual. Once I entered into my teens it became my abode for the nights. It was also my study room.

46. EVIL OF CASTEISM -11

EVIL OF CASTEISM


Before I reached my college days, this caste situation underwent a lot of changes, good and bad. Waiters in the hotels were not addressed anymore as sami. They were simply waiters irrespective of their caste affiliations. This was due to, I strongly believe, the social reformation that was brought by Periyar and his Dravidian movement. But the sad thing was this movement was mostly anti-brahminic and not pro-dalit, a term which came into being only very late. So sami was replaced by ‘waiter’ but the so called low-castes and the treatment they meted out in the society remained so for long – rather, it still continues. Periyar’s service would have made people realize that brahmins were not from the forehead of Brahman as believed but the pitiable plight of shudras and panchamas remained and is remaining almost the same as it had been for centuries.

Even in college days, I never became conscious of this caste differences. Caste was a thing about which I never bothered. The first instance in my life when caste or its importance surfaced was when I shot my very first application for a job. It was even before results of masters exam. I responded to an advertisement from a college. I applied. Though people suggested that I should mention my caste I did not. Somebody gave me an idea that I should add my caste name as the postfix to my appa’s name so that I get an advantage since the college was run by people of my own caste. I did not. Then in the interview I was repeatedly asked some indirect questions – like my father’s name, the grand-father’s name – since that was the period when the previous generation always had the caste name added to one’s name and the next generation slowly shedding it -, then my native place which could be clue to my caste. So both I and the interviewer were beating around the bush. Then came the very direct question. I had to answer. When the interviewer came to know of my caste he started saying how sad he felt since the job had already been promised to another guy – of course not belonging to my caste and how glad he would be if I applied again later. I enjoyed his predicament. But never applied to that college again.

More than half of my career went on without any shade of casteism. But in the later years this evil had spread so much in the society it got very much reflected in the college life too. In the later eighties, as I know, the dalit movement had come up in the open making the dalits demand their social and political rights. Animosity between dalits and people of thevar caste, the later being just above dalits in the caste hierarchy caused a lot of friction in the social milieu and this got reflected in every social sphere. The saddest part was that even in a college like The American College, which was and is a cut above many other colleges, had been afflicted with this social malady.

45. 10- PERIYAR & THE CASTE SYSTEM

PERIYAR & THE CASTE SYSTEM

In my childhood days in Kasiapuram I used to find one odd thing. It was the visit of some poor people in the late hours of evenings with their bowls to every house in the village. They were the dhobis and barbers of the village. They would come by the back door and very humbly announce themselves. Ladies of the houses would give them a chunk of old maize-choru or kazhi as it was known. For this they used to make this kazhi once a week. There were so many questions in my mind then. Why not they could be given freshly prepared kazhi and why always week-old kazhi? Why should they come so humbly and ask for alms? Why were these people treated differently from our other relatives? Even as a child I was tutored to call or talk to them with least respect. Even aged people were called by even children in such language? So many questions. But I never dared to ask anyone about it since it was part of that village life. Whether I liked it or not, I too called them in the usual disrespectful way as everyone. This habit came to an end only when I was around 9 – 10 years old. By that time I hade moved to Madurai.

We had a hair-cutting salon near my house and that is where my appa used to take me for my monthly hair cut – those days I had really thick hair on my present bald head! The owner’s name was Thangam and his salon was entirely of a different type unlike other salons of those days. Salons of those days used to have an array of mirrors and lot of pictures of pin-up girls. I still don’t understand the psychology of those decorated salons of yester years. Was it because it was out and out a male domain and they had the privilege of drooling over such sexy pictures? I still don’t know. Nevertheless Thangam’s salon was not of that type. His shop was quite above the road level without any proper steps; just some stone blocks served as the steps. Whenever I went there I had to be hauled up by Thangam into the shop from the ‘steps’ which were so low. He had just two large mirrors opposite two salon-chairs. There were no pictures; no blaring radio; no unnecessary crowd discussing national and international politics. In any such a salon you could find every minute somebody dropping in to give ’final touches’ to their hairdo, using the comb and mirror of the salon for free. I never knew whether they were all regular customers or regular intruders. Walls of the salon would be very clean. But there used to be only one picture occupying a prominent place in the salon. At that time I did know whose photograph was that. I thought it could be somebody related to Thangam. I used to go there for the regular cutting only with my appa and here too I found appa talking to Thangam in the same parlance as they did in village to those who used to come for the kazhi late in the evenings.

Probably I was doing fourth or fifth standard when for the first time appa sent me to salon alone. He gave instructions as to how my hair dressing should be done and asked me to pass those instructions to Thangam. When I got into the chair in the salon I started reeling out the instructions given by appa. I addressed him using the same disrespectful language. Thangam listened to my instructions. Then very calmly in a soothing tone he asked me which class I was doing. I told him. The next question was very pointed. Did your teacher teach you like this to address elders in this disrespectful language? I was stunned. The question whacked me right on my face. Mr. Thangam appeared to me growing into a colossal figure right in front of my eyes. I mumbled my apology. From that minute I always addressed my elders with respect irrespective of any other factor.

Latter I came to know the photograph that adorned the walls of Mr. Thangam’s salon was the portrait of E.V.R. Periyar !


*

44. 9- AN APPARITION - SIGHTING OF ANGELS

AN APPARITION - SIGHTING OF ANGELS


Yemen was once given the responsibility of taking me back to Kasiapuram after a visit to Kurumbalaperi. We went by bus and after alighting from the bus to reach our home we had to walk by a sandy stretch through palmyra-tamarind fields. Along the stretch we had our family cemetery. It had tombs of our grandparents and that of my amma. I used to always have a mixed feeling whenever I went that side. It was a bit weird. I always wanted to sneak a look at the tomb and at the same time had a sort of fear to look at that side at all. Usually the former feeling used to win. This time I was on the shoulders of Yemen and he started talking about amma as we were nearing the cemetery. I was, as usual, in splits. I was under Macbethian to-be-or-not-to-be dilemma. I did not turn till we almost crossed the cemetery. But I succumbed to the temptation at the last minute. I turned for a fraction of second towards amma’s tomb. What I saw there is still quite fresh in my mind. On both the sides of my mother’s tomb I saw two very tall angels in the usual kneeling position with bowed head and folded hands that we see in pictures. Those two guardian angels were so brighteningly white. They, in the kneeling position, were to the height of the palmyra trees at the background. It was just for a fraction of a second but that “apparition” had become a permanent mental picture.

As an atheist now I analyze that ‘apparition’. It had been rammed into me that each person would be ‘supplied’ with a guardian angel and it takes care of you and all that stuff. And one sees pictures and statues of angels in that kneeling position. I was also quite convinced that my mother should have gone straight to heaven since she was considered by everybody as a good person. These facts being in my inner mind made me see what I wanted to see there. Rather it was a projection of my own mental picture. Apart from the dream my periyamma had at the time of amma’s death which I said about earlier, this is the one another ‘supernatural’ thing that had occurred in my life. While I am able to give satisfactory explanation for this second episode, I am still not able to adduce any explanation for the first.

After I switched over to urban life Yemen visited us twice. He came to Madurai for some medical help. Though I did not understand anything about his ailment then, now I assume that he should have got gangrene on his toe. He was advised to get it amputated. But he refused the first time and went to back to his village. After some time when he came back it seemed the condition had worsened and was asked to go for amputation of the whole foot. He declined to go for it and went back. That was the last of him. I came to know that he passed away shortly due to that wound. Whenever I went to Kurumbalaperi after that I used to enquire about his family. I got only disinterested answers. By that time chithi got married and my visits to Kurumbalperi became rare. Though I had never got any other information about him or his family, till this date his memories in me have never left. Probably he became a reference point in my life for my feelings towards the evils of caste system. Better I talk about this in a separate chapter.


*

43. 8- YEMEN - THE OUTCASTE!

YEMEN - THE OUTCASTE!

Let me go back to Kurumbalaperi since I have to mention one another important character. He was Yemen(ஏமன் - எமன் என்பதின் மரூவாக இருக்குமோ?). I had only short association with him but he had remained as a very important character in my life. I don’t know the exact reason how his character had been etched so deeply in my mind. He used to be a tall and well built man. Whenever I used to visit Kurumbalaperi he would come to see me. But he would not enter our home. He would wait in the outer quadrangle but once I come out he would lift me and would carry me around on his shoulders. I felt that he took both pleasure and pride in doing it. When I go out with him it would be very tough for me to make him allow me to walk with him. He always insisted that he should carry me. People in my family showed affection for him but in the early years I was always wondering why he was not permitted to enter our home in spite of the affection they had. It took time for me to understand the intricacies of the caste system. It was so strictly followed in villages that entry into our homes was a forbidden thing for them. The in-built complex in him due to his so-called low birth had made him feel indebted to my amma. He was from lower caste and by the custom of those days in villages he had to depend on our family for all their material needs. When he lost his elder sister with whom he had been very close he wept so inconsolably. My amma consoled him that she would be his akka. That had made him feel so grateful to her since according to his own narration to me it was unthinkable for a higher caste person to accept a person of lower caste as a sibling. Now I wonder what a rift the caste system had made between people. My own caste is not anything that comes under the so called ‘higher’ bracket. Still the divide between castes was and is so deeper into the psyche of the people.

38. 7- KURUMBALAPERI DAYS - CONTINUED

KURUMBALAPERI DAYS - CONTINUED

During my stay in the summers, invariably there would be a family function. It was ancestral puja. In the family garden next to the house were the cemeteries of my great grandfather and great grandmother and there used to be this function every year. If I happened to be there during that function, I would not take part in any of the rituals and would keep myself quite away from it, since as a ‘true christian’ I was not supposed to be part of such rituals. The teachings of Christianity were so much rammed into me, I used to say that it was all for evil spirits. So my relatives used to keep part of all the offerings separate for me before the rituals. Such was my faith. Sadly such was the teaching of Christianity !

When my chithi got married, she was sore about one thing. The groom was less qualified than her. But this feeling was there in her only till the day of her wedding. The very next day she took it on her stride and never felt anything about it. Her relationship with her mother-in-law used to be much talked about thing in the whole village. They used to sit together for hours and chat about anything and everything. It was she who managed the family as well as the school that was run by the family. She made everyone working for her feel that they should never hurt her feelings. Such was her way of dealing things and people. It was not by her powers but by her love she was able to administer.

After chithi’s marriage my visits to Kurumbalperi became very rare and short. In stead I used to go to chithi’s village, Sivanadanoor, another hamlet some five or six kilo meters from Kurumbalperi. Chithi’s husband was a jolly good person as far as I was concerned. For most in the village he was a terror but I used to be casual with him. Probably he understood the love between me and chithi and permitted me to be so with him also. He had many ‘firsts’ – the first home to get electricity, the first to get a big German – Grundig - radio with lovely piano buttons and so on. I always used to admire his wardrobe. It was not the variety but the sheer number. He used to wear white khadhi dhoti and shirts. But they were washed so well that they used to be so white and well pressed. He used to change two sets of dress everyday. It was an odd thing in a village that too so long back when people of those villages of that time, never even bothered what they put on at all.

37. 6- DAYS AT KURUMBALAPERI

DAYS AT KURUMBALAPERI



Unlike appa’s native place, amma’s native place did not have much impact on me. But the most important thing was that every time I visited the place I was always accorded a very special place as a motherless child. Everyone in the village, on seeing me, would immediately mention my amma’s name and would give a very sad look spiced with some equally sad comments. One uniform thing that I would find in their comments was how good my amma used to be for all and how an untimely demise had snapped her off leaving me as a lonely motherless child. Even the very way they used to look at me made me feel sad and gloomy.

It was another village like Kasiapuram or even smaller. The name of the hamlet is Kurumbalaperi. It might be around 25 kms from my appa’s place. I remember only the visits I had after appa’s wedding. The conditions were slightly reversed here comparing it with appa’s family situation. In the latter I saw the glorious period in my childhood which had gone very bad in the course of time. But in amma’s place it was just the opposite. In my childhood I saw only the glimpses of the golden days of yore. But then conditions had changed to the better lately.

The house of amma should have had a glorious past. But when I was young it had only remnants of it. The main entrance had a grand façade. It was a very high raised structure with a large number of broad steps leading to a large hall with a high canopy. Just opposite to the steps, at the end of the other side of the hall, there would be a large stone bench to the full length of the hall. The whole structure used to appear to me like a ‘Durbar Hall’ where important people could have been received in the days of its past glory. This hall with the grand façade would open into a quadrangle and on the right side stood a double storied building. High platforms with tall pillars of the ground floor and ornamental arches and pillars of the first floor would be facing the quadrangle. But this building was partitioned into small portions and my grandparents and their two daughters occupied one portion. They used this as their living room and they had a small kitchen on the opposite side. The first floor was never used and the neglect for long time had robbed its past grandeur.

Near to the house there used to be a Pillaiyar Temple. It was like a two storied structure. One part of it was quite high from the ground and half of this structure had a small cubicle as the sanctum sanctorum. The other half extended from the sanctum sanctorum as a platform. These two structures of the temple were constructed with stones. There were two stone pillars on this platform with two human figurines. They used to tell me that it was my mother’s grandparents who constructed the temple for the village. In front of this stony part of the temple, as a next lower tier, there was to a long verandah. It had high tiled roofing. On any hot day this temple used to be very cool and so naturally it used to attract the villagers. Always you could find at least half a dozen people sitting there, resting, chatting or playing a popular game - which I used to think that it should have been the forerunner of chess – with three pieces as tiger for one player and 12 pieces as sheep for the other player. Annual function of this temple was a great attraction not only to that village but also for some nearby villages. During such functions till date amma’s family would be given the first rights and respect. Looking back I find that both my great-grandparents had constructed Hindu temples for their respective villages. All in appa’s family got converted at the time of my grandfather’s marriage while my amma’s family still remains as Hindus. It was only my amma who got converted at the time of her wedding.

Though everyone at Kurumbalaperi had a soft corner for me and were affectionate with me it was my chithi, the younger sister of my mother, showered me with all her love and concern, not only during my childhood. Till the end of her life I had a special place in her heart. Chithi was a great lady. I am yet to find another person like her in my whole life. In all my life I have experienced that there will be always some negative remarks about a person from some quarter or other, however noble the person is. But I have never heard any one single person saying anything negative of her. She loved me so much. Though she had four sons of her own, she always used to say that I was her eldest son. During my visits to Kurumbalaperi she doted on me. She used to feel proud of me since I was able to prove myself better than the kids of my age in that village. The only reason for my superiority was that I was an urban boy and I could ‘act’ smarter than those kids in the rural. She used to encourage me to play word-games with other kids knowing that I could always outsmart them. I always liked to lie on her lap and asked to run her fingers through my hair, which was quite thick then ! It was a nice pastime for both of us and we enjoyed it.

35. 5. A GREAT ACTOR WAS BORN!

A GREAT ACTOR WAS BORN!

In my teens Kasiapuram had a different type of attraction for me. We were growing up. Visits to chandai now looked below our stature! Interests in rural games, swimming, ‘hunting’ – don’t ever imagine they were real hunting, they were all just walking through pathless fields armed with sticks and catapults – were more interesting. Two important things happened in this period. One was good and other one was bad. Good thing first! Our aunts planned for a big celebration in the school. I don’t remember what was the occasion for it. But it was planned to be a very big function and it was a real big thing for that small village. Daytime had small events like song and dance and the big show was reserved for the evening. It was a drama. The story of the prodigal son. Mostly my cousins from cities played the major characters. For the hero one of my cousins elder to me by two years was selected and was tutored by my aunts. He didn’t come up to their expectations. They were now in search of a ‘hero’. My name cropped up. Since they found me too young for that ‘heavy’ role, I was first given a ‘screen test’! I was asked to memorize a lengthy dialogue – the son coming back to the father with profuse apologies. I passed the test. Thus I became hero –in the very first chance of my ‘long’ acting career! And that cousin who was selected for the hero-role first, was given the role of just the friend of the hero!

I remember the long and serious rehearsals we had. My role was split into two – the first part was that of a toughie and later part of a softie. The two aunties trained me for each part, the younger Mary aunty for the brash role and Rose aunty for the later part. Their personal characters matched this ‘division of labor’. Then came the D-day. Stage with all lightings and screens rented out for the occasion should have looked grand. In one of the scenes I had to visit a hotel and eat something and then to find myself without any money to pay for it. I was given something to eat and the ‘prompters’ from the side urged me to straight away start the dialogues. But I, a sincere artist, would not budge so easily. So I took some eatable and had a bite. What an ill luck I had! What I bit was a hot chilly. I hurriedly took gulps of water and that didn’t help. How could I utter the important dialogues - since the drama was at the crucial turning point – with my mouth drooling with saliva caused by the miss-bite! So I hurriedly went for the sweet in the plate. But the prompter thought that I was using the chance to go for the sweets! Anyway who would understand the problem more than me? So I took the sweet and then started the dialogue. In the next part of the scene the hotelier pulls out my dress and throws me into the street. My appamma later told me that I made her moved to tears with my ‘terrific acting’ in that scene. I should have gone into acting, in retrospective I feel.

33. 4. THOSE GLORIOUS DAYS

THE GLORIOUS DAYS

It appears that the Tamil saying that every family and its status go up and down every thirty years. In Kasiapuram people used to say that it was my great grandfather who dug a deep well in his own land during a dry spell and then donated it for the whole village and always it was called oor-kinaru, common well of the village. Just next to that common well there was a considerably big temple for Kali and that was also the contribution of my great grandfather to the village. The irony of it was that next to this Kaliamman temple stood the school which was built in the next generation by my pattaiya and this school only served as the first church of the village. Now while this school-cum-church had become a desolate and deserted building, the Kaliamman kovil retains its past glory.

I remember many of the past glory of the family in my days at Kasiapuram. Those were days when my appamma used to have big pots of milk from our own cows and buffalos. When I was in Kasiapuram as a kid, every morning I used to be woken up only by the sound of my appamma grinding the milk. Mounds of butter were made everyday. After every harvest the granaries that would stand for nearly eight feet – there used to be three such granaries in the first floor – in addition to paddy in sacks would be full to their brim. Part of second floor was used to mainly dry the paddy. There would be an opening in its floor. It was to push the paddy to the safety of the first floor in case of any sudden and unexpected rains. I remember how hurriedly people would rush to the second floor to save the drying paddy from such sudden rains. I had personally enjoyed such encores. There used to be two small cabins in two different spots in our ancestral home. They would be very small chambers, the whole interior of which would be coated with cow dung. A very small wooden door would fix exactly the opening of the chamber. These chambers would be used to ripen the plantain that would be grown in our fields. Green plantains would be neatly staked in these cabins, some dry hay would be burnt and then the whole thing would be tightly covered. To make it air-tight cow dung will be pasted on the door. When the cabins would be opened there would be a beautiful fruity smell mixed with the smell of the smoke. A peculiar aroma, and I still feel them in my nostrils! Virtually things were overflowing – whether it was milk or paddy or plantain. It was customary first to give a cup of water and a piece of jaggery to any visitor to our home. A diluted version of country-made coffee would follow. My appamma would always take care that I got a good flow of ghee in every meal of mine in those days.

On every chandai day our house would be very busy since my pattaiya did business too along with his regular agriculture. He had a big chunk of land 10 km way from our village. People of that village would be thronging our house on that day. They would have come either with their agricultural merchandise or they would have come for their weekly pay from my pattaiya. Later I came to know that they all mostly belonged to the depressed class by caste. But I remember that there was no discrimination. Appamma treated everybody equally and all had either their water-cum-jaggery piece or coffee or buttermilk. The only condition for the visitors was that none should smoke inside the house. Though pattaiya died when I was young, I remember him as a very hard worker and astute businessman. His days would start very early and he would personally go and call all the employees for the day’s work and everyday would end with visits to the employees’ houses to remind them of the next day’s work. In those days brick houses, that too storied houses were not that common and in our village there were only three houses and one was ours, the second biggest. The biggest was the house of my pattaiya’s elder brother. But in addition to our house, pattaiya had the biggest shopping complex of not only our village but also of that area near to the chandai rented to his friend named David for very many years. I was told latter that there were only three people in the whole village who would have change for a hundred rupee note in those days. They were of course my pattaiya, his elder brother and that Mr. David.

But…all these pomp and glory did not last long. After the demise of pattaiya, my appa and his four brothers kept fighting over the lands so much and so long that things declined fast and all that remained then was only the past glory. That too was soon forgotten. Sadly I witnessed every step of the decline. I remember how the size of the milk-pot appamma had, was fast shrinking. There were days when every visitor to the house was given a cup of buttermilk. Later since my appamma knew that I preferred curd with my every meal she would go out and get curd from our neighbors. The sound of churning milk had stopped for long. Luckily for me, after they started buying milk for making coffee, my visits there became very rare. The same thing happened to all the other things also. Granaries shrank in size and finally they disappeared once for all. The plantain-chambers became places to dump odd things.

Later when appa’s will regarding his properties surfaced to my dismay and bitter bewilderment I almost severed all my connections with appa’s family and so I never went to Kasiapuram for long years. In my late fifties there was a chance to go to another village next to it, during one of the two-wheeler trips from college with colleagues. I was tempted to visit the place. So I went taking Silas, a friend with me. On our way to Kasiapuram I stopped the bike in a particular spot since I remembered the very first accident that I met in my life. In those young carefree days during every visit to the village from Madurai, I used to enjoy riding bullock carts. The fellow who worked for us was just two years elder to me. But he had the entire wherewithal to handle the cart and he would make all the fuss before allowing me to ride the cart. He would give the ropes to me only after we leave the village – what a traffic problem we could have otherwise! Once we had the cart fully loaded with firewood to be taken to our vidili. Vidili is a very small thatched shed in the Palmyra fields where they used to make jaggery. Since the cart was with full load my friend did not allow me to ride the cart. He insisted that it would be tough to handle the bullocks with load and promised me that I could drive the empty cart on our way back. I was joyfully sitting on the top of the firewood in the cart. We had to cross a tar road and get into the field by a vertical slope. My friend thought that it would be safe if he drove it on sideways rather than going quite vertical in the slope. So now one wheel of the cart was on the flat solid tar road and the other wheel was on the soft sand. Well, simple physics worked! The wheel on the soft sand went deeper into the sand and so the whole cart fell on its side. I was thrown on one side of the cart. By some reflex action or something, I rolled again and that saved my life. Because the cart which fell on its side rolled again and now it was completely upside down. The ropes that had the bullocks tied to the yoke were cut and so the bullocks were free. My friend also fell from the cart – just on the other side of my fall. After the initial shock he got up and found me missing. He immediately thought that I had been caught right under the cart and started yelling! I too had to come out of my shock. So I was lying on the other side of the cart not knowing what had happened. Then I heard the yelling of the friend and that made me stand up. He saw me from the other side and what a relief for him! He ran around the cart and hugged me and told me that he thought I had surely died. Praise the ‘instinct’ that made me roll!

From that spot we entered the village. None could identify me nor could I identify anybody till we reached our ancestral house. What I witnessed was a big shock to me. What all looked grand and glorious earlier they all gave a pathetic look now. The house which was once buzzing with so many people in and around it looked desolated and haunted. Since appa and his brothers unceremoniously fought and demanded equal shares in all properties, all now they had was bits and pieces in every property. None had any sizable worthwhile property. The house was awkwardly divided and more than half of it was in a very bad state. The kitchen roof had completely come down. The big thinnai adjacent to it had no more use for anything at all. It once served as the dining hall for so many. The oonjal, which was meant for the kids and a flour-grinder which used to be in the corner of that thinnai were no more there. The oonjal used to be small but made of rosewood and had many artistic handworks suitable for a prince. No trace of it now. The big northern room with its high ceiling was divided with some pathetic wooden partition. The centre hall looked in my early age big and the pillar in the middle was a favorite spot for me. As a child I used to go around that polished and pure black pillar. I remembered it as a tall one but now it all looked so small and insignificant. All the walls of the hall used to have a neat row of photographs. Now many were missing and the remaining ones were all dangling in every direction. The southern part of the house where one of the plantain-chambers was in a corner, had now changed almost into a ‘Mumbai-type house’, that is, within a small square they had modified it into a ‘house of some sort’. It was just what they used to call as ‘sparrow’s nest’.

The buildings which were once housed the school and church - the places where I spent most of my motherless days – wore a terrific look. The part which housed the church once was in utter shambles now. The roofs had completely collapsed. Our cow sheds of those earlier days were much better places than this. The other building which was built latter had been divided into small portions – rather ‘cells’. They had been rented out, it seemed. Less said better about the building where once the famous and busy shop of Mr. David was doing a roaring business. The same fate of being divided into bits and pieces among the brothers had made the building look like a haunted place. All the big shops in the building had gone to other better places and now only a small tailor shop and grocery shop remained. All the traces of its past glory had gone. I thought that it would have been better had I not visited the place. The glory of the past alone would have remained in my mind.

32. A PIOUS KID AT KASIAPURAM - 3

PIETY AT KASIAPURAM

Immediately after appa’s wedding, the little family comprising the young newly married couple and their child, that is I, settled in a house in Madurai. But the connection with the birthplace and its attraction for me was there for a very long time. Though we visited Kasiapuram only during the vacations, the visits had a great impact on me. Virtually there used to be a great magnetic pull towards it, at least till I reached my twenties. The nights before the travel by train to my native place were always sleepless. I would try to gather as many things as possible for the friends there at the village. Glass marbles that I took from Madurai were attractions to friends in the village. In the same way the things I gathered from the village were great attractions to friends back in Madurai. The latter used to wonder at the kal kundu, handmade stone marble that I would get in exchange of glass marbles. If I tried to smuggle to village such novelties from Madurai, father would bring Wren & Martin grammar book without my knowledge to give me special coaching during the vacation. Such sessions would make me feel that appa was tyrant and spoilsport of my vacation.

Probably till I reached my teens, days in Kasiapuram had more religious activities. The family-run school was also used as the local church of the village. By the time I got shifted to Madurai the two aunts who were taking care of me when I was in the village had left Kasiapuram. The elder one became a nun and the younger one got married and left. In their place were now two other aunts, father’s youngest sisters, were ruling the roost! Of these two, the elder one was very close and affectionate towards me and she too became a nun later. Her name is Rose. Rose aunty, a very pious one, used to carry out all the church activities. During the vacations not only our families, but two other families would land up at Kasiapuram. Total number of cousins from these families would be fairly large and we were considered by the locals as special since we had come from big towns. All these cousins would gather every evening at the school-cum-church for prayers along with the local children. In the months of May, Rose aunty would arrange special prayers for St. Mary, since we, Catholics, devote the month of May to Mary.

On every evening in May, all the kids from the Christian families would gather in the church and from there we would march out and would visit a Christian family. There we would have a little prayer and a few devotional songs. Rose auntie’s voice used to be very sweet. She would lead the ‘chorus’ – a real chorus since we, the kids, would sing in our own ragam and timing! The best part of this would be the march. There was no electricity in the village on those days. So we would carry a hurricane light and one candle. Treading through the dark lanes of the village to reach our spot would be very hard even to imagine for those who were born and brought up after electricity became common. The candle bearer would lead the group. Invariably some would falter in dark and would fall down. All other kids would enjoy at the fall of one of themselves. Such skirmishes and mischief would never distract our Rose aunty; she would be in her own world of singing and praying. Murukku and black watery coffee made with jaggery supplied at the end of each such prayer meeting at different houses were the routine things given to the prayer group. Still I remember the taste of those two and how much we enjoyed them.

One another interesting and different thing in Kasiapuram was the weekly market or chandai. In those days every big village would have some weekday as the chandai day. Varieties of merchandise, starting from grains, seed grains, agricultural utilities and such vital materials for the populace to novelties like glass bangles would be brought on that day. Usually such chandais would be in some common place earmarked for that. Visiting the chandai at late evenings with aunts or appamma is still fresh in my memory. This chandai was just a few houses away from ours and one could hear the noise from this chandai. I don’t know why I imagined then that the noise from the chandai sounded to me like that of an ocean. Probably a matter of perspectives!


Now for the bad thing. It was my first experimentation with smoking. There may be genetically something in me, which made me always attracted to the ‘aroma’ of smoke – whether it is from a beedi or a cigarette. Till this minute I have that weakness inbuilt in me. Though it is now more than one and half decade that I stopped smoking still the love for it continues. It is right when it is said that a smoker is always a smoker. During one of our summer visits to Kasiapuram a big jing-bang got together and ventured an outing with the sole aim of stealing some nice moments of smoking. We would have been around 6 in number. First day it was in the tamarind-thoppu. One by name Johnson not only initiated but also volunteered to supply the much-needed beedis and a matchbox. In our village beedi-making is a big profession for many, young and old, male and female. So every home had people who were in this trade. But it was considered below our dignity in our families and so none in our households was involved in this. So it had to be somebody who would be ready to sneak a bundle of beedi for us. And it was Johnson.

We all went into the interior of the thoppu, which was next to our school. Sitting around the trunk of a big tree and trying to hide ourselves from any passerby and at the same time trying to light our beedis in that windy condition – all these made our adventure more exhilarating. If we saw something moving we would all douse our beedis and run away in search of newer and safer places. Mostly we were running around than smoking. So when the session was over we felt that we did not enjoy it at all. So I and two of my cousins – one younger and another elder to me – decided that we should try the costlier thing, the cigarettes. First we planned to pool our resources. Once that was done the next thing was selecting a safe hideout. We did select a very dangerous spot. It was the well where we were trying to learn swimming that summer. It was quite away from our village and it was on the way to the next bigger village on the main road, Alangulam. We had to have a purchasing spot other than our village shops since news of the purchase in any shop in our village would immediately reach our respective families. So we had a meticulous planning. We chose a shop. We decided that the buyer would be youngest among the three of us. He was not a town-guy like me and the other cousin. So he could always escape with the excuse that the cigarettes were for some other relative of him. At least that is what I told him and made him buy the cigarettes. It was a full pack of Berkley cigarettes. Of course with a matchbox. We straightaway went to the chosen well and the water was a few feet deep from the top and so we climbed down and chose a cozy corner of the well. We settled comfortably and started to get on with our job in hand. Only then we found that it was not that easy for amateurs like us to light the cigarette and have nice puffs. Each step was very hard. Lighting the cigarette against the winds, we never imagined, would need so much skill. Then keeping the cigarette tip dry was absolutely impossible. Even before we lit the cigarette the tip would be fully drenched with our saliva and had to be pinched off. Getting a few puffs was a race against time, as the tips were soaked with our saliva sooner than we puffed!

Anyway, we were in our own world coaching, encouraging and chiding each other. We forgot the world above us, I mean, the world outside the well. We were simply ‘frogs in a well’. Then we had two of our cousins, very seniors to us, descending on us from nowhere. We were caught red-hot-cigarette handed. They scolded and more than that blackmailed us saying that they would report the matter to our families. And that was like sentencing us to the ropes. We pleaded. Then they proposed a deal. We were asked to write on the cardboard of the cigarette box itself a promise that we would never smoke thereafter at all in our whole lives. And then the cousins tore that into very small tiny pieces and threw them into the well and told us that we could smoke only if we join all the bits of papers; else we should never smoke. We made the solemn promises. It appears that of the three of us, my two cousins kept that promise but I continued to smoke throughout my school days whenever there was a chance. I liked it so much. During the end of my degree course I became a habitual smoker and continued that thing for 26 long years, till 6th January,1990.

The late teens had one more attraction in this village life. It was the amman-kodai, the annual festival celebrated for ten days. Though our village was small it had a big temple disproportionate to the local population. But during this festival people from all over the State, especially those who migrated to Chennai would turn up in large numbers. Festive mood would be in every individual and in every nook and corner of the village. Dance programmes would go long into the night. Don’t imagine that there would be grand stage for these dances. It would be all in open spaces in and around the temple. In those days dance in such festivals meant only the folk dance, karagam. We would take vantage points so that we would be able to have an eye on the girls for whom we had a crush or vice versa. Truly the girls would be very romantic during that festival time. Stolen glances and secret signs would fly across the dancing floor. But once the festival was over, they would turn blind eye to us. We had to wait for the next year for the romantic period.

Thus it was church-related joyful days till I was ten, then it was visits to chandai and our hunting that made our village visits joyful, and lastly in the late teens and early college days it was this annual festival that brought cheers to the vacation in our village. But all these faded and I was becoming more and more a town boy because in the early years at least twice we visited the village, a short visit during Christmas and a longer one during summer. As years passed, we stopped going for the Christmas. Visits during summer also got slowly reduced

31. 2 EARLY DAYS AT KASIAPURAM

MY VERY EARLY DAYS AT KASIAPURAM

After mother’s demise, father lived as single in Madurai while I was left with my grandma – I called her appamma – at my father’s native village, Kasiapuram. It was just a few miles away from my mother’s place. I very vaguely remember how I was doted by appamma and two of the 4 sisters of my father. These two aunts were then working as teachers in our own school run by our family. Pattaiya, that is my grandfather, was the one who started that school, the very first in that area. If I remember right, it was St.Joseph’s Elementary School. I remember my aunts taking me by hand to the school everyday since appamma used to be busy doing her daily score at the fields. How vividly I visualize even now the dawn-to-dusk hard manual work the womenfolk at home did. Father used to visit me now and then during his vacations. What stands out during those visits, firstly, as soon as he came home my aunts would lift me in their arms and weep inconsolably. The sight of my father would open the floodgate of their grief on the demise of my mother and my ‘motherless status’. Not knowing the reason for their grief, I would also cry along with them. In those first few minutes, a pall of gloom used to hang over the whole household. Secondly, father used to bring something or other every time he paid those visits. The usual and much-expected thing would be grapes. What we used to get in those days mostly were green, sour grapes. But the grapes father used to bring were black, sweet and juicy and were called Hyderabad-grapes. During one such visit he brought me a tri-cycle. Probably half of the kids of the village should have been around it when the news of its arrival broke out. None would have seen such a cute thing in their lives. I very well recollect that it arrived well packed with flannel tapes. Body painted in bright green, solid wheels in bright red and black rubber handle grips. None in the village – leave alone the children – would have seen such a cute little thing. It was a treat to watch in those days. I was too young to pedal it myself. I would simply sit on my tricycle and there would be severe competition to push me around in our backyard. Duraisamy, a distant cousin of mine was my favored one to push me around. For many years whenever I visited my village I would try to meet him. In the latter years I always found him sitting in a petty shop in an inebriated condition. A five or ten rupee note would in such times make him very happy. One day I got my right toe in the wheel in one such push-me-around sessions. Blood scared everybody and after that accident none came forward to treat me with the ‘royal pushing’. It compelled me to learn to pedal myself. Then I was free to ride around the whole village. Probably in the history of our school, for very many years mine was the only vehicle parked under the trees during the class hours. When I leave in my cycle to our house, there would be scores of people watching a little kid majestically riding his tri-cycle. A real cynosure!

This cycle remained in the family for nearly forty years – that too in full use – as the ‘family tri-cycle’. Only thing, my daughters were denied the chance of enjoying it while other children of my other sisters ‘inherited’ it and rode around. Another novelty of those years in our village home was a mechanical-gramophone – the only of its kind for miles around in that area. My aunts would play the very few records we had only on very special occasions or for visitors coming only for the purpose of seeing and listening to the ‘musical wonder’ of those years. It was a proud possession of the family for a long time since electricity came very very late to our village. Most of my childhood memories belong to those ‘powerless’ days.

So went those days in Kasiapuram. Everybody in the village would be a relative. Every relative petted me. Everybody had a soft corner for me since I was a motherless child. This should have done a lot to my psyche at that age itself. It was one type of recognition I got for many years.

There was a lady-teacher in our school. She was close to my aunts. She was from a nearby village, called Kuruvankottai or something. Everyday she used to come to our home to take her lunch with my aunts. Though her face got completely erased from my mind I still remember her as a very fair, slim and beautiful lady. I don’t remember why and how it happened – probably people were talking about that – I very much wanted that she should become my mother. I don’t know how that proposal got fizzled out. Then comes father’s wedding. I have never found an answer as to why and how I remember many of the things in my life very clearly after that wedding while most of the earlier happenings are all so foggy.

Well, coming back to the day of father’s wedding, inside that village church it was a sort of triangle – my father in front near the altar, I, on the side of church in that big chair and the entrance through which the bride was expected any moment. She then entered. She was in a golden yellow pattu saree, thickly brocaded with golden jaree. Seeing a Christian bride with a veil over her head should have been a novelty for the local people. A group of kids followed the bride marveling her dress. She looked quite pretty but the face had seriousness in it. Probably it was due to the bridal tension. In the latter years also she carried that perpetual seriousness on her face. I always liked her smiling face but never that seriousness-laden face. The wedding was in my mother’s village, since father’s new bride was a close relative of my mother. I was never able to remember any other person, especially the relatives of mother attending the wedding.

It is more like a movie with a lot of cut-shots. Because the next thing that I am able to recollect was the wedding procession through those village streets towards the bride’s house. It was in an open car. I was seated sandwiched between the couple – appears very odd even now to me! Could be compulsion of ….I don’t know what. There were people looking at me during the procession. Those faces showed mixed feelings.

The next cut-shot is father’s village in the late evening of the wedding day. In this scene, the whole village had converged on to my pattaiya’s house as was the custom of those days. There were a few petro-max lamps brightening the celebration. Kids were hovering around those lamps – another novelty for them. The house, to the village standards of those years, was comparatively a large one – one of the few storied houses in the whole village. There were three entrances. I was sitting on the steps on the southern side, a side entrance. I was engrossed looking at the urchins playing around the hissing lamps competing with the buzzing insects. Someone from behind touched my shoulders. I turned and looked up. It was father in pattu dhothi. He sat near me. He asked me who was the bride to me. I said “chithi”. That was what I was told. Father said, “She will be hereafter your amma and you should call her so. Okay? “. I said yes and kept that word always. Not for the namesake. I meant it always. Visitors to our home in the later years never could find any difference. But later…. It all changed…. by a quirk of fate or what? Anyway, that’s another story altogether.

30. MY APPA'S WEDDING THAT I ATTENDED -1

MY APPA'S WEDDING THAT I ATTENDED.


When I look back, the earliest memory of my childhood is my appa’s wedding. Yes, it was the wedding of my father. I vividly remember most of the details. It is like ruffling through an old family photo album. The photos are old, sepia-toned retaining the old-world flavor. The images in the photos when I look at them start moving back and forth in time. It may be like a sequence of still photographs. But when I look at each one of them, I get a short length movie running in my mind. It absorbs me into the picture, which by this time gets animated. I become part of it. Things move around me. I move around things and people in each photograph.

Among such photos the very fist one shows the interior of a village church. My father, the bridegroom, is in a cream colored suit of shining gabardine. He is kneeling at the pew and praying or so it seems. The bride is yet to arrive. I have not seen her yet. I’m inside a big chair specially provided for me, since chairs in those years were rare commodities, that too in village churches. I don’t know how was it for my father, for me the waiting was filled with suspense and a sort of thrill. I’ll describe the wedding later, since I have to provide a few more details to fill the gap.

Though father’s wedding is, as I said, the earliest memory, there were few other things in my memory bank. They, however, are not as clear as the wedding and the subsequent events. They have a veil hung over them. Like moth eaten photographs. They are not clear. Probably that is compensated by the sound track – the oft-repeated narration of elders in the family rambling into my ears during my growing years. What elders said help bring back some foggy memories. Elders used to say a lot about my mother. But unfortunately I don’t remember anything about her. However hard I try I don’t get even a hazy image of her. After my birth, I am told, she became very sick. Got tuberculosis. A dreaded disease in those days. She was given some treatment in Madurai. A few months before her death, for some time she was in Madurai Government Hospital as an inpatient. In my later age, I remember some of my relatives were trying to identify the block and ward in the concrete jungle of that hospital. I wantonly avoided knowing it. I don’t know why I felt that way. When her condition became worse, she wanted to spend her last days in her village house. So she was taken to her birthplace, a village named Kurumbalperi. Both of us were there for a month or two. During these days she tried to keep me away from her fearing I would also catch the disease. From what others recall, I should have been a big nuisance to her. Anyway her painful days were over when I was hardly 2½ years old. It occurred early in the morning around 4.30 a.m.

I had a periyamma – Madurai periyamma – who used to be very fond of me when I was a kid. She was in Madurai and she was pregnant then. On the day of my mother’s death, this periyamma had a dream. In the dream mother in a complete white dress came to her with a piece of sugarcane in her hand. She took a bite of it. Chewed and spat it. Then she said to periyamma “ Akka, I’m going. Look after my son”. And then she drifted off, rather floated off. Within few hours she received the telegram informing the demise of my mother. This had been quite often repeated by my periyamma. I don’t know what to call this. Calling it a trumped up incident looks unethical and ungrateful to the memory of my periyamma. So, though I grew up wondering about the rationality of this, I was never willing to question it. This is one of the two incidents in my life, which has a supernatural touch. About the other one, I will talk later.

After mother’s demise, father lived as single in Madurai while I was left with my grandma – I called her appamma – at my father’s native village, Kasiapuram. It was just a few miles away from my mother’s place. I very vaguely remember how I was doted by appamma and two of the 4 sisters of my father. These two aunts were then working as teachers in our own school run by our family. Pattaiya, that is my grandfather, was the one who started that school, the very first in that area. If I remember right, it was St.Joseph’s Elementary School. I remember my aunts taking me by hand to the school everyday since appamma used to be busy doing her daily score at the fields. How vividly I visualize even now the dawn-to-dusk hard manual work the womenfolk at home did. Father used to visit me now and then during his vacations. What stands out during those visits, firstly, as soon as he came home my aunts would lift me in their arms and weep inconsolably. The sight of my father would open the floodgate of their grief on the demise of my mother and my ‘motherless status’. Not knowing the reason for their grief, I would also cry along with them. In those first few minutes, a pall of gloom used to hang over the whole household. Secondly, father used to bring something or other every time he paid those visits. The usual and much-expected thing would be grapes. What we used to get in those days mostly were green, sour grapes. But the grapes father used to bring were black, sweet and juicy and were called Hyderabad-grapes. During one such visit he brought me a tri-cycle. Probably half of the kids of the village should have been around it when the news of its arrival broke out. None would have seen such a cute thing in their lives. I very well recollect that it arrived well packed with flannel tapes. Body painted in bright green, solid wheels in bright red and black rubber handle grips. None in the village – leave alone the children – would have seen such a cute little thing. It was a treat to watch in those days. I was too young to pedal it myself. I would simply sit on my tricycle and there would be severe competition to push me around in our backyard. Duraisamy, a distant cousin of mine was my favored one to push me around. For many years whenever I visited my village I would try to meet him. In the latter years I always found him sitting in a petty shop in an inebriated condition. A five or ten rupee note would in such times make him very happy. One day I got my right toe in the wheel in one such push-me-around sessions. Blood scared everybody and after that accident none came forward to treat me with the ‘royal pushing’. It compelled me to learn to pedal myself. Then I was free to ride around the whole village. Probably in the history of our school, for very many years mine was the only vehicle parked under the trees during the class hours. When I leave in my cycle to our house, there would be scores of people watching a little kid majestically riding his tri-cycle. A real cynosure!

This cycle remained in the family for nearly forty years – that too in full use – as the ‘family tri-cycle’. Only thing, my daughters were denied the chance of enjoying it while other children of my other sisters ‘inherited’ it and rode around. Another novelty of those years in our village home was a mechanical-gramophone – the only of its kind for miles around in that area. My aunts would play the very few records we had only on very special occasions or for visitors coming only for the purpose of seeing and listening to the ‘musical wonder’ of those years. It was a proud possession of the family for a long time since electricity came very very late to our village. Most of my childhood memories belong to those ‘powerless’ days.

So went those days in Kasiapuram. Everybody in the village would be a relative. Every relative petted me. Everybody had a soft corner for me since I was a motherless child. This should have done a lot to my psyche at that age itself. It was one type of recognition I got for many years.

There was a lady-teacher in our school. She was close to my aunts. She was from a nearby village, called Kuruvankottai or something. Everyday she used to come to our home to take her lunch with my aunts. Though her face got completely erased from my mind I still remember her as a very fair, slim and beautiful lady. I don’t remember why and how it happened – probably people were talking about that – I very much wanted that she should become my mother. I don’t know how that proposal got fizzled out. Then comes father’s wedding. I have never found an answer as to why and how I remember many of the things in my life very clearly after that wedding while most of the earlier happenings are all so foggy.

Well, coming back to the day of father’s wedding, inside that village church it was a sort of triangle – my father in front near the altar, I, on the side of church in that big chair and the entrance through which the bride was expected any moment. She then entered. She was in a golden yellow pattu saree, thickly brocaded with golden jaree. Seeing a Christian bride with a veil over her head should have been a novelty for the local people. A group of kids followed the bride marveling her dress. She looked quite pretty but the face had seriousness in it. Probably it was due to the bridal tension. In the latter years also she carried that perpetual seriousness on her face. I always liked her smiling face but never that seriousness-laden face. The wedding was in my mother’s village, since father’s new bride was a close relative of my mother. I was never able to remember any other person, especially the relatives of mother attending the wedding.

It is more like a movie with a lot of cut-shots. Because the next thing that I am able to recollect was the wedding procession through those village streets towards the bride’s house. It was in an open car. I was seated sandwiched between the couple – appears very odd even now to me! Could be compulsion of ….I don’t know what. There were people looking at me during the procession. Those faces showed mixed feelings.

The next cut-shot is father’s village in the late evening of the wedding day. In this scene, the whole village had converged on to my pattaiya’s house as was the custom of those days. There were a few petro-max lamps brightening the celebration. Kids were hovering around those lamps – another novelty for them. The house, to the village standards of those years, was comparatively a large one – one of the few storied houses in the whole village. There were three entrances. I was sitting on the steps on the southern side, a side entrance. I was engrossed looking at the urchins playing around the hissing lamps competing with the buzzing insects. Someone from behind touched my shoulders. I turned and looked up. It was father in pattu dhothi. He sat near me. He asked me who was the bride to me. I said “chithi”. That was what I was told. Father said, “She will be hereafter your amma and you should call her so. Okay? “. I said yes and kept that word always. Not for the namesake. I meant it always. Visitors to our home in the later years never could find any difference. But later…. It all changed…. by a quirk of fate or what? Anyway, that’s another story altogether.