Of Soft Spoken Secrets

The things that we say without saying, secrets that are said with a wink of the eye, the cringe of the forehead, the twitch of the nose, the stories behind a suppressed laughter or a tear not shed. This is an ode to the dark cloud that flew by without bursting into a shower.

Kiran once told me about the face of the girl that comes to his mind even after twelve years of a train journey when he sat across her on a trip from Delhi to Chandigarh - A five hour journey that embedded an image in the mind for an entire lifetime.

Vineeth had passed out of engineering college without a job, while everyone around him somehow seemed to have a job offer from one or the other IT companies. Classes were over in March. In May he got a call from a moderately renowned b-school. He hadn’t expected even that. The first reaction was ecstasy but when that feeling passed in about ten minutes he had decided not to take it up. His dad who was a renowned professor in the engineering college came home that day and told him when he heard of Vineeth’s decision that he was the biggest disappointment in his life.

Srinath ran away from his home with just the clothes he was wearing and his trusted CBZ the day his girlfriend broke up with him. She was his first love and life seemed to be crumbling down in front of him. He drove his bike straight from Nagpur to Mumbai.

These were stories revealed to me at various times during casual conversations about unrelated topics. The subtle reactions that trigger subsided memories have often told me stories that people have just forced themselves to forget.

Today, Srinath runs a boutique café in a posh south Mumbai locality. He has a very loyal customer base in his small café and earns more than he ever could have had he gone the way our elders tell us. Stay at home, complete your degree, get a job.

Vineeth runs an MBA coaching institute which regularly churns out entrants to the top b-schools in the country and is one of the most sought after in Hyderabad.

Kiran still pauses by New Delhi station every once in a while at the time the Shan-e-Punjab is scheduled to pull into the station. He is happily married with a very loving wife and a three year old beautiful little girl.

We don’t realize the moments in life when it’s taking a turn. The turns are apparent only when we look back. Pause a moment and be thankful for all the twists and turns and realize that all bitter pills swallowed need not leave an after taste.

The rules of the game.

The school head boy should be dating the school head girl..the topper guy should be with the topper gal and so on went the unwritten rule in my school for generations. Although dating as defined in the modified Kerala edition of the Oxford dictionary had certain restricted meaning than what the general audience would come to think. Stolen moments of private conversations behind the library, walks to home from tuition classes and if you were all right with being called risqué a brief holding of hands under the desk during physics lecture pretty much constituted the idea of malluland high school dating of the 90s.

Then again the gulf returned kids, the boors as the culture custodians would call them, pushed the limits with the occasional exchanges of err Toblerone bars and glass-tubed pencils which never seemed to run out of pointy nibs. Ahh the audacity. We the boys of the local breed (aborigines in their eyes) were crude male forms with a strange affliction which caused tongue paralysis in the vicinity of the sacred feminine. We liked to think that it was the pencils and the toblerones that made the gulf returnees a rage among the girls. Well you see both sides had fair arguments.

One such ‘assimilated but still an NRK’ knight in shining Nikes (Bata and Carona shoes were what the rest of us wore..and those weren’t exactly shiny) was the head boy of our school, the topper of the class and my best friend. He was smart and handsome and to top it off wore glasses which had strings which hung behind his neck. (For a brief period sometime in the nineties those rimmed glasses with strings became a fashion rage in my school and every boy worth his salt developed sudden bouts of myopia. Despite my valiant claims that I couldn’t read beyond the second line in the ophthalmologists alphabet chart my doctor, the quack hmmmph refused to believe that I needed glasses. I even tried reading ‘C’ as ‘X’ and ‘E’ as ‘W’). In short my friend let’s call him Paris (from the Greek Epic of course) had everything going for him save for a queen by the side. And when our lady Helen was appointed the school’s head girl our Gulf returned Paris (you see the irony?? I don’t) had all the bells ringing inside. Tall, fair and medusa-esque eyes (really, the boys found it really tough to see her in the eyes. God knows why) Helen was right out of Homer’s epic.

My match making ailment was at its unabated peak despite several Grecian tragedies and it was still decades later that I learned the valuable lesson of not poking my nose in another couples affairs.

Me: Dude, Helen brushed aside her hair from her face when she was talking to you after the Assembly today. Swear, that means she’s interested in you.
Paris: Huh, really??
Me: Yea I read it in the Reader’s Digest article on body language and cryptic signaling
Paris: Let me do an analysis in my Commodore 64. That should give some conclusive results

Commodore 64 was the computer that my friend Paris had got from Dubai last year. Whenever we had an disagreement on anything he would throw in the argument that his Commodore 64 said so. And since we didn’t even know what a computer was at that time we would just have to fold in to him. For example one such argument was whether Hitman or Hulk Hogan was the best in WWF (oh remember those days when it was WWF and not WWE??). I said Hitman but apparently the Commodore had told Paris that it was Hogan and that was the end of the argument. How could I even question what a ‘Computer’ said?

Days passed with several such apparent cryptic signals being sent out by Helen in the general direction of Paris which only I could see initially. But soon enough Paris was starting to see them as well.

Me: You know man I think it’s high time that you ask her once and for all if she likes you or not.
Paris: Hmm…I think so too. You know yesterday while she was standing in the bus stop her left foot was pointed in my direction. That is an indisputable sign isn’t it.
Me: Of course, I’m sure your Commode will agree
Paris: Dude its Commodore not Commode.
Me: Err,,right for all I care both are good for just one purpose.

Paris was well and truly bitten by the love bug by first term was getting over. All that was left was to summon up the courage and walk up to the lady herself and ask for the fair maiden’s hand. But then again it was a mere formality right? It was tradition that was on his side. You know the head boy and the head girl and so on.

Me: What the hell are you waiting for. You don’t want to wait till the term is over. By the time we come back after the holidays the whole momentum would be gone.
Paris: It’s not about momentum my friend it’s about the moment. The right time my friend, the moment is all that matters. As the greek poet Pontius Pilate said Give me the right moment and I would change time.

Now I was really convinced that he had lost his marbles well and truly.

The term exams were fast approaching and time was running out. It would be the holidays soon and two weeks in adolescent time is equivalent to a decade. Paris and I used to study together for the exams at his place. On the night before the dreaded maths test we sat in front of his Commodore 64 and typed out a detailed love letter. Now that I think back it wasn’t a confession of love but more an argumentative thesis on why Helen should accept his proposal. At a time when two hundred word essays seemed bigger challenges than swimming across the English Channel our collective brains churned out a five page letter of love in neat calligraphy written using red, blue, yellow and green Faber Castell sketch pens (of course from Dubai).

On the last day of the exams, Paris in his smartest uniform shirts and trousers and shine black Nikes trailed Helen at a distance waiting for the right moment. The right moment came an hour before the last exam in the afternoon when he spotted her all by herself sitting under the mango tree beside the school ground going through her tuition notes when our man approached her like a cheetah prowling up behind an unwary deer.

He stood beside her and with a clearing of his throat said a well rehearsed nonchalant ‘hello’.

Paris: Hello. Did you study?
Helen: (with a quizzical look on her face. Obviously it’s the day of the exam who wouldn’t study) No not at all. You?

The rest of the conversation was lost to me as the mercurial wind changed direction away from my vantage point. But I could easily make out what they were saying thanks to the Reader’s Digest’s article on lip reading. The conversation went thus.

Paris: Iraq was really cold yesterday.
Helen: Haha Mrs. Mathew’s dog had three kittens yesterday.
Paris: Oh really? Mr. Mathew must have some hand in it.
Helen: Yea yea Shakespeare had arthritis
Paris: Are you sure? Iraq is in Africa no?

Then I saw our man Paris slowly put his hand inside his trouser pocket and fish out a pack of chiclets (His stock of Toblerone had just ran out) and held it out to her.
Again quizzical look.

I thought she wasn’t going to take it from him but success she takes the pack from his hands with a smile.

Seeing his moment arrive Paris takes out the letter from his shirt pocket and gave it to Helen.
Quizzical look change to puzzled one. But she takes the letter from his hand and starts reading it. Expression changes again. Reader’s digest didn’t say anything about that particular body language. I’m confused. Midway through the letter she pauses to open the chiclets pack and pop the gum in her mouth.

After what seemed an enternity she is done with the last page as well. Again no expression.
She then folded the letter very deftely and made it in the shape of a paper plane and then took out a pen from her pencil box and scribbled something on the side of the plane. Smiles at Paris, gave the plane to him and walked away.

Paris looked down on the plane in his hand and had a confused look in his face. Oh yea..that’s exactly like the illustration in Reader’s Digest. I went running to him to know what she had written on the plane. It read – “The plane that crashed without taking off”.

Hmm..Dude, Chiclets just doesn’t do what a Toblerone does.

Prayers and Hope.

Karan had been sitting at the window in his dark room for over an hour, his eyes steadfast on the window across the street. The moon had come out over half an hour ago but she was nowhere to be seen. He had been watching every terrace that he could see from his Rajouri Garden apartment in East Delhi where women were doing their karwachaut Puja when the moon came out. But strangely her house was dark.

For eight years now that he had known her not once had she failed to keep the ritual. And for seven of those years he had also kept the fast with her, without her knowing. They’d been friends then good friends and then great friends. But always ‘just friends’. For eight long years.

When he first met her she was sitting on stairs of the fire exit in the office. He used to slip down the seldom used stairs to have a smoke rather than go all the way down to the smoking area. For some reason they sat there in the stairs that day and talked for ten continuous hours. They were both new in office and it was their first jobs. He remembered that the ten hours were spent mostly listening to her. She talked mostly about her college and that meant Rahul. A name that he then didn’t know he would hear a lot from her for the rest of his life. She was deeply in love with Rahul for four years in college but never had the courage to tell him directly. She just assumed that he would somehow realize it himself. But years passed in the wink of an eye without any confessions being made. And now he was halfway across the globe doing his masters. It was at one of those weak moments that overwhelmed her once in a while and she’d hide away at the seldom used fire escape that Karan chanced upon her. Her eyes red and with mascara drooping down her cheeks, she was a sight he’d never forget in his life. She looked like an angel just banished out of heaven.

They grew close within a short period. He didn’t have other friends in office and neither did she. They ended up being together all the time. He even moved into a house in her locality. They were together right from his morning wake up call to her goodnight call.

Soon enough he realized that he was falling for her although she was still just as obsessed about Rahul as the day they had met. Slowly it dawned on him that she would never think of him the way he thought of her but still he remained always by her side. Hope is often what sinks a man faster down into quicksand.

Seven years ago on a similar karwachaut day he was surprised to learn that she was keeping the vruth (religious fast) for Rahul. That meant not having anything to eat till the moon appeared in the evening sky. And Rahul wasn’t even her boyfriend in technical terms let alone her husband. He didn’t even know that there was a girl a thousand mile away staying hungry for the whole day apparently for his well being. That kind of made him realize two things. That her love for Rahul was deeper than he imagined and secondly that whatever he did she will never be his. That night when she called him up to say goodnight he asked her to confess her love to Rahul. She was dead against it as she believed that every girl deserved to be proposed to. But he knew that it was just another way to say that she was too proud to do that.

For several days afterwards their conversations would somehow turn to this topic and would end in the same way with her refusing to do anything like that. But slowly and slowly he managed to chip away at her wall of ego and pride. When Rahul came to India the next time after almost two years she met him and confessed her love.

Things moved really fast and the next karwachaut he watched from his window as with the rising moon she took the first morsel of her from Rahul’s hands. This time she was his wife.

Unknown to her, from the first time he had realized that he was in love with her, he had been keeping the karwachaut fast with every year. He wasn’t a religious person at all. But this somehow was different. He didn’t know nor did he care for the prayers but every year he would have his first meal after ensuring that she had had hers.

It was now almost two hours since the moon had come out and he knew that she wouldn’t have had anything. There was no light in her house across the street but he knew she was inside. The faint glow of an oil lamp in what he knew was the Puja room confirmed what he already knew.

At about 11 in the night he saw Rahul ring the bell of his house. He saw the light come in the Puja room and for a brief instance he saw her run towards the stairs and then the lights in the stairs came on and then the drawing room in the ground floor. And the door opened and there stood what to him was an angel come down to earth. But then her face clouded over all of a sudden. And he realized why when he looked at Rahul. He was almost too drunk to stand up by himself. He was propped up against the door frame and he staggered into the house. A little while later the light in the top floor room directly opposite his window came on. He could see from between the drapes that an argument was going on and she was almost in tears. Then all of a sudden Rahul raised his hands and hit her hard sending her sprawling across the floor.

The blood started to boil in him. He wanted to run across the street and pull her up. But he knew he couldn’t do anything. She was another man’s wife now. He thought if he was right in convincing her all those years ago to go confess to Rahul about her love. He thought if he would also have treated her had he been married to her. Perhaps. But something within him told him that it would never be so. She was just too precious for him and will always remain so.

He sat there inside the dark room thinking about all their times together; as friends. Him a little bit more than her. Then the door to her terrace opened up and she came out alone. She had a plate with a lamp on it and a mug of water. She did her prayers looking at the moon and then took tore a morsel of chapatti from the plate and brought it towards her mouth. But she stopped midway. Her eyes were a torrent. She looked across the street to the window where he was. Something told him that she knew that he was there although there was no light in the room and she couldn’t possibly see him. He just kept looking at her and prayed, perhaps the first time in his life, pleading to god to heed her karwachaut prayers and to keep her happy always.

PS: Today is karwachaut. And for all those who believe may your prayers be answered.

Two teens on a train.

Most people wouldn’t remember the first step they took in life (Infact I don’t know of even a single person who does, except for my roomie AB who also claims that his first love was the little girl who took the adjacent cradle in the hospital he was born). I once overheard a conversation in a train between two moms about the age at which their child started walking. Well apparently it’s a big deal. It should be too I guess; bipedalism is not a feat achieved by too many mammals. And moreover people find correlations between the age at which that feat (pun intended) is achieved to everything ranging from intelligence to physique and everything in between. Well I was someone who learnt to do that pretty late. But once I did I was in a real hurry to compensate for all the lost time that I think I spent half my preteen years running around. And post teens I kept running around in a different way – working, studying and roaming around throughout this vast country.
So me, unlike my roomie AB don’t remember my first steps but I remember certain steps in life that were just as important in the context of my runnings. The first visit to the movie hall by myself without letting dad and mom know, the first time I ran away from home (that’s another post) and so on. This happened on my first train journey without adult supervision.
It was sometime in my teens when me and my cousin D decided to make use of our long summer break to visit another cousin in Bangalore. D was a year younger to me and you know how these youngsters are; brash, raw, and impatient hmm. So being the elder one I was entrusted the responsibility of taking care of my younger bro through the journey and back.
D was quite the ladies man even at that time. He was quite handsome, tall for his age and easily looked elder to me. Me, on the other hand was brought up with ‘sound principles’ taught by my peers in school that it’s an utter taboo to talk to a girl even to look at one, other than behind closed curtains and squinted eyes. To touch a girl accidently would lead to banishing even ostracizing by the male peers in school. The only cure to the fated girl-touch was to stealthily pass the touch onto another male peer upon which you would be accepted back into the herd and the victim is left to find another less fortunate to whom he can pass the baneful touch on to.
The first thing D did on reaching the train at Trivandrum Central was check out the reservation chart to check the obvious. I saw a familiar smile spread across his face. I knew that look. The one that I saw on Tommy’s face the day before three hens disappeared from my granddad’s place. I glanced at the chart and it was obvious what the smile was all about. Asha, Soumya and Fatima right below our names in the same compartment. D took out his pocket comb (there were days when he forgot to brush his teeth but nobody had ever heard of a day when he got out of his house without that trusted comb) and a blur above his head of two hands and a comb; voila, the slick black well oiled hair became slicker, blacker oilier. D jumped onto the train. I followed suit dragging the two heavy bags and yelling him to stop and help with the bags. Too late he had disappeared down the aisle. But when I reached our assigned seats D was as tense as a school girl on her exam day. The three girls weren’t there. It was almost past the scheduled departure time and the girls weren’t there yet. I had never seen D so tense. Not even the day when the tenth results were to be announced. But then that was just a matter of eleventh or Pre Degree. This was a matter of life and death, for sure.
His heart sank when the train jerked and started moving and the girls were still not there. He started cursing the gods. He had heard of stories from our elder cousin in Bangalore about nursing students who traveled on trains to Bangalore. Why god why.
But then suddenly his eyes turned a perfect circle and his cheeks flushed with delight as he saw three PYTs walking down the aisle. He started speculating and muttered under his breath to me. “I bet the first one is Fatima. Only muslim girls can be so fair”. Well I couldn’t say for sure. When somebody sang “Kahin pe nigahein kahin pe nishana”, it was all about me. Now don’t get me wrong, there was only so much that I could see with me face turned away at ninety degrees and the eye balls at the extreme end trying to make out how Fatima looked like. D was right, the girls came over to our coupe and took their seats and were chatting away incessantly when D interfered with a casual, “Oh thank god you girls got in, I thought you might have missed the train and was about to ask the TT to pull the chain”. The girls stopped their conversation mid way and gave him a look normally reserved for crazy people on the road, and one of them replied “Well we were down there with some of our friends, you didn’t have to worry”.
Hook line and well almost sinker.
D worked his squeezed into the conversation in his imitable style and conversation moved on the fast line. All this time I had my head turned away and gazed out of the window as if the most thrilling of Mohanlal’s movies were going on out there. Not bothering (daring would be the right word actually) to turn my head towards the conversation but my ears sharply focused on it all the time. I listened to every word of the conversation, never uttering a word and pretending to be busy in my thoughts, which went from their place of births to the mughal era and about the aalmaram (peepal tree) in kesavadasapuram junction.
Then suddenly one of the girls asked, “Hey D, by the way how old are you?”.
D had seen the girls’ age as part of the due diligence he did at the reservation charts and had found that the girls were all a year elder to him. Not even waiting to blink, he replied but increasing his age by a year and making a mental note to tear up the reservation chart outside the compartment as soon as possible.
Oh that’s cool, that’s exactly the same as ours and the cackle turned a notch up in all the excitement at the apparent coincidence.
But that’s exactly when I decided to open my hallowed mouth.
“Eda D, athenganeya ninte prayam athrem aakunnathu?”. (Hey D, how the hell is that your age?) Silence all around.
The girls all turned to look at D.
D was stunned. Caught like a cat with milk in his whiskers, he didn’t have anything to say. But try he did, “Alla Vinu, ninakku thettiyatha..” (No Vinu, you got it wrong).
But I continued, “Athayathu nee janichathu 1983il. Appam aa samayathu ninakku zero alle vayassu. Allaathe janikkumbam athine one aayittu koottan pattathillallo”. (See, you were born in 1983. So that means you were zero in 1983. Now you can’t be one when you are born can you).
Those words didn’t have an ounce of malice. It probably was the most innocent words that I have ever uttered in my life.
D somehow pulled of the greatest escape act in history (I mean his-story. Right from age zero to the day) and somehow managed to divert attention and conversation moved to different topics. The glare of his eyes had told me that I had committed some blunder and I didn’t dare open my mouth again. Embarrassed more than he was I just walked up and took off in the direction of where I thought the pantry car was.
By next day early in the morning when the train was pulling into Bangalore cantonment station D had the phone numbers of all the three girls. Proud as he was about his achievement especially after the unexpected disaster in between D was all a proud red when he saw off the girls at the door of the train (We were getting down at the Bangalore city station). The train started moving and D was still at the door waving goodbye when the three girls smiled and said in unison,
“Bye bye Aniya1…”
Aniya – is mallu for little brother.
PS: D didn’t speak a word about the incident for more than a decade but half a bottle of whiskey did make him open his heart about that most heart breaking of incidents of his life.
PPS: D did keep in touch with all of them for another three years and he wishes to inform them that he lost their numbers and would love to get back in touch.

Letters from an era of 5 paisa candies.

If there ever is a Guinness record on most love letters handed over I guess I would be a strong contender for it. Ah if only it was an Olympic event, I would have probably got to fulfill one of my biggest dreams of representing India there. As a lanky school boy the only time I got to represent my school in the state athletic meet was in quiz competitions (don’t ask me why but the ICSE board had deemed quiz fit to be conducted as part of the athletic meet rather than the cultural meet) and watching the athletes garner all the glamour and attract all the eyes I had secretly pledged that it would be the Olympics or bust for me. Turning on the wrong side of twenty five I have all but given up on that dream. The easiest step now seems to get into that chair of the President of the International Olympic Committee and pull a few strings to get my desired ‘sport’ on the list of Olympic events. Coming back to handing over of love letters, I guess I still should have the knack for it. It’s an inborn talent, it wouldn’t vanish I suppose. But the last time I tried that out was I guess fifteen years ago.

Growing up in a residential society of around fifty families has its advantages.

Choice of cricketing targets: You get to have your pick of windows to break during cricket. Fourth floor windows came with an automatic prize of an egg puffs and drinks (ahh, memories of those two rupee cold drinks).

Anytime access to food: some or the other family would always have put out those delicious pickles in the sun to dry. The Konkani family in the third floor had a particularly tongue tingling recipe for sun dried mango pickles.

Free entertainment: Now this is complicated, but I guess you young boys who grew up in pre ‘tata sky’ era would know. A little magic trick using insulated copper wire connected to your TV and attached to a twisted metal shirt hanger placed strategically near the path of your neighbor’s cable gets you free cable television. My dad still thinks I managed without TV those times during the study holidays in March when the cable connection used to be disconnected.

Acrobatic lessons: You know that quintessential water tank in every housing society on top of a tower. Yea, even ours had one of those. It stood above even the tallest buildings in the society. And not many of my creed (that’s 12 and stupid) dared climb up the 88 rungs of that ladder to its top. Let me confess now Mukundan uncle, (he was the secretary of the residential society) it was me who threw all those plastic bags in the tank that blocked the water supply for three days. And also for the record that cricket ball that hit the back of your neck (he had to walk around with a neck collar for a week) , was intentional. And in those days if your Bajaj scooter refused to start in the morning it was probably because early morning pee (A lot of boys my age in that society perfected their aim on Mukundan Uncle’s scooter’s petrol tank mouth) and petrol didn’t mix properly.

But probably the biggest advantage of all was that you had guys and gals aplenty of your age to partner with in a thousand crimes (Don’t worry Jerry I’m not confessing to anything here). This brings me back to those love letters. Me being the innocuous little boy was the preferred love letter carrier for many hot blooded young turks in the society who decided to try their luck with the pretty maidens there.

There was this chechi* in the society, let’s just say ladyB. Now ladyB was 18 at the time and I was 12. She was the prettiest girl I knew. Her long frocks (ala Kavya Madhavan’s when she skipped across the green fields of paddy to the tune of a valluvanadan* song) as she walked in grace used to send my heart a fluttering. I was her only true friend (from among those other 12 year olds who used to ogle at her so rudely) and we used to have these intellectual discussions (I wanted to let her know that I was extra mature for my age and convince her that the idea of eloping with me is not entirely preposterous) every evening as it turned dark and the regular games of kallanum-policum (chor-sipahi) with the ‘kids’ was done. I saw myself as her guardian and wouldn’t bear it if any of the boy talks (and at 12 believe me there are many) started drifting to any‘thing’ to do with her. Sorry Satish for that broken tooth. Pals? now that neither of us got her?

It was one such evening when ladyB and me were engrossed in discussions (probably about the vanity of life or the transcendent nature of love) that Arunchettan called me. I hated that a*****. I was one of his primary ragging targets as a five year old (I spent more than a dozen years in that place), but now that I was all grown up we were buddies (or so he thought).

Arunchettan: Vinu kutta* how are you da, long time. We don’t spend time together anymore kutta.

Me: (Can’t you see that I was with my lover) hehe, yea ArunChetta, how’s your college going. Mom was telling me that you got into Engineering college (his dad in the gulf must have paid lakhs for that seat).

Arun: yea its great da..Vinu, do me a favour my man. Give this letter to someone wont you?

Now I’ve acted as a courier service to Arunchettan several times before (never knew what happened of it all) and I was glad to take up the call to what was now almost a vocation.

Me: Oh anytime chetta*, ippravashyam vellathum nadakkumo? (Will something happen this time?)

The bloody Casanova had raised his targets now that he was an engineer to be. As soon as he said that the letter was for ladyB the blood started boiling in me. My eyes bulged and the little sinews stretched and the next thing I knew, I had thrown myself at him and had knocked him over from the ledge he was sitting on. I was scratching his face with my finger nails and was about to bite his nose off. But Arunchettan was thrice my size and a regular at the local gymkhana. He regained his composure after the initial shock and just lifted me and threw me away as he would do a pillow. And before I even got back to my feet he was pounding my face with his huge fists.

A crowd quickly gathered and ladyB was also among them. Somebody pulled away Arunchettan from atop me. My spunk had still not been driven out (not a thousand of those mighty punches would have done it that day), and I was like a Doberman (some might call a dachshund, because of my size but hey I know better) tugging at its leash. I yelled out all the abuses that my ‘refined’ pals of the housing society had taught me.

“eda, patti (you dog) how dare you write a letter to ente pennu (my girl)”. I saw ladyB’s look change from wonder to shock, from the corner of my eyes.

Fifteen years ago and that’s how I sacrificed my career delivering letters. Well it didn’t go to waste. Arunchettan as far as I know never dared give a letter to ladyB. But on the flip side ladyB’s parents married her off before she turned 20. I was heartbroken and didn’t have dinner that night of her wedding despite mom having made her special fried rice and chicken curry. But all wasn’t lost. LadyB’s sister was coming back from her nursing studies the next month.

*chechi - elder sister literally but used for any female who’s older than you

*chettan - elder brother literally but used for any male who’s older than you

*valluvanadan- pertaining to valluvanad which I guess is somewhere in north Kerala.

*Kavya Madhavan – Mallu actress.

*kutta – affectionate name for a small boy (nothing to do with kutha in hindi)

PS: Mukundan uncle thankfully didn’t have burly sons who’d have otherwise shown me the righteous path. But in case he has grandsons of the type, please hear me out, you would have done the same had you been in my position. 

A Call across the Teesta...

Siliguri is a blink and you miss sort or town. A curve in the road, a couple of bridges over fast flowing rivers, shops on either side, mountains in the distance. Except for me it was my destination and I couldn’t afford to blink. It was around five in the evening when we got out of the bus and collected our baggage from the rack. After eighteen hours in the rickety bus from Kolkata Gaurav and me were really looking forward to resting on a flat bed, but the journey wasn’t yet over. Gangtok was another three hours from here and the last buses up the mountain left at three pm. It was as if everything that could go wrong was in fact going wrong. We had missed the train from Kolkata yesterday. Blame it on the mercurial traffic. Salt lake to Sealdah station in normal days took not more than half an hour. Yesterday it took us one and half painful hours. We then went to Ultadunga hoping that we could hitch a ride on one of those private buses to Gangtok or Siliguri or Darjeeling. We had four days off, and really didn’t mind where we were going. Having stood for an hour at Ultadunga it became obvious that we wouldn’t be going anywhere from there, and on someone’s suggestion decided to go to Esplanade and check our luck from there. Esplanade was from where all the long distance buses started. We managed to get two seats on an ‘additional’ (which actually meant ‘makeshift’) bus to Siliguri. The rickety bus broke down twice on the way and eighteen hours later dropped us off. Stepping out of the bus we were swarmed by beggars, hotel agents, taxi walas and various peddlars of goods ranging from children’s toys and Darjeeling tea to ganja and charas. We practically swam past that crowd to a nearby tea stall and sat down on a wooden bench.

Rain was like a curtain in the backdrop. It was always there and even in the summers of Bengal you wouldn’t be surprised if it turned dark all of a sudden in the evening and the clouds burst with mighty vengeance. Right from the time we started it was there flirting romantically and threatening furiously at the various times. Here in the valley it was floating in the air. Tiny droplets almost moved in the wind rather than come crashing down with fury. I sipped down my second tea, served in little round cups of clay, my mind trying to figure out the course of action. We didn’t have hotel reservations in Gangtok, and not sure if we’d be able to make it up the mountains and beat the falling darkness to our destination. Gaurav wasn’t the one who’d normally keep his mouth shut, but the mood of the day seemed to have got to him too. I saw him gazing intently at a snail making its way to a hole in a fungus infected piece of log. The tea done and seeing no point wasting any more time we set out to find someone who would take us up to Gangtok and managed to find a Sumo already filled to the brim calling out for more passengers. We got two seats in the back which faced sideways and were absolutely cramped for space as there already were two others there. Three hours through the winding roads in this wasn’t exactly going to be a pleasure trip.

My mind wandered, thinking of holocaust and concentration camps and lines of trucks and rail wagons with people cramped like sticks in a matchbox. The taxi started and we sped through a well paved road with an overhead canopy of thick trees making the driver switch on the headlights. But soon enough the road began to wind as we approached the base of the mountains. The lowest folds of the Himalayas were fairly nonthreatening. It was much like the demure façade of a wicked witch almost enticing you to come closer before it revealed the jagged ridges and jutting rock faces.  I get an eerie feeling whenever I start on such mountain journeys; I guess remnants of several trips to Munnar gone bad long long back. The road started twisting and turning as our Sumo boldly took on the hills and the Teesta soon appeared to our right almost in reassurance to keep going. And almost as if inspired by it a Sikkimese girl who sat in the front with the driver and two other girls started singing a hindi song in a sing-song Sikkimese accent and a strangely soothing nasal voice. Apprehensions of a treacherous journey melted away and I was soon drifting off to sleep and didn’t notice the darkness envelope us and the rain getting heavier.

We were nearing Gangtok at around 8, when I was brought back to consciousness by a vicious turn in the road. To my amazement the Sumo had shed many of its passengers on the way. The group of girls an old couple and we were the only ones left now and Gaurav had moved into the middle row of seats and was chatting away excitedly to the singer girl, whose name I later found out to be Ganga.

Gangtok was a typical hill town with one arterial road, a mall road and a market. Gaurav had talked with the driver of the Sumo who agreed to take us till Lachung in North Sikkim the next day from where we could hike to Yumthang to the origins of the Teesta.

The next day we started very early in the day and I was surprised to find Ganga and the other girls also were traveling with us. This time Gaurav and I took the seats up ahead with the driver and the girls were sitting in the middle row. The distance to Lachung was just about 125 kilometers but it would be a whole day’s journey through treacherous terrain made accessible through the snaky roads of the Border Roads Organization.

Half an hour into the journey, bending a curve we saw the first glimpse of Kanchenjunga in the distance. The majestic snow capped peak glimmering in the golden morning light was magnificent. Throughout the journey our driver, Lapang Sherpa, a young man of 21 was chatting away as if we were long lost friends. Ganga and Lapang were both from Lachung and they knew each other. Along the way Lapang picked up people and it seemed that practically all those people knew him from such travels earlier. He has been ferrying people and goods that route for years. Lapang and Ganga were both prolific talkers and by lunch time we had made good progress and were in schedule to reach Lachung before nightfall. We stopped at a roadside restaurant for lunch which was nothing more than a small hut and the lady served us rice and chicken, which for me tasted much like that I was used to at my home.  

By around two in the afternoon we reached another small village from where I bought a pair of woolen gloves and a cap because I was having apprehensions that the flimsy jacket I had with me was going to be no match for the harsh mountain cold and Lapang advised that I should get reinforcements. But then when we were about to resume our journey we were told that traffic up ahead was stopped because of a minor landslide and it would take at least an hour or two for it to be cleared. Lapang suggested we spent more time in the village rather than get stuck in the middle of nowhere. We went back to the shop from where I had bought the woolens which also acted as a grocery store, a vegetable store and a tea stall. Gaurav bought two woolen scarves and gifted them to Lapang and Ganga, which they accepted extremely reluctantly but with much gratitude. We sat sipping warm tea flavored with herbs and spices and watched the sun slowly starting to go behind the mountains above the village.

It was almost dark by the time we started from the village and we had another couple of hour’s journey left to Lachung. Ganga started talking about her dreams of coming to Kolkata to study to become an airhostess and making it big. Lapang teased her that her life was in the village and there’s no point weaving up impossible dreams. The other girls who had started out with Ganga had got out on the way. The last leg of the journey to Lachung all of us shared our stories. Gaurav of his rather farfetched adventures of being attacked by a jaguar in Hrishikesh, me about life in Kerala which to them might as well have been in another continent and so on. By around eight in the night when we reached Lachung the small town was almost entirely dark. Lapang found us a place to stay. For dinner we had rice and a stew of all different meats thrown together, which to my surprise was extremely delicious. After dinner we bade good bye to Ganga and Gaurav made sure that she got his mobile number and asked her to give him a call when she came to Kolkata for her air hostess training. We found a place where they sold liquor and we got a half bottle of whiskey.

The next morning we were awaken by the sounds of Lapang banging on our doors. Our plan was to travel to Yumthang on our own and then travel back to Gangtok that day evening to Gangtok. Lapang had come to say that he was free for the day and that he can take us up the mountain to a place called Katao which is actually an outpost of the Indian army near the Chinese border and was forbidden for tourists. Villagers were talking of it having snowed up in Katao throughout the night and Lapang made us feel that it would be almost scandalous to come till Lachung and not visit Katao. We decided to go with our excited Sherpa friend and take a chance. The sight out of our balcony overlooking the village of Lachung was absolutely amazing. It looked like a lost village that I imagined up reading Enid Blyton’s and others’ novels as a child. The village was at the confluence of two of Teesta’s tributaries and a steel bridge over it was reminiscent of some war movie.

Our trip up the mountain to Katao started with the crossing of this bridge and it was straight up hill from there. We could see snowcapped peaks quite near and the chill in the wind was getting unbearable. I put a hand on Lapang’s shoulder and thanked him for having asked me to get those woolens yesterday. But in stark contrast to the Lapang that we had got used to, he was quite silent. I tried gently prodding him to see if he would open up. He kept his silence for some more time focusing his attention on the road and the herd of Yaks that were walking around freely by the road, and then almost when I was about to give up he started talking about what was bothering him. He told us that Ganga and he had grown up together in Lachung and that they were in love with each other. Nobody in their families knew about it.

Lapang was a darling of the village and even Ganga’s parents liked him. He was much like the run-to man in the village. But the problem was that Lapang was a Nepalese and Ganga was Sikkimese. Their parents would never agree to the marriage no matter what. Moreover he was an uneducated taxi driver, a sherpa and she was a graduate with big dreams. He said he’d do anything to see her achieve those, but this village wouldn’t be the place for it. They had to get out and that too soon. Kolkata was the most logical port of call, but they didn’t know anyone there. Gaurav and I were keen to help. We gave our phone numbers to Lapang and assured him that we’d do all we can to help. Lapang’s eyes were almost filled with tears when we said this and the look of relief, hope and anticipation combined, conveyed his gratitude more than words ever could.

Three days later we were back in Kolkata. Three years since that trip, and I haven’t heard from either Lapang or Ganga, neither has Gaurav. Our phone numbers have changed now. For a long time I kept my old Kolkata number active even after moving to Mumbai thinking that he might someday give a call. It never came.

Dosti ki Kasam!!!

When C announced that she’s gonna transform herself to an expert chef from the ‘sadistic-home-laxative-maker’ that she was currently by the time she’s to be married, I never knew the price of laughing like a jackass at the idea would be so heavy. She added a post scriptum to her announcement by making it amply clear in front of all friends/colleagues at the table that I am to be her official ‘taster’ and I couldn’t have an option of opting out. She swore on our two year old friendship that if I so much as even dared to smirk at her culinary concoctions I can forget about getting an invitation to her wedding. Apparently the phrase “dosti ki kasam” means something up there in Punjab from where she is. Down in mallu-land we would have cared two hoots if the ‘kasam’ meant chewing at half baked beans which would make jersey cows opt for root canal treatments and pushing down half inch thick rotis down your throat with a foot long ruler. Well so much for dosti and I became the designated guinea pig for C’s experiments in the kitchen.

It started with chapattis which felt more like sheets of rubber hanging in my grandpas smoke house. I said it wasn’t bad and perhaps she should consider using the same technique next time she makes pappads. She didn’t find my suggestion amusing. I ended up mixing the dough despite there being a food processer in her kitchen for the whole of next week.

Next on the menu was Chana Masala. She cooked up a delight for the horses that pulled Maniandi’s cart. I didn’t say anything to her this time, but she found out that I hadn’t eaten it myself when Maniandi approached her for claiming compensation for his horses getting violent diarrhea.

Similarly the aloo jeera that I threw in the vacant plot behind my house gave a fine crop the next year. The spuds I was told had jeera embedded inside and was a huge hit in the madiwala market. The aloo mattar helped fill the leak in the roof. Her aloo gobi gave Gopi our cook a strange case of perennial hiccups. But these were for only those creations I managed to convince her that I’d have at the comfort of my own house (Because that’s where I could enjoy in peace each bite of the delicious ambrosia). Most of her cooking had to be consumed for lunch in front of her at the office food court. Many fields of aloo had been laid bare and much water had flown down the Sutlej River, in the course of the time that C learned cooking.

It was with these memories in mind that I visited C for dinner in Delhi after almost two years last January. But getting up after dinner I was pleasantly surprised to see that C had managed to pull it off. She had actually made that transformation to a wonderful chef indeed. Perhaps it was partly because of the fact that five years out of Kerala (especially those two spent in Kolkata) had finally given my body the capability to produce those special enzymes that digest ‘aloo’, but mostly it was, I’d like to believe the result of all that (guinea) pigging around I did. Dosti ki kasam.

PS: C doesn’t know this blog exists. Neither does she know about the aloo-jeera bio variant. In case she questions me about either of those, I know whose murky hands to test my new kitchen chopper on.

Lion Hunting....in Pala

At five in the morning, the summer sun was already peeking its way through the tall rubber trees in the hills behind our house. The morning fog was perpetual in these parts. I rubbed my eyes and looked out the window and listened for sounds. Sounds like perhaps a trapped elephant or a wounded lion. The only movement I could see was white shrouded people, like ghosts in movies, moving in the distance, somber and quiet. Squinting my eyes further I could make out they were nuns on the way to the morning mass rather than ghosts. All of a sudden there was a noise and I saw a murder. A murder of crows took to the skies as if startled by something. I kicked at the pile lying next to me. My cousin Sunil, he was wrapped as if in a shroud under a thick blanket. Thankfully he stirred. Another kick and an irritated face appeared from under the pile. The good morning greeting was the choicest expletives of the mallu language. “what’s wrong with you? It’s not even light outside”. Then a sign of recognition appeared on his face. “Do you think something’s there?” he asked. I just gave a knowledgeable smile and bolted out of the bed and started running towards the hills in the backyard. Sunil knew the look and started after me.

I was running as fast as my eight year old naked feet could. Haha, I’m gonna get there before Sunil and if it’s a lion I’m gonna claim it mine and take him to Trivandrum. And anyways the lion wouldn’t like the Kochi climate. It’s too humid. What good will the sea do to a lion. In Trivandrum you have hills, forests are just a small distance away. And best of all there’s the zoo just in case he gets bored and feels like seeing his other friends from the forest. Running and thinking simultaneously could be extremely injurious to your health. I found this out quite early in my childhood then and there, as I was flying head first into the ground, brought down by a thick root hidden beneath the undergrowth of touch-me-nots, wild grass and fallen rubber tree leaves. By the time I got to my feet ignoring the red liquid oozing out of two cuts on either knee, Sunil had caught up and was threatening to overtake. I started running, my lead cut down drastically.

Every summer my parents used to drop me at with my grandparents in Pala, a small hill town in mid Kerala. Me from Trivandrum and Sunil from Kochi would be there during summer vacation for two months of un’adult’erated bliss. And by unadulterated I mean free from all the irritating intrusions of adults. Other cousins would visit sometime during the two months but for brief periods of a week or two. It was just us and the grandparents, who were themselves past adulthood and in their second childhood.

Sunil was fast but in normal case he wouldn’t overtake me but I guess the pain in the knees was slowing me down. What remained now was the climb up the hills. The undergrowth was thicker and the morning dew had made the ground slippery. ‘Caution’ was still underdeveloped in the brains of eight year olds. We kept running and I soon realized that Sunil had taken a slightly different path and was ahead of me. Crap.

By the time I reached the top Sunil was there looking down at the hole that we had dug the day before to catch lions that might be roaming in the adjacent forests. A three feet deep round hole covered with newspapers on a frame of twigs, and sprinkled on top were green grass and dried leaves, it was the result of a whole days work. It was another thing that the forests adjacent were the rubber plantations of our neighbor Kuriachan and the nearest lion would be in the Trichur zoo, two hundred kilometers away. But logic defied the minds of eight year olds. Rather minds of eight year olds defied logic.

From the look in Sunil’s face I knew something exciting had happened. But it was more shock than excitement. Oh goody, perhaps there were two lions. Now I’ve got to convince him to let me keep them both. But what I saw in the pit made me realize that both of us would be lucky to see the next morning. There was no lion in the pit. Instead the one year old kid of Chippi our goat lay their looking up at us. It wasn’t on its legs and from the look of it we both knew it had broken its leg. Chippi and its kid were tied to a jackfruit tree the previous day for grazing and in the evening it was our responsibility to bring them down to the shed near the house. I guess in the night the kid must have freed itself somehow and walked into our Lion pit. Did it not know that it was meant for lion’s alone? Stupid goat. Now the terrifying Lion that threatened to eat us up was none other than our Grandfather. We would have to explain a lot of things starting with the broken leg. The little goat while wandering around had nibbled at the trunk of several rubber trees. Sure as hell we knew we would be dead when Ichachan (that’s what we called our Grandfather) found out. We carefully pulled the kid out of the hole and checked her leg. There was no way it could walk down the hill. Carrying the little goat between us, our minds were working overtime thinking of ways to explain the condition to Ichachan. A hundred excuses, explanations shifted across the mind. Considered, discussed but discarded. By the time we reached the bottom of the hill we had our story ready. Practiced and perfected by the time we entered the house. At the end of it let’s just say that eight year old minds never let you down and we lived to see the next morning.

NB: Apologies to Sunil. I know you were the one who always used to wake up before me and sadistically kick me in the ass till I woke up. This is my revenge J

A Vishu in mind...

I remember a time in school, looking out the window I could see the lone kanikonna* in our school grounds. The blooming of that tree signified a lot of things. To every true blood mallu it heralded the imminent festival of Vishu. But for most school going children it was like a lighthouse calling out the arrival of the summer holidays. Unlike the rest of the country, schools in Kerala broke for the two month vacation earlier in the year, by March end.

The kanikonna is attributed several qualities besides of course the obvious aesthetic one. In Ayurveda it’s used as a laxative which reminds me of the time when a certain friend extracted the white sap from it and tried to convince his sister that it was milk. Good thing the bond of trust between the siblings was so strong that she didn’t buy the idea despite his heavy persuasions. I bet had he tried a dose of reverse psychology and had asked her not to drink it she would have downed the whole thing in a gulp. The dynamics of a brother sister relationship I know can barely be fit in anything less than a PhD thesis. The parental protective shield means that that brothers the world over needs to seek such subtle subterfuge to extract their small victories in the lifelong battle of the sibling. But one thing the konna isn’t known for is the strength of its branches.

This lone konna of the school grounds hadn’t bloomed so far that year. Exams were pretty much over, Vishu was just a few weeks away, but the tree stood ‘unblossomed’. We had biology exams that day, which for me always seemed the easiest paper (This was high school. Cut to 11^th standard and Biology had turned into an unconquerable monster for me). Having got over with the 2 hour paper in a little more than an hour I was dozing off over the answer sheet killing time till the bell rang. I nudged Vinay who was sitting just ahead of me to finish it off so we can get out together. Vinay, who was the perpetual last ranker in the class for some reason was almost always the last to get out of the exam hall. You have to give it to him for trying. He would try to peep into the papers of those sitting next to him, turn around periodically trying to make out my cryptic handwriting and fail miserably. All he had to show for the effort at the end of the exam was a cringed neck. Seeing no signs of him getting up I rested my head on the desk and stared out the window. Just one exam to go, that too Moral Science (I had catechism instead, and nobody studied anything for those.) and the konna didn’t have a single flower. Crap, doesn’t it realize that without that tree in bloom I just wouldn’t feel like it’s the summer holidays.

Handing over the paper to the invigilator, Vinay was as in the high hopes. He always was. Not once had I ever heard him say that he had an exam tough.

Vinay: “Dude how about catching the noon show of the latest Mohanlal flick?”

Me: “You crazy? How do you even suppose we get past Pattalam (the security guard)”

V: It’s all planned my ‘little’ friend. He snickered.

Vinay was 6ft 3 and a 110 kgs. For him he was the right size and the rest of us little. We were quite the Laurel and Hardy pair of the class.

With utmost stealth we walked the corridors of the school, breathing suspended, heartbeats paused. The tensest moment was crossing the doors of the principal’s room and then it was a dash down the stairs taken four at a time and the final jump over eight stairs to the bottom landing. Teachers still claim that the nursery wing of the school was rebuilt because Vinay’s jump caused a crack in the foundation. Once we were outside the building the dusty open school ground lay before, offering no cover from any of the teachers who might be glancing out the window in the staff room. Or worse, what if the Princy himself was out in the corridor to spit out his paan. Vinay was always two steps ahead in his thinking. As I looked bewildered, Vinay laid himself flat on the dusty ground and started rolling. The white shirt and white trouser turned a reddish brown. That’s when I remembered that Predator was his favourite movie till date. He got up spitting dust from his mouth and smiled at me with a sense of accomplishment. I said, “no ways dude, I’m not doing that”. He didn’t wait for my approval but scooped up a pile of fine sand and threw it over me. Those big hands were like bulldozer buckets. In three or four handfuls I was brown head to toe. The camouflage done, we started running across the ground towards the konna. Vinay was always the leader and by the time I caught up to the tree he had started pulling on to the lowest branch. The plan was to scale the school wall by climbing the tree and then on to the other side. I couldn’t believe him, the tree would never…..

CRAAACKKKK…… the next thing I knew I was lying under piles of leaves and branches and my best bud some distance away calling for his mummy and clutching his left arm. I couldn’t lift myself under the weight of the branches over me. I could hear voices coming from the direction of the school. Obviously Vinay’s call for his mummy, although didn’t get as far as his mum, but definitely had reached several people in the school. I decided to wait until somebody came to assist and rested my head on the ground. Up above on a branch thus far hidden due to the branch that had come down, I could see a bunch of yellow flowers, swaying in the wind. The konna had indeed blossomed.

 

*konna OR kanikonna – golden shower tree or Bendra lathi in hindi.

I hope you too get to rejoice on the memories of your childhood this Vishu.