POSTS

PROLOGUE:

“Amma illiyaa??”, came a feeble sound from the thin line on her face that could be barely recognised as her mouth. Standing in front of me was a very short figure of a woman, so worn out, carrying a rucksack on her shoulder which was of the same colour as her and equally dirty.

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It was a hot Saturday afternoon and I was on my usual schedule of multitasking sleep and TV. We had just finished lunch and mom was in the kitchen putting the curries back in the fridge. My sister was sitting on another chair in the hall following the same schedule as me. Everything outside was visibly burning in the heat of the afternoon sun. It was that time of the day when everything around you is at rest. Somewhere very far, I could hear a crow crowing out loud as if she was relishing her afternoon meal. Through the window, I could see the leaves standing still as if they were asleep. The world around me was all at rest. But who knew that there was this fragile woman walking into this silent moment of my day to make a hole in my heart??? I was drifting away into a nap when I heard footsteps from the gate. It would be wrong if I called the sound ‘footstep’. The sound was that of two little feet being dragged through the dusty ground. I raised my head slightly to see who it was, my body still refusing to give up the coziness it was in. From the corner of my eye, I could see this old silhouette and something in me made me get up. “Oh, it is her”, I said to myself with the frustration of losing my comfortable position.  It was this familiar beggar, an old granny, who used to come to our home atleast once in a month till some time before. Wondering out of the corner of my mind where she was for so long, I reached my hand into the little porcelain bowl in which we keep coins. I took a five rupee coin and went towards her. Seeing the dirty condition she was in, I paid particular interest not to touch her hand while placing the coin there; and like a priest dropping the ‘prasadam’ into ones hand, I dropped the coin into her hand where it fell silently. I almost turned back to fall back back into the nap which was inviting me with immense power when I realised that she was not going. I stood there for a few more seconds wishing with all my mind that she would leave. It was then she asked that question. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

“Amma illiyaa??” , she asked in a very feeble sound. I almost laughed hearing that and going inside, called out to my mom, “Amma, your friend wants to see you.” My mom came out and was surprised to see the person whom I referred to as her friend. Without any interest, she asked ‘her friend’ what she wanted. The old lady pointed towards her feet and said “amma thanthathilliya? Athu poachu” (didn’t you give me this? Its all gone). I looked at her feet and saw the reminiscence of what once was a pair of slippers. There were two strings of cloth which secured them to her feet. Only the blue band and a small part of the sole remained. Her feet was wounded and had a nasty mark around the ankle. She was possibly a leper. My mom took an old pair of slippers and handed it over to her. From the size of them, I thought she could use them as beds. She slid them slowly into her bag and turned away when my mom asked, “if its not for you, then why take it?” . She turned around again and with that same innocent, cracked voice, said, “kettanaum” (have to tie). “Oh, amma, she has to convert it to her size na?” , I asked. My mom smiled and turned around to go back to her chores. The woman also turned and dragged on. I watched her till she became a small round blur again at a distance. Even as I turned and went back to the sofa, I had lost my sleep. There was no longer any tinge of sleep pulling at me invitingly. I had lost my sleep to a strange feeling of serenity.

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EPILOGUE: Even when we live in a totality of luxury, there are still some creations of God, some like this woman I just spoke of, living with the sky as their roof, earth as their floor; and cherishing the little things in which we might find no value or sense. And when sometimes; ‘some strange times’, when I am not lost in the hustle of this busy world, and I am myself, I find myself thinking, “If only life were that simple.”…………

“11,June,2012?????” I exclaimed on seeing the date of my last writing here as I opened my gmail blogger page after long.

“So what was I doing all these days?”

HIBERNATING???”.

“See; that is too long a period to remain inactive.”

But then again; was I being ‘inactive’? The better word would be “engaged”. Here, I should mention without fail that english language has a unique ability to produce words that actually helps you ‘play safe’; as they say. If I were to mention that I was ‘busy’ these days, my dear mom would be asking me “Oh, so what kept you busy? sleeping???”. But since I have used ‘engaged’ instead, I can promptly reply that I have been ‘enagaged’ in sleeping (not that I was actually sleeping all through. Many things happened during this gap.The most important of which was my final year tour. My college friends and me went on a seven day tour ………shhhhhhhhhhhhh….sorry…our dear HOD has told us never to call it a tour but to call it an INDUSTRIAL VISIT (thought the closest reference, if any, of visiting an industry was our visit to HMT; which is of course, no place for an electronics and communication student; on the last day’s later half). So this INDUSTRIAL VISIT, as we are forced to call it, was in fact GREAT, as is always the case when you are on a trip with your college friends. Though we visited a range of places of varying geography, the most memorable of them all was our time in Hyderabad. To be more clear, the so called ‘memorabiLITY’ is the direct result of a daring attempt. Me and five of my friends went for a stroll to EXPLORE THE BEAUTY OF THE CITY’, as we called it. Of the six, the only person who had even a slight knowledge of hindi was the proud me. With that courage, we walked on, found or destination which was the Big Bazar there. We did some minor shopping, had some light refreshments, and started walking back and NOW COMES THE STORY…

After covering the familiar bus stop near the Big Bazar, and the turning into the dark lane which my dear friends had duly noted, we were walking merrily talking things since there was nothing like what we expected to see. All around, there were puddles of water which were the fresh remnants from the evening’s rain. To add to this, the drains were leaking in many places…speaking of which, one thing i noticed was (and for your infomation, I notice many such wonderful things), the dirt and drainage have the same smell everywhere. Be it Kerala, the God’s own country or Hyderabad, the city of pearls; the stink was the same. In fact, I could say that Kerala is cleaner. I even took time….sorry…that was not our topic. The thing is that, in the middle of the walk and talk session, we lost our way. In fact, if one of us, (and I don’t remember which ONE), had not loudly exclaimed and to quote him “aliya, vazhi thettiyoooonnoru samshayam”, we would have walked on to the next STATE. Now was the time to panic of couse, our worry was not that we had lost our way in a totally strange place, but that the buffet in the hotel we stayed was to end in half an hour. Losing way was OK, but losing dinner was unacceptable. ‘BOYS’!!!, right???

After a half an hour of walking around, and asking a large variety of people whether they knew the hotel we stayed in, we saw a police jeep. Now that was a relief. I went on and started in hindi, “uncle, ye hotel Sandarshini kahan he?”…Suddenly I remembered the time when I called a policeman ‘uncle’ right after I was caught for riding triples. The memory made me correct myself, “SIR, ye hotel Sandarshini kahan he?” to which he promptly gave me the reply and VOILA, we had the way. Actually, we were walking around it throughout the time and didn’t know it.

After a few turns and stairs, and a warm bath, we were in our beds, warm and cozy with a memory that would last long.

epilogue:

Even when we reached the hotel, the buffet was not over, which was a greater relief than finding our way back…

Since yesterday, I have been thinking of a topic to ‘speak of ‘ here. Considering the fact that a lot has been happening lately, and that I am never at a loss of matters to plod on these days,  it is curious that I still haven’t been able to arrive at a topic to write on. Hoping that I will find something on the way, I continue writing. The most prior occurrence of the time is me joining ‘The Institute of Engineers, Trivandrum’ for GATE coaching. As is evident, I have to travel to Trivandrum and back every Saturday and Sunday, something which I thought was going to bore me a lot. But things did not turn out as bad as I expected., in fact, they did not turn out bad at all. The journey, it seems, is an interesting one. Though my dear ‘acha’ had convinced me that there would be no rush at all in the Madras Mail express which I take on the onward journey; or the Intercity or Vanchinad, which I take back; (NB: he is a regular train traveler); I haven’t been able to sit in the train for the four trips so far (not counting the one when I got into the sleeper coach and the TTR told me to get off and change to the general coach at the next station). But standing in the train, be it besides the ever-wet wash-basin or the never-wet toilet, has its own advantages. I get to see a lot of action all around. As the train leaves the station, I see the Kollam station moving away from me. There is something beautiful about this place.Maybe it is the morning sun seeping through the holes in the dusty sheets around, maybe it is the pigeons that take abode in the railings above, maybe it is the ‘chaya-chayeeey’ or ‘uzhunnuvada-pazhamporeeey’ calls echoing out from the pantry-men. By the way, have you noticed this? – since the beginning of time, all pantry-men seem to raise their calls in the same voice-the same flat, rough voice that covers more than two bogeys at a time. It is a thing, I think, only pantry-men can make. Maybe they have a secret training centre where they are trained to call out in this voice or maybe they are all children of a BIG pantry-man who had this voice which his pantry-men-lings inherited. Whatever it be, it has got a ring to it. (I, as a kid, had tried making this sound and had succeeded to some extent. Maybe, I would make a great pantry-man one day. Maybe, I was destined for it. Take THAT B.Tech !!!).

Coming back to our topic, (you see, I have found a topic), one sees many a thing on the way. Little kids waving from the sides of railway tracks, bigger boys howling at people they don’t even know…

Two of the best poems I have read are related to train journeys. One is ‘kothambumanikal’ by the great O.N.V where he describes a girl he saw in a wheat field in Punjab, as his train passed by. He lets his imagination fly, guessing things about her,singing :

“perayiyathoru penkidave ninte nerariyunnu njan padunnu…”
(Oh girl, whose name I know not; I sing, knowing your truth).

Another one is ‘The story of Lost Friends’ by Ruskin Bond. To quote him

“I haven’t seen you again, bright boy at the carriage window,
Waving to me calling,
But I’ve loved you all these years and looked for you everywhere,
In cities and villages, beside the sea,
In the mountain, in crowds at distant places;
Returning always to the forest’s silence,
To watch the windows of some passing train….”

Words are never enough if you think; to describe anything that you love. Then again…Am I in love with train journey ?

“….bright boy at the carriage window………..
……..of some passing train………”

A really cold evening, I am in one of my most favourite moments of life, enjoying rain sippng my hot tea. It feels like there is nothing better to do in life than sitting like this.(call me lazy, but its true). There is that beautiful sound of rain all around me and everything around me is wet, be it the trees that shake their heads as if they were taking a shower,the bird that whizzes past in a hurry chirping out loudly (reminds me of my friend Sharath riding his bike),or the flowers that get drenched having no other option. Part of me wants to go out there with them and get drenched and the other part wants to stay like this, cozy and comfortable. You see, according to me, there is one huge difference between us (I mean, humans) and the rest of them out there. They seem to have no concerns and hence NO WORRIES. They say man is the only rational being…he is the only one who thinks. VOILA, there’s the answer to all our tensions and worries-THOUGHTS. Thoughts are like…like …like…aaah..I don’t know, they just follow one another like an endless train….YES..got it…thoughts are like an endless train. Nevertheless, you are left with an option – whether to think too much on something and worry about it, or, just LET IT BE….YES,I MEAN IT. You don’t always have to be precise, punctual, perfect or any p-word. Just loosen the grip on yourself for once. See how you yourself feel about it. Now, if you have a small twist at the end of your lips, THERE YOU ARE….that’s what we call a SMILE. Now, you know what you were missing-those moments of your life when you should have lived a fuller life and missed it just because of some silly appointment that would account for nothing later in your life. I am reminded of a story written in my school magazine by a friend of mine called Anupama. She wrote of a man in his deathbed who had achieved so much in his life and still thought that he missed something. He finally found out that DREAMS were what he lacked. Her story was titled ‘A Life sans Dreams’. This is true in many of our lives. We learn, get marks, get a job, marry, have kids, grow old and die. Wouldn’t he who made life happen have seen a greater purpose for it than just LIVING it away? I do feel that it is, in most cases, pretty okay to think outside the box, or even NOT THINK AT ALL. Take a few chances, make some mistakes, correct them if you want to or even repeat them if you enjoyed them and see what happens. Trust me, it is good to be free of worries. Then again…OOPS….a big THUD breaks me away from my dear world of dreams-ah! probably a coconut. The rain has almost ceased. Did I sleep? Dear fruit of kalpavriksha, you broke the thoughts of a person whom you didn’t want to mess with. You are so going to be today’s curry…………