In a life that is increasingly becoming dependent on people, instead of the contrary; where time, money, efforts all ebb away in directions I don't seem to decide, and where I seem to have less control over anything that happens around me, little things that actually occur right, begin to add value.
It is not like I am having a meaningless life. I guess there is a lot of meaning in what I have and what I do. But there just seems to be a lot of effort and patience that is being demanded of me on an everyday basis. And more and more things fail me, repeatedly, everyday!
In times such as these, a walk in the terrace under the scorching sun with an ipodfull of favourite songs, waking up to watch Castle and messaging your best friend throughout the day, do count as things to cherish. I have never been caught in this "undefinable" state ever in life. A chronic categorizer, this phase in my life would remain to be called 'uncategorized', like the tag of this blog post.
Interesting, yet difficult times are ahead. But as long as my wee sma' happiness are mine, I shall manage to smile.
Of all of Illundavoor’s tales, the tale of Srirama Iyer was the most famous. Mothers fed little ones with the story. It was what families recounted with a laugh, sitting-as if in a round table conference-just after the satisfaction of a Kalyana saapadu*, in that little time just before the nalungu** began. It was what one can sum up, as an Illundavoor legend.
Srirama Iyer, was a Palakkad Iyer whose great-grandfather had resettled in the town of Illundavoor. In his heydays, Srirama Iyer, was the postmaster of Illundavoor. He lived in his spacious Injiperumaal Street bungalow with his ageing mother, plump wife Jaya, and his hyperactive son. His lawyer father had left him the house, and his father-in-law made sure that he got a motor cycle as a dowry*** back then. So Srirama Iyer had, what one might call, a very comfortable existence.
He was a man with a B.A. degree in English, which came in handy as the town’s postmaster. He would read for the unlettered and correspond on their behalf as well, for a nominal sum.
Srirama Iyer was a man respected by all and feared by many, as it was well-aware that he was a man with an easily ignited temper. His six-foot appearance only added to it. People generally held him in reverence and distance, unless absolutely needed.
Time went by. And with old age came senility. The once terrorizing Srirama Iyer became delusional. The son, Devan, married and a lawyer of repute like his grandfather, ruled over the household.
There were days when Srirama Iyer would start remembering things that had happened thirty years ago. At that time, they had just begun constructing a house in Tellinoor, the neighbouring town. Srirama Iyer would suddenly come and tell people in the house that the carpenter has come to repair the cupboards or that the contractor has come and needs cement.
He was so physically strong, despite his delusions that he used to haul around furniture at will. It was almost impossible to restrain the six footer!
There were other delusions as well. Of nightingale insects and daffodil insects feeding on crumbs of food that he would spill while eating. He would trace their trail with his blinking 5-year old chamaththu**** grandson Natarajan, whom they fondly called Nattu at home.
“Inga paaru da Nattu… theriyaratha… andha daffodil poochchi apdiye ennodu kaalu-la oora-pakkarathu!*****” he would startle the poor boy! Sometimes, he would recite whole chunks of letters he read or wrote in the bygone days, as a postmaster.
And then he had a quirky habit. At the ripe old age of 72, with his mind playing games, Srirama Iyer would suddenly wake up in the middle of the night and watch television. Old black and white films on Tamil channels, TNT movies and the occasional lingerie model on FTV (Much to Jaya Mami’s embarrassment).
Our legendary story begins one night in the month of Aippaci******, when rains persisted to drum on the roofs all night, and frogs croaked in the backyard. The entire household was asleep, when a thief snuck into the house of Srirama Iyer.
He entered through a window that had snapped ajar in the kitchen. Slowly, he made his way inside the house. Now, the house was very old-fashioned, unlike the one that Srirama Iyer had built in Tellinoor. Meandering passageways lead to innumerable store rooms. The inhabited part of the house was somewhere near the front.
After opening many a store room door and only discovering moth eaten sofa cushions and immobile cupboards, the thief realized that he had to slowly make his way to the front sections of the house.
Now, just as he crossed the long passageway, into the mittam******* and across to the living room, who did he see but our very own Srirama Iyer, sitting and watching “Guns of Navaronne” on an English Movie Channel!
The thief was taken aback to see that there was someone awake, right in the middle of the night, and most surprisingly, watching TV!
Srirama Iyer, noticing him, miraculously gathered his senses, jumped on to his feet and imposingly screamed, “KALLAN”******** and woke the entire house. The scared thief, grabbed the box from the table near him- the only object he could make out in the darkness as he whizzed past. He traced back his path and jumped out of the window before anyone could reach him.
When Devan asked his dad rhetorically, as to how he managed to raise an alarm sensibly, the old man seriously answered that “the nightingale police” had warned him.
After much search it was found that only Jaya Mami’s denture dabba********* had been stolen. “Toothless thief,” Srirama Iyer was often heard screaming in the afternoons at passers-by.
***
GLOSSARY
Kalyana saapadu*- Wedding feast
Nalungu**- A light-hearted post-wedding ritual involving the bride and groom and their families where games like ‘rolling the coconut’, ‘breaking the crispies’, ‘finding the ring’ etc are played amidst singing and other fanfare.
Dowry***- the payment in cash or/and kind by the bride's family to the bridegroom' s family along with the giving away of the bride
Chamaththu****- obedient
“Inga paaru da Nattu… theriyaratha… andha daffodil poochchi apdiye ennodu kaalu-la oora-pakkarathu!*****” -“Look here, Nattu…can you see? Those daffodil insects are trying to climb over my leg!”
Aippaci******- The Tamil month that falls between mid-October to mid-November, known to rain in Tamil Nadu.
Long long ago, very long ago, when Raja was a little boy, he used to live in Ernakulam. He also lived in Trivandrum. Now he is so old, he does not remember where exactly this incident took place.
Raja and his brother, along with their cousins, used to frequent, what we shall assume from now on as, the Ernakulam Palace, every Friday. This is a story that happened on one fateful Friday, as he remembers it.
The King of Ernakulam lived in the Ernakulam palace. The palace was shaped like a square, open on one end with a huge mittam* in the middle. The King used to organize huge feasts every Friday in honour of the lord. Every Friday, he would walk out of his inner chambers, stand for a minute and survey the crowd that gathered in the courtyard. He would then climb on to his special pedestal to eat lunch alongside his subjects.
The Friday Feast used to be a grand affair. Many many cooks from all over the land used to prepare the rich meal with the finest of ingredients. Work started in the wee hours of the morning and would only just about get done on time.
That Friday was like every other Friday, except that, somehow for some strange reason, the cook had forgot the Pachchadi on the menu.
The crowds had gathered, and the King was just about to come, when the head cook realized his folly. But nothing could be done and so he instructed everyone to keep mum about it. He hoped people would not miss the Pachchadi, relishing all the other extraordinary items on the menu.
The King walked out of his inner chambers, looked left, looked right and twirled his mustache, satisfied at what he saw.
As the cooks brought out urlis of food, the clouds suddenly huddled together. The world grew dark and an unearthly voice resonated, "Pachchadi vechchilaingyil, Vechchadi edukkilya!"**
The head cook trembled. All his assistants looked perplexed.
The King was shocked and stood still to his ground. He pleaded to the voice, "O Divine Lord! Pardon us! The Pachchadi shall be made at once". He looked at the head cook and ordered him with a look to proceed.
The cooks at once scampered to make the pachchadi. The world stood still. The clouds stayed huddled. There was something unearthly that everyone felt in the air. No one spoke a word. Ten minutes seemed like ten years. and a pachchadi fit for the gods was made.
The cooks wheeled in the urli and waited. A gust of wind blew over the mittam, sending shivers down everyone's spine. And just as suddenly as it had huddled, the clouds parted and a beam of sunlight streamed. The King gingerly took a step forward. Nothing happened.
The crowd broke into a thunderous applause!
mittam* courtyard
"Pachchadi vechchilaingyil, Vechchadi edukkilya!"** If you do not offer the Pachchadi, you cannot take a step forward
The auto slowly crawls by the bus stop. Enticing. Slowly a metronome of its engines adds a beat.
My legs twitch.
The taillights wink at me. A ravishing red lights up the stagnant streak of water, still fresh from the evening's downpour. The beats turn into a hum. The tyres screech an operatic melody. The front tyre does a little jig inviting me for a dance.
My legs unconsciously begin to tap to its advances. The antennae of its radio nods and clicks its fingers, luring me.
I pause. Resist one last time. And then... succumb!
I jump into its plush arms. It takes me on a dizzying ride!
“…Time goes by, people lie everything goes too fast.
Time went by, and then we died, and everything went too fast.”
Julie Delpy buzzed on in the background. She closed her music player and walked out to the balcony.
The clouds were painted gray. The kind of gray that hid rains in them for a long while, stalling so much, enough to make you decide not to take the umbrella, decide not to carry a Ziploc for your mobile or wear those all weather sandals.
The clouds seemed wistful. Like her.
She rewound those memories and played them again in her head. She wondered over how beautiful it was that dried flowers could be preserved. Just like her memories- fragile, but intact; almost crumbling but never quite; pale and mildly fragrant; and most of all intoxicating.
Intoxicating. When that word opened eyes in her head, the rain poured. At once in torrents. And in the patter she once again heard the song,
“You said our love was stronger than an ocean apart
Time goes by and people lie, and everything goes too fast.”
I lost my clarity the last time round. It ran between the pages of my life while I ran behind it, panting, in a wild goose chase. While I whizzed past little shops selling memories, its shopkeepers called out to me to re-buy them and claim them. And somewhere in between, fascinated by a blue bottle of the clear sea I once saw in my dream, I paused. And clarity ran away forever…
Two tracks raced to my left, fiercely competing with one another, sunlight picking little metal points to glimmer their speeds up, vying for my attention.
And suddenly unannounced, they crossed paths, merged into one in a stunt, and continued sprinting, throwing a flirty metallic grin at me, who was safe behind AC II tier glass window, unaware of their inaudible cheap words!
They then split once again into two and raced on whistling.
Suddenly out of nowhere two bright red trains, loudly sounding their horns, raced ahead and crushed both of them to death. The trains looked ancient with wizened compartments aged with remembrances- brooding and serious. They lifted their hats as if in an apology for the misbehaviour of their kind and came to a halt noiselessly.
I went ahead, as my train serpentined on, wanting to retch!
(Glossary below the story for those of you who are not familar with Tamil)
(Dedicated to thattemple pond)
“One
Two
Three”
She jumped down step after step, her two ponytails bouncing along with her. She then proceeded to jump up on to them.
“One
Two
Three”
And in this repeated activity, she somehow seemed to be content.
It was a breezy morning. She had been woken up at 5. Her mother had planted a big kiss on her chubby cheeks, and whispered, “Ezhundukko ezhundukko da kutta! Inikku Seetha chithi-kku Kalyaanam. Koil-kku poganam”.
She had yawned, rubbed her eyes together and somehow managed to go through the motions of getting ready. She had fully awoken when her mom had puffed powder onto her face and tightly wound her curly mop of hair into two fat ponytails on either side of a central partition on her head.
With trays of clothes, sweets and nuts, loads of bags of various paraphernalia, they had boarded the cars to the town temple. She had sat on her mother’s lap near the window seat and looked out.
The sky had just been slowly stirring up from its sleepy gray robes. She had fallen asleep on the way. By the time she had got up, two minutes later, they were already at the temple and the first rays of dawn had lit the town of Illundavoor.
Lines of marigold flowers had been entwined around the stone columns. The temple elephant, Kuttan, had been bathed and was surprisingly not smelling of dung. Sanjayan, the mahout was applying fresh sandalwood paste on to its forehead while Kuttan was shooing flies away, with his trunk.
The function had begun and her mother soon left her with one of the older kids to take care of the million works that crop up during weddings. The older kid had lost interest after a bit, and found another kid to play hopscotch near the templekolam.
She had also tagged along but made to sit in the side and watch. She soon lost interest and began her own game in the temple steps.
“One
Two
Three”
She jumped down step after step and then jumped up again.
That is when he came. With his red shorts and black checked shirt. Hair neatly oiled and parted in the side, socks with a Mickey Mouse print in the middle, and a handkerchief tucked into his shirt front pocket.
He laughed at her.
“Enna thaniya velayaadindrukka?” he questioned
“Unakku enna vandhudhu?” she asked screwing up her face in offense.
“Susu!” he replied and laughed again at his own joke, cupping his hands in front of his mouth to control it.
She turned away angrily. Idiot-boy, she thought.
She walked down some more steps, putting distance between them and continued playing, lifting her red paavadai with its gold border slightly above her ankles so she wouldn’t trip.
“One
Two…”
“Un paer enna?” he questioned.
“Unakku…” she began, “Nee po! Naan unkitta pesamatten”.
“Yaen? Un paer enna? Sollu” he asked.
“Nee bad boy! Solla matten”.
“Seri sollathey! Enakku pudhu game theriyum.”
She did not reply immediately. He did not go away either. He sat on the steps. Propped his chin on his hand and looked at her jumping.
“Enna game....?” she asked slowly
A grin spread over his face.
“Vaa kaamikkaren,” he said and walked up to her. He took her hand in his and they jumped down the steps till they were near the water.
“Kaala ulla vei” he instructed.
“Ayyo vendaam! Jill-unnu irukkum” she said, her eyes looking like saucerpans, apprehensive.
“Onnum irukkaathu. Vei” he encouraged.
She slowly edged her toes to the water surface. Her little finger touched the water and impulsively she retreated.
“Sonnen la! Jill-unnu irukku!” she complained.
“Ayyo! Bayanthaanguli! Ippo paaru!” he said and proceeded to put his left foot inside the water.
Instantly fifty small fishes came and nibbled at his toes. He wriggled and laughed at their ticklish pecking.
“Dei! Kaal edu daaaa...! Meen kadikkaporathu” she squealed frightened.
“Idhu saami oda meen. Onnum pannathu. Try pannen” he said
She held on to his hand tightly and looked at him cautiously. He grinned encouragingly. She smiled and put her left foot slowly into the water.
*****
GLOSSARY
“Ezhundukko ezhundukko da kutta! Inikku Seetha chithi-kku Kalyaanam. Koil-kku poganam”- Wake up wake up, dear one! We need to go to the temple for Seetha aunty’s wedding.
Kolam-Temple pond
“Enna thaniya velayaadindrukka?” – Why are you playing by yourself?
“Unakku enna vandhudhu?” – Translation:What is your problem? Transliteration: What comes for you?
“Susu!” - Pee
Paavadai- traditional skirt
“Un paer enna?”- What is your name?
“Unakku…” –You
“Nee po! Naan unkitta pesamatten”- Go away! I won’t talk to you.
“Yaen? Un paer enna? Sollu” – Why? What is your name? Tell me!
“Nee bad boy! Solla matten”- You are a bad boy! I won’t tell you.
“Seri sollathey! Enakku pudhu game theriyum.”- Fine, don’t tell me. I know a new game.
“Enna game” – What game?
“Vaa kaamikkaren” – Come, I’ll show you.
“Kaala ulla vei” – Put your foot into the water.
“Ayyo vendaam! Jill-unnu irukkum” – Oh no! It will be cold!
“Onnum irukkaathu. Vei” – No. It won’t be. Just put your foot in.
“Sonnen la! Jill-unnu irukku!” – I told you , it will be cold…!
“Ayyo! Bayanthaanguli! Ippo paaru!” – Oh god! Scared cat! Look at me now.
“Dei! Kaal eduda! Meen kadikkaporathu” – Hey! Take out your feet. The fish will bite you
“Idhu saami oda meen. Onnum pannathu. Try pannen” – There are God’s fishes. They won’t bite. Why don’t you try?
