My Days in My Years Chapter 6

                                                                   My Days in My Years

Chapter 6 (continued)
I have gory  memories of the river also.It is not that I love that gently flowing water mass, but when it assumes the role of a destroyer, that had happened quite sometime in my childhood, I got frightened and some  times that I fear had become obsessions. Many  days after  that incident, I never ventured to go near the river, let alone taking bath in it.
In the land adjoining our house, there used to be tenants all the time. One tenant or other would be there all the time, till some untoward incident had happened some time ago, which I am purposely not mentioning for reasons that it involved a close relative, who is happily married now. One has to understand the term tenant in the context. They were  there mainly to look after the land. Often, people would come by river and stash away coconuts and other  crops. Sine the tenant was staying on the bank of the river, not many would dare to venture into the land. When I was too young, there was one family who stayed there. They had children of my age. We used to go to school together. But I do not recall that I was ever close to them. That tenant left the place after sometime and we had drafted another one to stay there. He had three daughters and one son. The eldest daughter Kcohu Mary-  was of my age and I do not recall her going to the school. If she did go, she must have been enrolled into a lower class.
The on below her was - Kochu Thresia-was a cute child. Most of the time the sisters used to be at our home playing with our sisters. Kchu Threisa was fair and attractive and I remember that she had a tongue around her neck-always talk fast. I have seen her talking to herself, to trees and animals. She never could keep her tongue inside ger mouth. That time she was in the second or third standard. At home, she goes almost bare chested and at times she moved along in a jetty. That was very common among girls of her age in our place. One day, on a Sunday, I heard that she was  drowned in the river. Little further to our land, there was a stretch of river, which was very deep. There was a sharp turn at that point. In such places, the under current will be severe. She went to take bath with some of the children of her age. She might have moved further and caught up in the current. In our village, there are good divers and they came and started searching for her. At last, after an hour or so, her dead body was recovered. That time her father was not there. He went out Parur, the nearest town for some errands. From that day onwards, I had developed a fear for the river. For at least , three months or so, I did not go to anywhere near the river.
The other incident took place much later, when I was doing my graduation. I was not in the village that time. It was the month of June or July: the rainy season. The river becomes furious. When the water does not inundate into the banks, river becomes furious. There will be strong current. One such day, a few people, including children were ferried across the river. In the middlle of the river,  partly  because of the heavy load and partly on account of the strong current, the country boat turtled. The boat was swept away along with its commuters. Because of the valiant effort of one person known to me-Ittyachan- who lived in the other bank of the river, some of the children were saved. Despite the strong current, he jumped into the river, exactly at the point Kochu Thresia was drowned. In the incident, four or five children died and an equal number of children were saved. Ittyachan could have got a President's medal for his valiant effort. He did not get any decorations, awards or commendations except  gratitude  for  his chivalrous action from the parents of children survived and the villagers. Ittyacahn later  had become mentally unstable   and died young.
There are other incidents also which made me abhor the river. Occasionally, there would be dead bodies floating and some of them people say were not claimed at all. or they had become beyond recognition on being bloated in the river  for long.              

My Days in My Years- Chapter 6 continuation

  





                                                    My Days in My Years
Chapter 6 (continued from last dispatch)

The river was at the  dead end of the land adjoining the courtyard. It watered the landmass around the village.  My father was known as a progressive farmer. More than that, he was sentimentally attached to everything he was involved and owned. There are a few incidents that that I  remember to substantiate that. I cannot but quote one among them. Along with his two brothers, who were outside Kerala,  my father owned a quite big acreage of land. He tended this land alone in their absence. There was a reason for that. For two generations, there was only one male member each  in the family. Though my great grand father had a brother and married twice,he did not have any child from both marraiges. The properties of him had devolved unto  my grnad father, who died relatively at a young age.
My father was the oldest among three brothers and three sisters. There was another  boy born before him, but he died of some disease at a very tender age before my father was born. My grand parents and the rest of the family took maximum care to tend him since the child mortality was very common those days. His childhood and the rest of the family I will explain later.
I was talking about my father's great love towards land and crops grown in that, which sometimes bordered idiosyncrasy. Our staple crop was paddy and in the higher planes that owned, we cultivated horticultural crops like coconut, arrack nut, plantains etc.  One thing which robbed the crop was  pestilence, which visited every year as if it were curse befallen. Some of these attacks came very close to taking the paddy crop. In one year, the pestilence was very severe. Almost everyone in our village threw the towel and decided not to tend the crops since it was beyond any retrieval. Some of them burned the crop so that the traces of pests are destroyed. My father still tended the crops by manuring and watering them. When someone mocked at his misdemeanor, he reportedly retorted back that what would they  do if their children were afflicted with some terminal diseases. Does it speak for his sentimental attachments to the crop or idiosyncrasy, frankly speaking I do not know.
I was talking about the river that flows nearby; my good and bad memories. Other than taking bath almost every day, sometimes more than once, the river triggered many things in me at various stages. At a very young age, I wanted to travel in the boats that plied to various destinations every day. Sometimes, during the holidays, my maternal uncle used to come to pick us to take to my mother's house, which was also a place surrounded by water and canals- Narakkal-a few kilometers away from our place and by boat it used to take close to three hours or so. That journey through river, changing its course, direction and ambiance at different places, enchanted me. The river becomes too narrow at some places as if  it were a canal and both banks one can see very clearly. I had often seen people conversing with each other walking or standing on the either side of the river. There is a legend about that river which I shall narrate later. At some other places, the river becomes too wide and difficult to see the other bank even when the sky is clear. One thing common was  the thick greenery on both sides and the adjoining  dwellings which varied in sizes and hues. Some of them were mud houses, the others thatched up huts and a very few tiled houses rising majestically overlooking the river.
The most exciting thing I had seen is the coconut trees that jutted almost all of its  trunk  into the river in a slanting position.   Children climbed on those trees and jumped into the river demonstrating their acrobatic skills.
When you travel close to the banks, one could  witness a lot of activities that were going on in the banks: people cycling, occasional cars and buses plying, fishermen selling their catches stocked in the country boats to the customers, children going to the school, toddy tappers moving around in their skimpily dressed outwit,  a jar on the back to collect the  toddy and a specially designed scythe used for cutting the tender shoots of the coconut tree    grown at the trunk of the tree, the abode where toddy flows and collected in a vessel kept neatly where the shoot is cut and a a rounded device made of  strong rope, which they use for climbing the tree, which reminds one of the thorny headgear, which Jesus Christ worn during his crucifixion. 
 When you pass through the portions where the river resembles a backwater,  an array of  Chinese fishing nets were cast and if one is lucky could see the fisher men immersing the net into the water and taking the catch -an  assortment of fishes trapped in it.  Immediately after taking the catch, they again immerse the net into the water hoping that a greater catch  is  awaiting them. At regular intervals, one can see fishermen in small boat with country made fishing  ankles  cast in the water  keeping their boat balanced using their delicately carved peddles and oars at the front in tandem. When the motor boat passes through, the tiny boat moves in rhythm in tandem with the waves the boat created.
Most funny thing one could see was the toilets built jetting into the river. Occasionally, one can see the human excreta falling into the river making a plumb voice depending on the size of the discharge. Of course, now such things are prohibited since it is a major polluter of  river. But occasionally, there are reports that the now famous houseboats, fitted with toilets discharge these pollutants to the river.   

(To be continued)                

My Days in My Years ----Chapter 6

                                                              Chapter 6

                                                           My Days in My Years 


I do not know since when I started realizing the beauty of our village, its rural  setting, elegance of its long stretch of paddy field, which gives the impression of  a green carpet laid. Amidst the fields decked in the best of greens, there would be small huts, thatched with coconut leaves. Dots of huts spread across the fields were connected with narrow pathways, which was used by the hutment dwellers, mostly the labors toiling in the field  paddy field. When darkness sets in, a new landscape became visible. The murmuring birds fly past to reach their nests. Little later, one could see the bats feeding on delicious fruits grown in the courtyards of adjoined  the houses. After feeding on these fruits, which were grown in abundance in each court yard of a household, they flied past through the fields to hang themselves in a neem tree, believed to be several hundred years old, that was what the old people around used to claim.
In the thick of night that enveloped  the sky after the setting in of the darkness, once could hear the loud songs sung by labors, who were entrusted to irrigate the land. Invariably, they would be intoxicated by that time, after a few rounds of toddy or arrack from a nearby tavern. Some of them used to carry a torch made of dried coconut's leaves. I often used to wonder why they sang  loud songs on their beat. I was told that it was to keep the crawling reptiles like snakes at bay. Another one told me that it was to frighten the evil spirits, which used to wander around at night. I ddi not know whose version was right and I believed both versions.

The river that flown half encircling the village is still a delight to many. In our times, it went completely dry during the summer months except in certain patches, where it was very deep. That was the channel where the line boats plied connecting various villages on the way. When I was young, that was the only mode of transport available in the village. There were several sch line boats in service. I distinctly remember their names, Job, St.Marys, Vazhapilly, Beena and so on. Job and St Mary's plied between Paruoor, a nearby town and Kundoor, bang opposite to the dead end of our parambu (land). There was another boat that connected  Kundoor with Puvathuusery, a another village some 15 kms away from our village. Once I had taken a boat ride when I was very young to go to one of my mother's sister's house who was married there. Though the land distance between the villages are only a a few kilometers, the boat ride used to take anytime between  one and one half hours depending on the current of the water.

The river which flows near our  place is called Chalakudy Puzzha (river), which is a tributary of Periyar. The river source is western ghats and the water collected from the uphills flow across to the North and it branches into several tributaries known in different names and finally joins the Arabian Sea. During summer months, the sea water inundates  into  the river and the water becomes salty and becomes unusable for cultivation. Earlier, there were temporary bunds built across the river to stem the flow of salt water. But invariably, during the rainy days, the the temporary bund used to breach or destroyed to allow the water to flow. Otherwise, water would be inundated to the nearby court yards creating a lot of damages to the nearby places. That had happened quite a few times. When this had become a regular feature,  people living in nearby places resisted the construction of the katcha dam. That led to mass petitions to build a permanent bund and a bridge.  During summer times, the the bridge cum dam prevents sea water entering the fields in our village. The construction of the new bridge cum bund started at least 35 years back and was completed only some 10or 12 years back.
I have vivid memories  of the river-both good and bad. During summer months, the whole village children  would be playing in the river either engaged in swimming or other  games. We used to play handballs, throwing balls from one person to the other. During the summer vacations our bath in the river lasted for hours together and we used to wind up only when someone came to call us with the news that breakfast was served or someone had come to see us.           

( To be continued)  

                                                    My Days in My Years

Chapter 5 (continuation)
 Appu was a reasonably well built boy. He used to come to the school  with vermillion applied on his forehead and a talisman tied around his neck with a silver pendant hung on it. He was not in my class. He must have been in a lower class and I do not remember the class he studied. I knew him through another friend of mine- Balakrishnan- who was his neighbor. Appu was very jovial and talkative. He did not have any inhibitions in talking to people and that way he had made many friends in the school, irrespective of the classes they  studied.
We had some properties closer to Appu's house. Sometimes, when my cousins come home during the holidays, it was our habit to saunter around that area. There was another attraction. The road that leads to Appu's house ends at a river front  and beyond the river is another  village. There was a small  island between the two banks of the river. Beyond that island, there is a confluence of three tributaries of River Perriyar that surrounded  the land mass of several villages nearby. That confluence is incidentally the largest river front in Kerala known as Elenthikara.  I shall explain about this place later, since I feel that it is the most beautiful river front that I  have seen in my life.
Appu's home is on the way to the river front, a few meters away from the main road. But his house can be seen from the road. I had met Appu several times during our visit to that place. Appu would be in his court yard   grazing  the cow and I believe he had a goat also, whom he tied down to a tree. Appu always used to run to me once he saw me. Our talk on the road would last for anytime between few minutes or hours together. Sometimes, he accompanied till the river front. Those times also vermillion was there on his forehead. At home he was  bare chested. If he wanted to accompany me to the river front, he would charge back home and wear a shirt in seconds and the buttons he would put in place on the way. I also had seen him in dhoti sometimes, although he was too young for that dress.
Once I was passing though my cousins to the river front. Upon reaching near his house, I turned to look around for Appu. He was not there. But Appu's sister Ammu who was also studying in our school saw me and immediately howled to Appu that I was on the way. Appu came immediately to meet me running. I could see his mother also coming out running after him. She overtook him and gestured us to move fast. The reason  I came to know later that Appu was  afflicted   with chicken box and was confined to his house. The moment he heard  my  name, he hit the road and that was the spontaneity of Appu: always cheerful.

 A few  years later,  I went to a boarding house after my seventh standard and Appu joined a school across the river. I do not know whether he had completed his matriculation. Once for the holidays I came home and a friend of mine told me that Appu died of snake bite. He had the habit of grazing the cows for long hours and after that he would take a bath in the river flowing nearby. Always he used to carry a torch or a bunch of dried coconut leaves  lighted at one end with a long holder on the other. On that fateful day, for some reasons, he did not carry any of that. That friend told me he was bitten by the most poisonous snake in our area.

Even now I remember Appu  when I pass through that road. Once, several years after, I had seen Ammu on the road. That time she was grown up. I walked as if I did not know her. I do not know whether she had noticed me. I did not  want to face her for I thought that I could not control my emotions.

The other friend of mine was Balakrishnan. We were classmates till the fifth standard. He was small in size, fair and always agile. We maintained good contacts with each other even after our college. There was a time after my post graduation, I was confined to home for I did not get any job. I think that period lasted for close two years or so. During that time, we used to meet every day in the evening and share our thoughts. Later,  I was told he got a job in Mumbai and a few years later moved to Gulf. The last I heard about him was an year back or so. He is doing extremely well financially and moved to a nearby town. Despite my best efforts to meet him, I could not do so. I was told that he is extremely busy traveling.

                                               My Days in My Years

                                           Chapter 5 (continuation)
Another person who comes to my mind is Sethu. He was a very tall and hefty person and seemed to be the tallest boy in the school. He had a rounded face and his long hair touched the shoulders. That was not a style statement or any thing of that sort but was  very common among Hindu boys. He had pierced his ear lobes and like girls he wore golden  ear rings. That was also very common among Nair boys at very young ages. In those days, even the grown-ups wore ear rings and long hairs.   I recall that he was in the fifth standard when I was in first or second standard. Sethu never used to take part in  any game and he seldom spoke to anyone and always kept himself alone. There was another girl, I do not recall her name and  which class she was in. Perhaps, in the same class as that of Sethu. She was the only person whom Sehtu talked to and I was told that Sethu was her maternal uncle's son and they were staying in the same house as was quite usual  among Nair families. I was told that she was his Murrapennu (according to matriarchal system, brother and sister's sons or daughters can marry each other). Both Sethu and the girl were too young to think of such things but there was some bonding between the two.

Once there was an uproar in the school. We heard some shrieking voice and loud cries. On inquiry, we were told that it had come from the fifth standard. The school had only five classes and each room was assigned to a class. We all rushed to the place from where the sound came. There were teachers and students in the middle of the class. We all entered the class and saw Sethu lying  on the floor and shivering. Saliva like a froth came from his mouth. His entire body was gyrating in an uncontrollable manner. I had seen someone rushing to the spot with a bunch of keys and a pair of  sandals worn by some teachers. He placed the bunch of keys in the hand's grip of Sethu  and sandals on his nose. After a few minutes, gyrations stopped and Sethu lay flat  on the ground motionless. I had seen the girl, whom I referred to, crying. I thought something sinister had happened. After a few seconds, Sethu regained consciousness and water was sprnikled on his face. I was told that he had suffered from fits and that happened to him sometimes. Later in the day, I had seen Sethu going home accompanied by the girl. That was the last time I had seen Sethu. I do not know whether he married his Murrapennu or married at all.

Another of my childhood acquaintance was Cheriakuuty. We studied in the same class and he was a puny little creature with a girl's voice. He talked  very fast and  his steps were  rhythmic like a male dance teacher.  Cheriakutty was an orphan and belonged to some other village. After the demise of  his parents, he came to stay with his maternal uncles. The least Chriakutty was interested was in studies and no one was there to advise him. He often skipped the class. On inquiring what prevented from coming to school, he used to fabricate stories about his absence. Most often it would be about church festivals in his relatives houses or similar reasons. He dropped out of the school after his fourth standard  or so.
After a years , I came to know that Cheriakutty was the lead person who celebrated the church festival that year. To top it, he also organized a play spending money from his own pocket. He must have been 13 or 14 years at that time. He invited some professional theater group for the play. Before the start of the play, they wanted to  have the entire money. Cheriakutty did not have the money and the artists were not budging.  The play was delayed by an hour or so. For a while Cheriakutty was missing. He reappeared after some time. This time he was carrying a golden necklace, weighing not less than 10 tolas. He gave that necklace to the theater group and the play started. No one knew from where he got the ornament. Some guessed that it could have been something that his mother would have bequeathed him after her death.  I have not heard about Cheriakutty later.
   

                                                  My Days in My Years

Chapter 5

I can vividly recollect several of my classmates and others from my childhood. I wish to write all about them since they have different attributes, traits, characters and were associated with me in different times and contexts. I want to compress my relationship with them in one chapter since I do not want to make the narration of this part of my life lengthy. But that does not take away from me intimacy with them and my memories about them. Some of them, I came to know later, are no more, died young unsung and unknown and some of them I do not have any information and a lot of people are living and gradually entering the evening of their lives along with me

The one who comes to my mind is another Porinchu. Unlike the other Porinchu I described in the earlier chapter, this one was not my classmate. He must be several years elder to me. He was very short, stocky, muscular and a jovial person. I do not know how I got closer to him. I had the habit of going out to play in the evening. That was allowed. But the condition was that I should return before sunset. That time, there was no such thing like wearing a wrist watch while you go out for playing. I got a wrist watch as present only when I was in college. It was uncommon in our boarding house also people wearing wrist watches. So the time was set for winding up the play when the dusk set in. That could be past 6 PM or even earlier depending on the season.
We used to play football or volley ball or sometimes other games like crossing the Chakravuhu ( trap) and the like. Those were all team games. Sometimes, I might not find  a place in the team. That time, I would become a spectator or while away time talking to similarly placed people. I think it was in one of the evenings, that I was benched, not finding a place in the team, I met Porinchu. He was not in the habit of taking part in any game and remained as a spectator. Porinchu came to me and started talking to me in a very familiar way, though I did not remember having met him earlier. He talked to me about cinemas and the type of cinemas that he had seen. The stories of all contemporary films were known to him and would speak authoritatively about the film actors and actresses, their real life, food habits, family life etc. His favorite actors were not Malayalam heroes like Satyan Master or Prem Nazir. He liked them but liked Sivaji Ganeasan and MG Ramachandran, Tamil  actors more. He used to  mimic  them, their dialogue, actions etc.

Porinchu always  knew  bye heart, the films his favorite actors acted and more importantly, their personal likes and dislikes. Such were his stories and gestures, I got attracted to him. Sometimes, purposely I used to skip my games  to hear him out. That he liked since he did not have many people around to hear and appreciate his narration. Some of the people used to make fun of him and warned me  also that he was fabricating those stories or adding a lot of rills and fringes to them.
Some of the things that he shared with me I still remember.  MG Ramachandran, whom he adored, according to him, would eat only roasted chicken for the breakfast, one kilogram of cashew nuts for the lunch, three big plantain and big mug of  almond crushed  milk for snacking in the afternoon  and again for  dinner of mutton chops or five boiled  eggs for dinner. Shivaji Ganesha, if he has to be believed, was a vegetarian and had only 50 idlis or 25 dosas for the morning, a heap of rice with sambar and curd and vadas and other snacks at different times. Both of them used to eat ten apples a day. That was why both of them had golden color and so on and on. Both never used to touch alcohol, since they feared that it would damage their vocal chord.

In hindsight, I feel  that Porinchu had a great liking for food. The limited means of his family had come in the way of him having a good meal. There was certain degree of passion or perhaps,  obsession when he talked about food. Once I asked him how did he get to know the culinary preferences of  his favorite actors. He revealed that three times he went to Madras (Chennai) and that too without telling anybody at home. That I came to know  was a fact. But nobody knew, where did he go. They said that Madras was his imagination. He must have gone to some nearby places or the farthest  place he could go must be was high ranges. There were valid reasons for his occasional escapades. His father wanted him to help him out in the work. Habitually, he was a work shirker. Invariably, the day before his sudden departure, there would be some commotion at home. His father had the habit of  taking local liquor or toddy in the  evening. Sometimes, he got high. Once he was intoxicated, he used to abuse him and often such altercations end up in beating him. The next  morning Porinchu would vanish. The family would get to know when he did not turn up late in the evening next dayand the neighbors when his mother wailed.Sometimes that sojourn used to last for months together. If his departure was early in the morning, his coming home would be at night. He would suddenly appear at the kitchen side of his thatched up house and enter the house only after his father was asleep. That  drill got repeated several times.
Once Porinchu told me a strange story.  During his sojourn in some high ranges, he had seen a ghost and that too a woman, who wanted to sleep with him. What saved him was the cross he was wearing with his talisman. The moment the ghost had seen the cross, it fled as if it were beaten from behind. There was another anecdote I heard about him from one of his friends. Both of them started a curry shop close to a toddy shop in high ranges. They used to display variety of spicy curries in vessels. Normally, people used to visit the toddy shop in the evenings. That time, they used to buy curries also to go with the toddy. Once it so happened that his friend had to go out for some errands and left the charge of the shop with Porichu. When he returned, he found that all vessels containing curries empty. Porinchu polished them one after the other. That day they parted company.
Last time, when he left the village, it was never to come back  in the same way .  That departure was on account of compulsions. That I learned later. There were a lot of thefts in our village. Not any precious materials. Mostly household goods like vessels, vegetables, grains and the like. One suspect was Porichu and many people threatened him that they would report to the police. Porinchu disappeared in the same way he used to do it earlier. This time he never returned for a long time.
Some two years back, I inquired about him. I was told that he was in  Kanthallor, a place bordering Tamil Nadu and Kerala . He married into a family there and sired children. Some ten years back, he came to our village and that time he was partially paralyzed and went to see people with the help of  some relatives. I was told that he inquired about me also. A couple years later, he died. and I do not know where he was cremated. In fact, I wanted to meet his family, wherever they are. But nobody knows where they are.
  

                                                My Days in My Years
Chapter 1V

Let me also talk about another of my classmate, who was dear to me in the lower classes,  subsequently I lost touch and later revived. But at that time, we were poles apart in all conceivable  ways. It is the story of one Porinchu, which is a typical name among Christians in our part of the world. Its more anglicized version is Francis, which means in Latin " Farmer" or something of that sort.
Porinchu's father was our manager. I am using the word   since I am not finding any other  equivalent name in English to express that. His job was little more than an errand man and grossly short of a manger, in the conventional sense. He used to supervise the land and farm  related activities. He was  the person who took   initiatives in organizing people for the farming works.  He sometimes supervised the harvesting activities.  If there were some special ceremonies  like marriage, baptism, or sending gifts to our relatives staying away from our place, he used to  look after such things. That way he was a close confidant of our household ever since he was a small boy. His father also was attached to our household. Porichu's mother also used to help our household in special occasions like preparations  for festivities. She was good culinary expert and was adjudged as the best in the preparation of  some of the Syrian christian delicacies  like different types appams, stews etc. Fish and prawns curries were her specialties.

I recall that Porichu's family except him used to work in our households and farms. But he never used to come. Since he was the youngest child, perhaps, he was given a special favor. They wanted him to study and become someone different. I have never seen him in our household except when I had invited him to play. That too he came with great trepidation. I always liked his self esteem. I think it was in the fourth standard or so that we met. We were in the same class. Together we studied in the same classes and used to sit next to each other till the seventh standard.  After that I was enrolled in a boarding house. But we used to  keep our contacts, whenever I was  in my village for holidays.
After the seventh standard,  Porichu joined the high school a few kilometers away from our place. He had to cross a ferry and climb a hill  to reach the school, which was on a hilltop. Though our interfaces were limited only when I was in the village, I used to know about him. I do not think that we exchanged any letters. Porinchu was very active in the church. He was one of the altar boys and perhaps the one who knew the liturgy by heart. During our time, liturgy was in Syriac and the altar boys had to  recite responses to priest's prayers. There was a book, which contained the prayers   the altar boys had to recite in responses to priest's prayers. It was a book containing Syriac verses written in Malayalam.   While the senior most of the altar boys had to have the help of the book to recite the prayers, Porinchu knew it by heart.  For that he had received accolades from priests and the laity alike.
Also, Porichu took a lot of interest in teaching catechism in the Sunday School. He even avoided important family functions outside our village to be present on Sundays for the catechism classes.  He also famously got along with all parish priests and lent his support to all parish activities. Like any community activity, parish works also attracted public attention   and most often criticisms. But Porichu steered himself  clear  from such controversies and petty politics.
 For our middle school education, that is 6th and 7th standard, we had to go to a nearby  place called Ayroor, which was  more than  3 kms  our village. That time bus services were not that frequent and  some days, the line buses did not operate at all for one reason or the other. Everyday, we used to walk up and  down the distances. A totoal of over 6 kms a day  we used to commute.  That was a great fun. We used to take short cuts to the school and often that landed up in problems. The short cuts used to be through someone's land  surrounding their house. Sometimes they used to hurl abuses on us for trepassing. It was not without any reason. Some of the boys used to pluck mangoes or other fruits  grown in the orchards. Everyone used to carry a  lunch box and during the lunch time gobble it up in seconds to hit the playground at the earliest. 
One day, there was a football match fixed between  team in our village and our school team. We were very excited about the match. We could see the team from our village walking into the playground.  I must say I was over excited and howled along with the whole class. There was one  Malayalam master who was very tall and lanky. He used to come from a place beyond our village   commuting not less than 10 kms a day. His name was Bhaskaran Menon. He used to walk fast and later  he rode in a bicycle. When the commotion in our class became unbearable, he barged into our class. He had sensed that howling had come from our bench and could not  make  out who was responsible. He called Porinchu and  leveled the charge aginst him. He denied and then he was asked  to name the person. Porichu stood the ground and    expressed his ignorance. He questioned him for the next five minutes or so and not getting any clue left  the class. I felt so relived and thanked Porinchu for his forbearance. That time he was in tears.
We passed out the matriculation in the same year. But he did not go to the college. Later I came to know that he was very keen to join the priesthood and sent his application to the seminary. Unfortunately, the priests from the so called affluent families in our village ganged up against  him and impressed on the e seminary authorities not to enroll him since he hailed from a family that was not  in the reckoning. That was the church politics at that time. Porinchu I was told was crestfallen at this set back and lingered on with some courses like typing & stenography. There also he could not do much. A few years back, I met him at  his  shop which deals in some Ayurveda medicines. He is a totally changed man. His parents wanted him to be different and they must have dreamed  of him becoming a priest, which was a status symbol. All his brothers' sons, I am told, are doing extremely well. One of them, has become the richest person in our village and  he has at his command  acres  of land in Kerala and neighboring states. He built a palatial house in our village and has become a quite a mover and shaker.
But fate had caught  up with the priests who had ganged up against him. Serious charges were leveled against some of them. The last I heard was that one of them was prevented from undertaking any church related activities including celebration of masses.  But that cannot give back Porinchu whatever he lost. I am sure fate will reason catch up him and will give rich bounties, which he dearly deserves.        
  

Chapter 111
                                             My Days in My Years
 Another of my classmate in the lower classes was one Devassy. He was never called by that name, except when the class teacher took the attendance. He was known by the texture of his skin and his looks. People in the village and school called him Karimuttan, which means: black goat . Of course, I remember that he never looked like  a goat and I do not know how he came to be  known by that name. Might be because of his well built body and masculine physique.  Later, I knew there was another dimension to this name, which I will expalin later.
Devassy also hailed from a poor family. Thresia used to  warn me that I should not make any friendship with him, since he was a recently converted christian and the taboos of the earlier caste chased him, as if he had done some sins. Unlike other boys in my class, Devassy was very jovial, energetic  and  talkative. Very often, he used to sit next to  me in the class, though I avoided him. Because, whenever he sat next to me, he used to command me to bring things like gooseberry,  tender mangoes, cashew nuts etc from home. He knew that these fruits  were  grown in our courtyard in abundance. He also used to tease me by  hiding  my slate, books and pencils . He must have been a few years elder to me and more well built and agile. Many times, the protective shield thrown by Thresia around me helped me to escape from his harassment. He was somehow or the other afraid of Thresia, who used to call him all names including "markavasi" ( newly converted Christian) which is not a palatable reference. She only used that name against him and he  fell into  silence after  that abuse was hurled at  him.

Nobody could beat  Devassy  in the games. He could sprint barefooted at great speed. He could master any game or sports within no time. he used to pedal cycle at great speed.  If my memory is right, he was good in his studies. He could solve simple mathematics faster than anybody else in the class. His greatest past time was to bring tea and sancks  from the nearby tea shop to the teachers. In village schools, it was a common practice among the teachers to ask the students from poor families to fetch things like that. He used to take great pride in such errands. The culinary tastes of the teachers were well known to him. He would order the snacks and tea in accordance with the taste and preference of the teachers. Often he shares  culinary likes and dislikes of each teacher: headmaster takes black tea with  Parippu Vada (sanck made of dal), Kungappan Sir likes Suhayan ( (a snack stuffed with moong dal and molasses) and on..  Often he came with the snacks in the class. We did not know whether it was left overs or things he demanded from the tea shopkeeper. Such things he used to eat in the presence of everyone in the class and never shared with anyone. There were instances when students sitting next to him snatched the snacks and gulped. Often fight used to break out and the  snatcher  used to get beaten up by him.

There were many stories that used to floated about him by grown up children in the class. Some of them were juicy. One of the stories made rounds was that he was a bastard. He was born out of wedlock and his real father was someone else. They gossiped that his  father was fair in color so also his mother and questioned how he had become so black. At that tender age, I could not understand the underpinnings of those gossips.  Neither I had the courage to clarify them with anyone in the class or at home. Only thing that I could understand was that it was something unsavory.
Devassy dropped out of the school. in the third or fourth standard. I used to see him roaming around the school  for  some errands. If my memory is right, he still continued with his errands with the tea shop owner and widened his clientele to nearby shops also. he also acted as a deliverer of meat butchered by someone else. I often used to envy him  since he led a carefree life, always peddling cycle and above all not subject to the rigors of learning.

 Many years later, after I completed schooling, I heard about him and that too was a juicy news. He picked up friendship with a  girl in the neighborhood. Clandestinely, they used to meet at her place at night. Once, he went to her house. Unfortunately, that day the girl went to her relatives for spending the night, which he was unaware. He went to the place where she normally slept and that day one of the aunts of the girl occupied that space for sleeping. The rest was an pandemonium and severe beatings. To cut the long story short, Devassy fled the village  that night itself never to be seen for long years. The grapevine had that he went to Malabar, a place where people used to migrate at that time. Did he live up to his nick name: black goat?

A few years back, when I visited my village I inquired about Devassy. That time I was told he was no more and died of some unknown disease. I do not know what was the type of my feelings towards Devassy, fear, hatred or a combination of both. But one thing is clear he was not a run off the mill child. At an young age, he demonstrated how he could bully people and bring them to his toes.

                                                                  Chapter 11

                                                              My Days in My Years

I do not remember when I was enrolled in the school. It was a village school. Only thing I recollect about the first standard was about my classmates. Also, later I realized that the age entered at the time of enrollment was wrong. Perhaps, that was to conform to the regulations prevalent at that time. Only those who had completed five years  were allowed to join the first standard. Of course, that time there was no concept of nursery or play school. First standard was the entry point. There was also a system of sending the children below five years to village teacher called (Asan) who taught them the basics like alphabets in Malayalam and some numbers. Some of the students used to continue their education in those informal schools till  they get enrolled inot  higher classes like third or fourth standard . I do not know why I was not sent to such informal school. Perhaps, such schools were non-existent at that point of time.

Our village school was antithetical to the present schooling system. All children irrespective of  their class, religion, affluence etc.   cut their initial years there. There is no class difference or segregation of students. All of them were to sit in the same bench, listen to the same teacher, played in the same court or picked up quarrels and small skirmishes withe the same set of pupils.The school used to start at 10 AM and there will be regular intervals after every period. That is the time the children used to go to toilets, if they want. In between if they want to go to toilet, they had to get the permission from the teacher. The same teacher used to teach  through out the year. There was no system of different teachers taking different subjects. From Malayalam to Mathematics, the same teacher taught the class till you are graduated to the sixth standard. Our primary school had only classes till fifth standard and for higher classes one had to traverse quite a distance, say three kilometers or so.
I must say that primary school education had a telling effect on my character later. It is not because that it shaped my quest for knowledge for I remember I was not a great shake in my studies. it is more because of the composition of pupils in the class. Because of that education, I never felt in my life any class difference. I was mostly easy with all groups of people and my friends are  from all walks of life. Neither I got attached to any religious congregations or social groups  any  assemblage of people like clubs or things of that ilk. I vividly remember  my classmates whom I will describe briefly to give the readers an idea about what were they and how they had influenced my social outlook.
The first name that comes to my mind is one Thresia. She was a few years  elder to me. Her parents were our tenants. On has to understand the term tenant in contemporary Kerala context. Some forty fifty years back, when feudalism was writ large in Kerala societal fabric, tenants were considered to be a sort of your bonded labor. They would be given  a piece of land in your field or inside a coconut grove or plantations of similar nature. They need not have to give any rent; but had to give their labor. In return, they would get wages either in kind or cash, whichever was convenient to the master. Their life was misearble and exploitation was very rampant.
Thresia's forefathers were staying in our land for a long time. Her father's name was Paulose-a stocky short gentleman, whose skin texture was one of the blackest that I had ever seen. Since her family was staying in our land, they also carried the same family name. Thresia, before she started going to school, had worked in our household. She used to come with her mother and do some menial jobs. That way, we were known to each other and used to play together. I always thought  that she was a dare devil. Her father Paulose was known in our village as a man specialized in  catching snakes. The more poisonous the snake,  more his enthusiasm. He used to get calls from nearby places, if they spotted any snakes. He always wanted to have attention. That he got in abundance after killing the snakes. He used to display his catch with great pomp and show. The dead snake would be carried to assemblage of people in the village and he would display it to the public view and explained to the people how  deadly the venom of the snake was. Also, he used to give a lesson or two about the snakes and his exploits. The reward for killing the snake was in kind and most often it will be a lavish treat with arrack (country liquor) or toddy (a white intoxicant liquid  collected from coconut trees).
Thresia was not less fierce in her exploits. She used to boast about the snake killings that she had done and the sightings of the poisonous snakes. She used to frighten us by telling snake sightings in nearby places if she wanted us not to go to such places.
We were together in the first standard. The year I joined the school, it was her third year in the class. It was not that she failed in the class. Her parents should inssit her to be at  home to look after her younger siblings whenever they goout  for works in the farm. Once given that responsibility she would abstain from the class for the rest of the year. When the new academic session starts, she would jon again. That was why she still studied in the same class.
Thresia had thrown a protective ring around me. She would tell me what to play in school and what not to play. She would tell me who was the good teacher. For her the good teacher was one who did not beat in the school. Caning was very common in our school that time and everybody took that as a routine one. Some parents would recommend the teachers to discipline their wards by caning and admonishing them. There were stray incidents when an agitated parent confronting the teacher when caning went to the extreme leaving marks on the body.
Thresia also used to carry things about me to home. She would tell my siblings that I did not answer the question posed by the teacher; I was very weak in spellings and got impositions, I talked to the student sitting next to me while the class was going on etc. She trailed me and even my shadow and diligently reported about me back at home, which she visited almost everyday. She also used to frighten me by telling to disclose things which I had not done.
Once an interesting thing had happened. Some backdrop information is needed to understand the situation. In those times, there was no toilet in village schools,  at least in ours.  During the intervals, children used to come out in hordes and relieve them. That was true for girls also. Once she complained to my mother I tried to see how she was pizzing. Till date, I do not know whether I tried it or not.Next day when she met me she had asked me how many beatings that I got me from my mother. I did not reply to her.
That year also she did not complete the year. I do not know whether she got enrolled again. What I remember is that she was packed with  one of our relations as a maid. She must have spent a few years there. Next time, when they came home, she refused to go despite heavy pressure from her parents, for whom, it was a monthly  revenue. Next I heard about her was when she was married off  a few years later and her husband was settled in high ranges (hilly area). Such hilly places normally not not referred with their names and most often were terrains in accessible.  I have not met Thresia ever since. I must admit that she was the first courageous girl I had seen in my life. Every time,  I see that school, which has not changed in its exterior, the first name that comes to mind is Thresia's.
Next post is about another childhood friend.... 

                                         My Days in My Years
 Chapter 1

I attempted to write my story. Not once. Several times. Not that I thought that I have some thing substantial to tell the people. Nor do I think, whatever I reveal will be read with interest by the readers. This story or a similar story can be retold by millions. So this story is the story of a legion and  any one can say that its theirs or similar to that of theirs. Every time I started writing the story, after a few sentences, inertia took over me and that was the end. This time I  sincerely hope I would be getting over that force that hold me back.

I  really do not know where I should start. Some people claim that they can recall whatever happened from their tender age. Of course what is  tender age can be a debatable point. Is it three years, four years or anything less than ten years. I imagine that I cannot imagine anything that had happened in my life at a tender age . Or the best way to put is that I cannot relate my age to the sequence of things that had happened in my life.
 Once i remember - I do not know what age-may be at the age of three or four, I climbed on a slanting mango tree which was just behind our kitchen. I only remember that I fell down. When I regained consciousness, I could see my mother crying and my siblings joining her. My father took me to a person, who practiced traditional  treatment for  setting broken bones. He was in fact was our closest neighbor. Only a katcha fencing demarcated our landmass. My father carried me in his shoulders. I was seated in a bench in the courtyard of his kitchen. The gentleman, I still remember, wore a dhoti and a cotton shawl to cover his bear chest. His arms and grips  were long and strong. He examined me and told my father that I had broken both bones on my left arm.
Immediately two of his assistants came. They applied some herbals on my broken arm. These two people with little help from the vaidyan (name for the person who practices traditional medicines) pulled by broken arm to put the broken  pieces  in place. I still remember the pain I had suffered. My father could not see that and he moved to a far corner not to bear the gory sight. After setting the bones, one of his assistants brought a case made of bamboo reefs and my arm was encased in that one. After that  they  applied some herbal medicines and I was told not to move the hand for sometime. My father later told me that I did not cry during the entire process, which was very painful and the Vaidyan told him that I had great endurance power. I do not remember whether I cried or not since I was in a delirium.
 The next thing that I remember  is the pandemonium created by giving me the wrong medicine by my mother. During my childhood days, we were mostly given  Ayurveda medcines, which invariably included herbal mixtures, called Kashams. We had a family doctor called Kuttan Menon, who stayed in the other side of the river. We all disliked Kashams since they were pungent and bitter, but had a great liking for herbal tonics called aristhams, which are sweet and invariably palatable. We had a mix safe in our house, where we kept all food items and medicines. For some ailment, Kuttan Menon prescribed some herbal tonic, which was kept in the mix safe. That was kept in a long glass bottle and the tonics are ordinarily balck in texture.

 Someone had kept unknowingly a bottle of phenol, which was used for washing the floor in the safe. Normally such things are kept in hih places, where children cannot reach. The color and texture of the phenol are the same as that of tonic. This could have been done by our maid unknowingly or one  of my elder siblings. My mother opened the mix safe and gave me an ounce of the phenol thinking that it was the herbal tonic. She realized it only after I gulped down the black liquid. She started crying along with her the entire family. I was asked to throw it up and my mother inserted her fingers into my mouth to make the throwing up easier. I remember that I puked several times and some body suggested that I should be rushed to the English dispensary, which was 15 miles away and would take two hours to commute in a boat. I do not remember what had happened later and how the poisonous liquid was purged out from my system.

........More on next