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.