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)