Days of dearth

Those were the days when our villagers could not even dream of electricity and many houses in our village situated in Kerala, South India, had to depend on kerosene lamps. It was a small pyramid shaped aluminum container filled with kerosene with a round wick made of cotton at its top which burned and lit the houses. Children learned their lessons , their moms cocked food, the family ate their meals and the elders conducted their discussions ; all in the dim light and flame of these small kerosene lamps. These lamps had to be kept out of the reach of children who might try to play with them , burn their hands or other parts of their bodies or spill the kerosene on the ground leading to unpleasant situations Even elders had to be careful while approaching these lamps or else the wick might go off and plunge the house into darkness or the power cut described by the present day politicians as load shedding to fool their unfortunate electorate.

When people went out during night time, they used what was called “choottu” in Malayalam which is the tail end of dry coconut leaves made into a long round bundle which were lit from a lamp when ever they wanted to go out during night time. When they reached their destinations those “traditional torches” were put off and were re-lit when they wanted to use it again. There were, however, many in those days who did not even bother to use this "choottu" during their nocturnal movements. They went to wherever they wanted to visit unmindful of the risks of groping in darkness .

In nineteen sixties our village had only one or two lower primary schools where students could study up-to Class V. The classes were conducted in sheds where our teachers taught us telling us stories stressing the importance of moral values and the sanctity of human relations. I still remember the story of Mannamkatta ( lump of earth ) and Kariyila ( dry leaf) who went for a picnic . When it rained on the way, Kariyila covered the Mannamkatta to protect it from the rain and when wind blew Mannamkatta lay on Kariyila to save it from being blown off .But the tragedy occurred when it rained accompanied by wind as water carried mannankatta away and the wind blew kariyila off. Though this was the story of two inanimate objects, I don’t know why I still feel sorry for them.

The Govt High School in the nearest city Chavakkad was situated around 5 miles away which meant that the students from our village had to walk 10 miles a day to and fro to attend high school classes since there were no bus services and the national highway running through our village at present was then an unpaved path full of white sand . During the rainy season, crossing the canal in wooden overloaded boats to attend the classes was risky and the ponds on the road side overflowed making it difficult for the pedestrians to find out where the deep ponds beside the road side were. Once on my way to the school, I stepped into a road side pond and thus dipped myself in the pond. I had no time to return to home to change the wet dress and had to attend the classes wearing the wet shirt and dhoti . Umbrellas were of course used during the rainy season but in times of heavy shower and wind, they were of little use. One umbrella was often shared by two students. When they walked, each one used to put his hand on the shoulders of his 'umbrella mate' clinging to each other which created a sense of cooperation, sacrifice and unity among students.

Despite the boom created by gulf goers there are still people in our village who cannot afford to make both ends meet, those having no financial means to treat deadly diseases they are suffering from, those who cannot get their   daughters married as  the grooms demand dowry in terms of money and gold but one feels relieved when he finds that days of exploitation and tyranny practiced by some greedy land lords are now dead and gone .

The father

Perennial pleasure and pricking pain

Have you ever enjoyed watching a hen walking with its beautiful newly hatched chicks of various colours and designs ? Keep watching the chicken, take one of them in your palm and try to touch their extremely soft feathers, you will have a tranquilizing experience as if you are inhaling  the breeze blowing from somewhere. The method of hatching chicks using a setting hen seems to be dwindling even in villages of Kerala .In an age of instant pleasures, fast food, supersonic jets and electronic super highways , people are rushing and have no time to waist . Why should they wait for three weeks to hatch eggs using a hen when there is egg hatching machine to do it in a couple of days and as there are hatched chicks available in plenty for sale in the markets apart from chick vendors who roam the villages trying to sell them as hot cakes.

Where ever they go people are always reminded that they are living in a world in which the survival is for the fastest and not for fittest as their great grand fathers once used to teach their children . Nowhere can this rush be better felt than when you are on the road either in a car or on a motorbike . Drivers seem to have forgotten Winston Churchill’s saying “ Drive slowly we are in a hurry “. You see hasty drivers trying to overtake you and sounding their horns even if your car has broken down. While doing so, they trample down the rights and feelings of their fellow drivers, sometimes on purpose and on some other occasions inadvertently

In Kerala some of the Malayam words have assumed new meanings these days to reflect the changing trend. The Malayalam phrase “adichu polikkuka” which literally means cause material damage, for instance, is now used as an adjective of pleasure or enjoyment . Therefore if some one tells you that it was “adipoli party”, don’t think that there were commotion and violence in the party but it only means that the programme was grand and jovial . Innocent tricks and jokes employed in the past to tease the grooms on the wedding days in Kerala have now given way to violent and irrational practices causing violence and even material damages . Such ceremonies are described as Adipoli parties which can thus now be interpreted in the true sense of the term. Indian classical dances with slow and study movements of the human body parts and invoke an awe and respect in human mind are now giving way to break and disco dances with fast and acrobatic movements which produce an instant and intoxicating mood in the mind of the viewers.

Once some years ago  while on vacation in Kerala , I purchased some newly hatched chicken from the market and brought them home. Then my better half asked me whether they were vaccinated and told me the story of a “ veterinary specialist” who roamed our village offering his services to vaccinate chicken against bird flue and how clever he was in chasing and catching the chicken which were let loose. At the end of the day, he turned out be an imposter since most of the chicken he had vaccinated which were otherwise healthy died within a couple of days.

The chicks I bought were placed in a chicken coup which was a very small concrete room to protect them from mogooses bent on catching chicken in our area . The room was heated with an electric bulb and my kids enjoyed feeding them every day. After a few days or so I do not know why it occurred to me that the heating in the coup was insufficient . The devil in me made me replace the bulb with a higher voltage one. Since I thought that they were comfortable with my heating strategy I did not care for them one or two days as some one else was feeding them, though it was not the case,. After one or two days I heard them crying unusually and when I approached the coup to my dismay I found that that most of them had died of high temperature and two or three of then were in a critical condition. I picked them up and poured some cold water on their body but I could save only one since other ones soon died as my rescue attempt was too late. The rescued chick grew up into a beautiful hen which had special place in the mind of my family members. In those days when I used to chat with my family while they were living away from me in Kerala , my kids used to bring “ the only survivor” in front of the camera and show it to me. Even the other when we were watching some old videos posted in the Face book page of our son Munnu , he pointed to a hen walking proudly courtyard of our house telling me that it was the one I had saved from the fire chamber . I still feel disturbed when I think of the chicks that had died as a result of my thoughtless behaviour. In those days I had even compared the incident to a holocaust and the coup to the gas chamber employed by Nazis to torture innocent lives.

By the father