The Pedant

Last weekend, my son announced, Appa I’m inviting a friend of mine home for dinner on Sunday. Could I please be a little less sarcastic and little more courteous, definitely not in that order? Also, Amma, can you make some adai avial and Vaangi Baath, he is a big fan of both of those. Left with no choice, I grumbled a yes. I looked up at the year calendar with a small photo of Lord Ganesha and big bold typeface inscribed name of Lakshmana Groceries, their way of rewarding frequent shoppers and prayed that this new avataram not be one of those new generation mobile savvy, startup dreamy, torn tank top and low waist jeans flaunting hombre who would attempt to make me put down the remains of my provident fund into his application which would deliver me coriander leaves at the click of a button in twenty two and half minutes, ninety seven point eight percent of the time. So help me God.

“How do you know him? Is he working? Is he an engineer? Where did he go to college? Sarkaar college il a private college il a? Which caste does he belong to?” unleashing the barrage of questions, I found myself panting at the end of the monologue, I had forgotten to breathe in the middle.

Jr. Me stared at me, with his jaws wide open. With a shake of his head, he thrust his earphones back in his ears and started waving his hands in the air. Whatever he was listening to, it wasn’t Subbulakshmi’s Suprabhatam, the pace did not quite match with the violent gyrations of his body. Shiva Shiva!

On explicit orders of Ms. Me, my soulmate of this lifetime, I picked up a cloth bag and set out in the direction of Lakshmana Groceries. Unfortunately, the raw materials for adai avial, Vaangi Baath and a bunch of culinary delights Ms. Me and Jr. Me were planning didn’t grow on the trees lining my street. Lakshmana Groceries was going to turn a profit this year too, courtesy my family.

The day of reckoning came sooner than I’d have wanted it to and I found myself extending my hand out to shake hands with Jr. Me’s friend. Jr and he sat down and talked about topics in the world ranging from latest X Box releases to upcoming Formula One Grand Prix and Spanish La Liga all the while munching the savories Ms. Me was constantly doling out from the kitchen. I was left to wonder whether these poster kids of posterity were indeed talking about happenings on Planet Earth or some equivalent in a parallel universe.

I was relieved when Ms. Me announced dinner services and in the short span of a few seconds, found myself sitting at the head of the dining table, with the self-illusion that I was back in control.  I decided to strategically preempt the discussion in areas I considered myself to be pedantic and asked, “So do you follow state and national news?”

“Of course, I do!”

Eager to find a weak spot, I asked, “Are you aware of the recent skirmishes on the India Pakistan border?”

That, in hindsight, was the sentence I should not have uttered. I should have let the evening play out by itself, Jr would have handled it adeptly but I was keen to show who was the master in the house. Mistake. Big mistake.

It was as if someone turbo charged Jr’s friend. He launched into a tirade against the atrocities committed by Pakistan. He then proposed to blame Pakistan for all the ongoing problems in the world. Looking back I have no recollection of how he changed gears but his diatribe expanded and covered everything from Islamic State and Israel Palestine conflict to Chinese influences on North Korea and American imperialist aspirations in South East Asia. It was as if he had the solution to all the problems in the world, unfortunate part was that no one had thought to put him in charge! Thankfully, before the topics could expand any further, adai avial ran out. I used that as my opportunity to run to the wash basin. Golly, I needed a break! It was like I was listening to a speech in Klingon.

Finally, after a few more minutes, it was goodbye time. It couldn’t have come any sooner. As we all gathered at the door to see him off, he suddenly remembered something.

“Oh I forgot. My ammi had asked me to get a 10-kilo packet of idli rice from a grocery store on my way back. I only have Rs. 200 with me. Uncle, aunty, would you know how much a kilo might cost, so that I could decide if I need to stop at an ATM before purchasing?”

Jawan

As a kid, ambulances always fascinated me. I surmise that was because of the lights and siren sounds they had, the way they were treated when on the road where other vehicles would make way for its passage. I caught on the fascination at an age where I was too little to think of why ambulances had those lights and sirens, why they got priority on the road. I probably came to know that at a later age. But the fascination stuck, even though I assimilated the purpose of the urgency. My mother used to tell me that whenever they took me to a toy shop, ambulance fire engine toy replicas were inevitably my first choice. Strange things to like when I look back. But you have to understand, back then not everything was wrapped around societal etiquette. When you are that age, you can love anything and hate anything, neither of which would seem logical. That is the way it is.

I had wanted to sit in the back of the ambulance as it began its somber sojourn from the airport. But it wasn’t possible, I was to show them the way.

Me and Jai were of the same age. We had studies in the same school till plus two. I wouldn’t categorize us as best buddies. Yes, I was friends with Jai but we didn’t belong in the same circle. While both of us did not bring home any academic laurels in our periodic report cards, I was a notorious member of the village naughty children gangs while Jai was someone who was more of a silent type. I was considered by the elder folk as somewhat of a headache, my presence in most cases was a precursor of some mischievous activity in the near future. On the other hand, Jai was a different breed. He was silent and pleasant and was generally friends with most children in the area. There were circumstances when he had come to our rescue. Like in the case when five of us stole toddy from Chandran’s toddy shop and were caught in the act of consuming it, Jai pleaded with Chandran to let us off the hook, vouching for us that we would never steal from anyone. Or when I gave a love letter to carpenter Raman’s daughter when we were in tenth grade and it unsurprisingly came in the know of Raman, Jai talked to Raman to cool things down. And so on went the stories.

As I mentioned, Jai and I were friends, not the thickest of buddies but friends nonetheless. Things took a turn for the better when we were in plus two. Both of us did not know what to do for future. Our academic records did not hold much promise that we could get an admission for any professional degree course and we had started thinking about what to do next. It was Jai who broached the idea of joining the army. The more he talked about it, the more I was convinced that army was a good prospect. There were no army men from our village, so it would help get an image makeover, to get us respected in the village. An additional incentive at least for me was the booze on offer. Army, I had heard, was quite generous in serving up booze to its rank and file and that certainly was a swing factor in my decision. Not to mention all the pluses and perks of a government job.

And so, a handful of us prepared for the Army recruitment. Three of us managed to clear the physicals and get offers from the army when they came for recruitment in the state. As luck would have it, me and Jai got posted to the same battalion. It was certainly good to have a known face to bank upon - the training period was tough and sapping and we depended a lot on each other to get through that. And that it when the bond of friendship between me and Jai was strengthened. Being of the same battalion, we got our postings together. We were posted in different parts of the country and the two eggheads from a remote corner of India got to see the soul and essence of the length and breadth of India. We also developed a pattern when taking our annual vacations - we tried to space them up so that one of us would be home every half year or so. That way, even though we went home only once every 12 to 18 months, from our village perspective, any one of us would be home every 6 to 8 months.

Time passed, as it always does. Both of us married, had kids. When I would go home for my vacations, along with all the luggage for me and my family, it was an unwritten rule to carry one box full of stuff for Jai’s wife and daughter. And vice versa when he went home for his vacations. And when everything was going well, came the war. Historians of futurity may judge it with a different set of views but for us as soldiers, we were taught to obey orders coming from higher up, not question them. Our regiment, as was the case with a lot of regiments, was sent to the international border. Our battalion was posted at the front-line - we were the first line of defence for India. When you are in a war, your psyche is very different from what you experience during peacetime. The adrenaline levels are pumped up and you need that to cope up with the death and destruction you see happening in front of you. You know that you and your colleagues are responsible for creating that havoc directly or indirectly and you need to convince yourself that you are doing the right thing.

And that is when it happened. The eighteenth day of our deployment on the international border. That is when a shell fired from the enemy forces hit one of our front-line command posts manned by Jai and another colleague. Death was instant, I later came to know. I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard the news. Yes, we are soldiers and we are “used to” seeing a colleague waving hello at us one day and coming back inside a body bag the next. No matter how trained you are, no matter how much of the army psyche you have assimilated, you cannot quite get “used to” some things. 

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The body of Jai lie wrapped in a white cloth in the back compartment of the ambulance. As I directed the driver to make the final turn into the road which led to Jai’s house, I could see the crowd afar that had gathered around the compound of Jai’s house.

The Bitter Coffee

This corner side cafe occupied a special place in my life. I discovered it when I moved to the city to start my professional career. This was on the way to my workplace. One quick skip and hop to get a coffee once in a while. As time passed, this gradually developed into a routine. Somewhere over the course of the first year in this locality, I developed a personal bond with this café.

She joined my office a year after me. And as someone who was of almost same age as her but had a year or so experience in the group, I was assigned to mentor and on-board her. The frequent interactions initially were professional. And as it invariably happens in a lot of such situations, somewhere the professional barriers got breached and we encroached into each other’s personal spaces. It was during one of our initial interactions in office that I suggested to head out for a coffee at this café and she came along. Slowly, as our relationship blossomed, the café and its corner table became a very usual setting.  We shared out thoughts, aspirations and dreams over countless cups of coffee. We dreamt about a dream wedding, an unforgettable honeymoon and a happy married life sitting under the roof of this coffee shop delightfully savoring lattes and cappuccinos.

Somewhere along, the world of idealism gave way to the pragmatism of real life scenarios. There were wedges between us, the clashes became one too often. And at last, yesterday, the Sunday before Christmas, at the entrance of this very café, this very location that had become a part of us and our relationship, she said goodbye and good luck to me one final time. Around us, as the melodious Christmas carnival drumbeats echoed, she walked away from me and from us, the final time.

Yesterday is over, and I know I won’t get over it anytime soon. I came up to the cashier as usual today morning and ordered a cup, tall and black. This cuppa, this Joe in my hand, is my last from this café. The coffee today tastes particularly bitter, and the reason is not the sugar I failed to add. Too many memories clog my veins, too much nostalgia lingers enclosed within these walls. Goodbye, dear café. Maybe our paths might cross someday in future. I, for one, wouldn’t bet on it though.

The Linguist

I was assigned to man the classifieds section of the newspaper that day. It was a peaceful setting, and one, where I thought I could work on some ideas for an Op-Ed piece that I had promised my editor I’d deliver within the week. As I was writing and striking off ideas that were popping in my mind, I was interrupted by a group of youngsters who appeared in front of my desk.

The guy in the center introduced himself and his friends to me and said to me that he wanted to post an obituary in the next day’s newspaper about his grandfather’s brother who passed away a few hours ago and he inquired if I could direct him to the right section.

“You are at the right place” I said. Pushing a pen and piece of paper towards him, I said, “Do write down the matter to be published and hand it over to me. You can pay the fees at the counter on the ground floor.”

No soon as I had pushed the pen and paper towards the group, their faces lost the ring of purpose with which they had come in. His face switched to reflect a confused state and his peers were looking at the ceiling and floor of the building with a new found esoteric interest.

“I do not know how to compose in Malayalam sir. I studied in an English medium establishment.”

Aah so this explained the tectonic behavioral shift of the group.

“Not a problem. You can compose it in English, I will translate it into Malayalam for you and give it inside.”

Now, the expression on their faces switched to chaos. One of his friends muttered from behind, “Hey man, do what they want and then come back down. We’ll wait outside, near the car park.”

Before the young man could open his mouth, his friends around him vanished. And he was back to staring at me, with a flushed look at my face. It was starting to dawn on me the reason for this unique group behavior. Neither himself nor any of his mates was confident enough to draft the same in English as well, the language over which they supposedly command over!

As he stood before me coyly, with his feet drawing imaginary circles on the floor below, my face betrayed no emotion. “What’s the matter?” I asked, feigning innocence.

“Please excuse me sir, I just remember I have an urgent chore to attend to. I’ll compose the matter from home and be back shortly.”

Saying this, he turned back and almost ran away from my presence.

I caught the back side of his T shirt when he retreated out of sight. It read “I was born intelligent but education ruined me.”

Sinner

The smell of gunpowder was nauseating. As her pace got her closer to the gates of the ammunition manufacturing unit, the stench seemed to magnify manifold. Her husband never seemed to have an issue with the smell. The very thought of her husband caused her already not-so-promising outlook towards the day meander southward.

Peace and tranquility were two feelings she had given up on the day they were married. She and her five-year-old son was most often on the receiving end of his fury on many nights. The problems were so intense that she used to put her five-year-old to sleep by seven in the evening so that he is spared from the volcanic fury of his father. He was an alcoholic but he never came around to admitting that. Her pleas and cries would often be drowned in his incoherent and outrageous remarks of his alter-ego in his semi-permanent inebriated state. He used to come home seldom before ten. After his shift at the company, he and his friends would head to one of their usual joints and drink themselves to senselessness, following which he’d head home. Logic didn’t often go well with an intoxicated state of mind and he invariably used to pick a fight with her for even the most trivial of reasons. And then, he’d fall to bed, and sleep off immediately. She’d often stay back in the living room for a while, cursing her bad luck, her husband’s alcohol addiction and contemplating her and her son’s bleak future. Her tear glands were almost paralyzed, it did seem she had used up an entire lifetime of tears’ supply in the eight years after their marriage.

Things would attain a completely different hue in the morning. He would wake up sober and they would talk sensibly, like a husband and wife are supposed to. He’d occasionally help her in making breakfast and he’d be all eager to please her. “Leave the job here. Your job involves gun manufacturing, it is a sinful task. Let us find a job elsewhere, let us not work at a place where they profit when men kill each other.” Her suggestion would be brushed aside, she knew. “Yes yes, it is something we should think of. The company is doing well now, they will handout our bonuses in the next month. Manager saab was telling that this time they’ve made record profits and we employees should expect hefty bonuses. I’ll work till they pay out the bonuses for this quarter and then once that is done, I’ll start searching for another job,” he’d say, a lot of warmth and affection exuding from his eyes. And then the conversation would taper off.

She sighed. All these conversations, all these seemed to have happened eons ago. He had died six weeks ago, of lung cancer. By the time he was diagnosed, the cancer was at an advanced stage. The doctor opined that it is most likely caused by all the chemicals that were involved in pellet manufacturing since his job involved continuous and careless contacts with all those carcinogenic substances. In those few weeks since the tragedy, she had thought of multiple ways to start earning and knocked on various doors. But none of her efforts panned out. So here she was, making her way towards the gate of the factory as his replacement at his job. During the walk, she contemplated the sins that she was about to heap upon herself. The sons and fathers of men who would die from a gun that she would help manufacture. The wives and daughters of men who might stay alive if she were not going to work at this place. True, all this was real but equally real was her son’s school fees she had to pay. The grocer and vegetable vendor who had given her provisions for the past month but would stop free lines of credit sometime soon. She had no other option. A tear escaped her eyes as she crossed the gate.

“A month or two,” she thought to herself. “I’ll probably work here enough to pay off existing bills and then I shall look for another job.” She mentally cleansed her feelings of guilt that were washing ashore in her mind and made her way to the interiors of the factory complex.

Another Day in Paradise

Christmas time is one of happiness and joy, one of smiles and celebrations. And one of cold snowy winter as well. Three days to go before Christmas, the city was in a festive and joyous mood. That snowy night, I found myself walking on the pavement draped in all sorts of winter wear I could lay my hands on. I was missing my wife quite a bit, she had to go out of town for a conference and would be back only on New Year’s Eve. The late-night walks and a midnight coffee with her would’ve been just what the doctor ordered, if you ask me.

Yet there I was alone among a sea of humanity, with an all-professional visage in a surrounding filled with holiday cheer and festivities. Somewhere afar, I heard the hum of a cathedral bell chime ten. Even at this hour, there were a lot of people outside, quite a sizeable chunk of them with children, throwing snowballs at each other. I was immune to the celebrations around me, as I watched the setting dispassionately.

I slowly made my way across the street to a café. Like all other shops in the vicinity, the café too was decorated with Christmas trees and decorations hanging from the walls. There was a decent sized crowd in the café, most of them clutching their cups of piping lattes and hot chocolates taking in the vacation spirit and engaged in lively conversations. Just as I was about to push open the door, my eyes darted to the side. And there, I found him, yet another homeless man in this city of dreams. He had a blanket which he had draped across his body, and a tattered pair of shoes which, I wondered, did much to protect his feet from the wintry chill. He was not much different from the thousands of others whom I’ve seen on the streets over the course of years, but I shouldn’t generalize or trivialize this human being. This was not a number I could add up if I were counting the number of such individuals I had come across on the streets, this was a human being with life and blood.

Even he seemed to embrace the mood of the occasion. He was smiling, or more accurately, that’s what I read from the spread-out lips with hardly anything resembling teeth inside his mouth. Despite the cold, it seemed, he was bent on giving his life the few hours of joy and liveliness he rarely could afford. As I pushed open the door and stepped into the café, his face and his smile, somehow, had affected me. Something all of the life and energy around me in the past few hours could not do, a look at his face for a few seconds did for me. For the first time that evening, I found myself smiling.

I was still sporting my smile when I went up to the very cheerful barista at the counter.

“I’ll take a tall latte” I said.

As she was about to bill my latte, I corrected myself.

“Actually, make that two lattes. And I’ll add a couple of scones to that order as well.”

A few minutes later, I exited the café sipping my latte and holding the other latte and scones in my free hand. And I bent down in front of the man in front of the café and put down the latte in front of him and handed him the scones.

“Merry Christmas to you my dear man,” I said.

“You too, sir. Oh, thank you so very much for these. May God bless you!”

I smiled and stood up. As I slowly started to walk away in the direction of my apartment, I heard him say, “You’ve fed a hungry soul sir. That’s another day for you in paradise.”

The title is inspired by a song of the same name by Phil Collins. You can watch the song here and the lyrics can be found here.

Jacob Uncle

As instructed by wife over phone a while ago, when I got down at the bus stop, I crossed the road and made my way to Gopal’s Milma booth to buy a packet of milk. As I approached the booth, I saw an entry under the “Obituary” section of the public board erected by the Gram Panchayat. Curious, I moved in closer to see the person who passed away. Mine was a small village, which, in spite of the urbanization phenomena engulfing the entire country, had retained its village charm to a commendable degree. Everyone was everyone’s acquaintance some way or the other and with that, it made it highly likely that the person who passed away would be someone I knew.

On the board, below the text, there was a black and white photo pasted as well. Human mind has a general affinity to pictorial information over textual information and thus my eyes made their way to the photograph before the short text that preceded it. There was no doubt - the photo was of Jacob uncle. The photo was definitely not contemporary, it was in no way an accurate representation of how Jacob uncle looked over the last few years. Probably the photo was taken from his electoral ID card or something. It showed the Jacob uncle at least a decade and half younger. But there was no mistaking that it was Jacob uncle indeed. The text above mentioned that the death occurred late yesterday night.

I have been seeing Jacob uncle from my childhood. I remember vaguely a young and handsome form of Jacob uncle during my childhood. During those days of bell bottomed pants and hippie culture, Jacob uncle used to was the village hippie. I have heard my mother say that he was the first person to wear a pant in our village. Probably inspired by Amitabh Bachchan and Jayan movies, he used to have a distinctive angry young man flair. Those were the days when the whole village was without any fences. Houses continued one after the other, without being interrupted and gridlocked by fences and no one needed to ask permission to pass through when they were moving from point A to point B in between which were always situated, a few houses.

Jacob uncle lived a few houses down from ours and used to pass through our home en route to the marketplace in the village which was where the bus stop was. If my mother was sitting in the portico, they would greet each other and gossip for a few minutes. I could remember days when I would be woken up from sleep hearing the incessant (what appeared to me to be nonsensical) banter ongoing between these two people who were great talke chatter could range from a variety of topics, almost all of them centered on the universe called my village. Both of them liked each other’s company and there were instances when Jacob uncle ended up missing many a bus because he would squat on our verandah and talk with my mother for hours on, oblivious of the fact that he was just passing through my house and was supposed to be somewhere else by that time.

My mother once told me an incident from Jacob uncle’s childhood where Jacob uncle was with his father who was a lineman with the state electricity board. Once when Jacob uncle’s father was atop a post for repairs, someone accidentally turned the line on and his father was seriously injured by electrocution due to coming in contact with the high voltage line for an instant and fell off the post. Even though he fell on top of a pile of hay which absorbed most of the impact of the fall, the injuries caused by electrocution was extremely severe. Seeing that no one was around, and out of options, Jacob uncle, who was in high school at that time, carried his father to the nearest junction over a kilometer away from where he got a taxi to take him to the hospital. Eventually his father survived and the legend of the son stayed on.

If one were to see Jacob uncle in contemporary times, one would have found it really hard to believe such a story. Over the past half decade or so, the deterioration in his health was unbelievable, to say the least. Especially to someone like me, who had seen uncle when he was at his healthy best from the time when he was in his late twenties onwards. The fact that up until that point a few years ago, he was healthy and active and the sudden deterioration of someone who would be considered much healthy for his age around eight years ago was shockingly painful.

During my school years, it seemed everyone had a role to play in my life. Essentially, my life could never be viewed in isolation, it was a reflection of the life of the village. Like the newspaper guy Pathrose chettan, who used to occasionally give me unsold comics without taking any money. Or the village coconut climber Madhu chettan (so appropriately named because he was also the official drunkard of the village, and, by greatest of coincidences, alcohol is a synonym of the word Madhu in Malayalam) who gave me the first taste of toddy. He used to regularly ask me when I was in school, “Son, are you studying well? If you have to get a good job and live in a big city, you have to study well, only then you will get a good job.” On the day I got my job offer, after informing my parents, he was the first person I broke the news. He beamed with happiness and had wished me luck in my new job. Whenever I came home on leave from work, he used to prepare me a big bottle of fish pickle for me to take back to town. He was not a rich person, in fact he bordered on either side of meeting both ends meet and fluctuated too often than he would have liked. On my own volition, I had set up a job for Jacob uncle’s son Jibin at a workshop near my office as a mechanic. But the grime and dust of vehicular maintenance, couple with his asthmatic conditions meant he ended up quitting the job in town in a little over six months and went back to our village. Jibin did well after going back to or village, he finished a carpentry course from a nearby training institute and quickly became a well sought after carpenter in the vicinity. Jacob uncle was extremely disappointed that Jibin could not hang on to a more stable job in the city but I knew what Jibin had gone through and used to side with Jibin in his decisions. He looked up to me as his elder brother whenever he had to take some important decision and I was only happy to oblige Jibin because I felt I owed Jacob uncle after all these years he cared for me.

Meanwhile, my life was undergoing transformations as well. I married a lovely girl who continues to be my wife, had kids. As my familiar responsibilities moved from my parents towards my wife and kids, my visits to the village reduced in frequency and duration. What used to happen regularly every month and quite frequently more than that, was reduced to quarterly and semi annually. And without realizing, I was also losing touch with my village and the other people around whom my life used to revolve once upon a time, including Jacob uncle. My village changed as well. There were fences separating houses and boards against trespassing appeared. Small kachcha roads, over course of multiple election campaigns and promises, became pukka roads. Not everyone knew everyone else. The fabric was transformed, even if the changes were a reflection of what was happening elsewhere in the state and the country as well.

As my visits to my village became few and farther apart, so proportionately did my encounters with Jacob uncle. Since there was a pukka road from his home to the village square, Jacob uncle never really came to our house as often as he once used to. But still, whenever I met Jacob uncle, there was a lot of warmth and affection. He always used to be keenly interested in my professional and personal lives, and by association, with the lives of my wife and children. I had grown up in the strata to what is called by contemporary socialists as the middle class, but Jacob uncle and his family, weren’t quite there yet. They were still on the fringes. He knew that I was well off but he never asked me money, directly or indirectly. There were occasions when I felt I should help, but I backed away due to the fear that it would affect his pride, and subsequently, the rapport between us.

Someday, during the local pooram at the temple, during a casual conversation, one of my neighbors said to me, “Do you know that Onamkaleikal Jacob? He’s the father of the carpenter Jibin.”

“Of course, I know him quite well.”

“The other day, they diaganozed him with cancer. In his mouth.”

I stood there, shell shocked, unable to respond. He used to chew paan, much like everyone else in the village. If I were to throw a dart in any direction from the middle of my village, in any direction, I can tell you that the probability that it would hit someone who does not chew paan will be minimal. Paan was abundantly prevalent and popular in my village and everyone, men and women included, were regular users of paan. The cancer was probably as a consequence of chewing paan for over half a decade even though no one I knew had got oral cancer prior in my village. Sadly, this could probably be the first time.

The next day I went to Jacob uncle’s house. The house was almost exactly as I remembered from a few years ago. There were changes, the kind you expect with the passage of time, but the feel and essence remained. Jacob uncle wasn’t there, neither was Jibin. Jibin’s wife, a cheerful young woman whom I had known for years was surprised to see me. She told me that Jibin had taken his father to a hospital in the nearby town and weren’t expected before sundown. I had to return that day afternoon so as to start in office from tomorrow. Reluctantly I left, making a note to myself to come back in a couple of weeks and meet Jacob uncle. I missed that deadline, as I procrastinated. It was two months after the pooram in the village temple, the first time I learnt of Jacob uncle’s illness that I was able to visit my village again.

As I got down from the bus, I made my way to Kumaran’s tea stall, the focal point of the village news and gossips, just adjacent to Gopal’s Milma booth. There among a lot of familiar faces, I saw a lean figure, with a white towel over his head, sipping tea in a style that reminded me of someone. I took a careful look. It was Jacob uncle. Suffice to say that fter all these years of knowing him, I had to look astutely to actually make out that it was indeed Jacob uncle I was looking at. As if understanding my predicament, he smiled weakly. With the oral cancer inflicting a heavy toll on him, the smile was not pretty, but it was heart warming. “Coming from town?”, he asked me. I replied yes. Both of us took our teas in the hand and stepped outside. I was standing muted near this person, who was only a scant part of himself. “How are you?” I managed to ask. He didn’t reply.

I reached into my pocket and took out a wad of notes which were there. It was a spontaneous reaction, I hadn’t planned on that. I didn’t know how much cash was there. There were a few twenties and fifties and a small number of hundred rupee notes. I didn’t count, I didn’t bother to. In that frame of mind, etiquette was not even close in consideration. I turned around to make sure no one was watching and I tucked the notes in to the pocket of the shirt that hung loosely on Jacob uncle’s shirt. He tried to resist, but his protests were feeble, I was not going to heed to that. It took great effort on Jacob uncle’s part to speak a few words. In due respect, I didn’t talk anything. As we stood there, long after our teas were finished, we heard the sound of an approaching auto rickshaw. Jibin’s wife was coming in that. While we helped Jacob uncle to get into the auto, Jibin’s wife explained to me, “He wanted to come to the the junction and have a tea at Kumaran’s. It had been a long while since he had got out of the house so I told him to go ahead, I said I will come with an auto rickshaw to pick him up after some time. Jibin ettan hasn’t come back from work yet. Do you want to come home?”

“No, not right now. I’ll try to come by sometime later.”

I smiled at Jacob uncle, who was by now inside the auto. He said with his usual warmth, “Do come by if you have time.” I said I will.

I stood there without moving as the auto rickshaw carrying Jacob uncle and his daughter-in-law sped away and disappeared around a curve.

A lot of philosophical questions rushed through my mind. Why had God done this to this person, such a noble soul who lived an honest life and hurt no one, almost verbatim as the Bible preaches, I said to no one.

A few days later, I came to know of an incident. There was an NGO working amongst cancer patients in the nearby town. The oncologist Jacob uncle was undergoing treatment under was a part of their network and as a result, they contacted Jacob uncle and Jibin offering Rs. 10,000 towards funding for Jacob uncle’s treatment. Jacob uncle was weak and tired of repeated treatments, and by contemporary standards had lived a long life. He was in such a state that his doctor was not much hopeful even though he didn’t say as much. But his mind was sound and his thoughts were very much rational. When they approached him with the offer to give a cheque for Rs. 10,000 he politely but sternly refused to take it from them. They pressed Jibin but Jibin said he would abide by whatever decision his father takes without question because it was for his treatment and it was his prerogative to make a decision, not Jibin’s. I got in touch with one of the representatives of the NGO who had visited Jacob uncle who told what Jacob uncle had told them, “It is not right for me to take this money considering the fact that I have gone past the curable stage. I have enough money saved over my life to see me and my treatment through till I breathe my last. My son is doing quite well in his job and can comfortably support his family with his job. Please take this as a request from a dying man - give that money to someone who needs it more to come out of cancer.” In this day and age, where you occasionally hear of people and organizations fudging records to inappropriately claim governmental and non-governmental organizational benefits, that statement from Jacob uncle was indeed an eye opener.

I was woken up from my reverie by a hand which came over my shoulder. Matthew, one of my neighbors. “He was a good man”, Matthew said with a deep sigh. I nodded.

“The burial is in half an hour at the church. I am going there now. Coming along?”

I can buy the milk later. For now, I want to touch Jacob uncle’s feet one last time. To pay my homage to a great individual who lived and walked in this village till yesterday. With a heavy heart, I followed Matthew as he led the way in the direction of the village church.

Ye shall know the truth and truth shall set you free

“Your husband is evil, he is poisoning your body and mind”, her mother told her. She listened to her go on and on, ranting about all the evil things he did to her daughter. Her silence seemed to implore her mother to carry on, as if she gave her mother the permission to do this by not speaking.

Her mother’s words resonated with her. Late that night, she opened her diary, the solitary thing that had earned her trust in the recent past. Writing an entry in the diary was like salvation for her – it gave her silence a voice, her thoughtlessness a thought and her monochromaticity a hue. Of late, an entry in the diary for her was the equivalent of a child wailing his throat off out of frustration, it was as much a relieving force as an exercise in futility. All the memories came rushing to her mind like a flood, the pain he caused in her life, the feeling of being used and the belated realization that marrying her was only a way for him in his quest for professional glory in her father’s company where he worked. As her pen moved from one line to the next, she was wiping off the tears that streamed down from her eyes in a constant torrent. Every part of her body was shaking, and the tears was a way for her body to physically discharge the negative energy bundled up within her as much as the diary writing provided the same for her aggrieved mind.

She wished she had a chance to rewind the clock and start over again. To undo the mistakes in life that she committed when she was blinded in her devotion to her husband. To ease the pain she caused her mother when she decided to spend her life with him. And a ton of other things. Travelling back in time was not an option, the only way in front of her was to face it shoulders up and move forward.

She closed her diary, opened the drawer and tucked it in. Then, her eyes went to the sheaf of papers on the table that were fluttering in the light wind coming in through the window in her bedroom. She didn’t need to read them anymore, she could recite verbatim the contents of that bundle of papers that came in as a registered post to her home a little over two weeks ago. With a sigh, she pushed the sheaf of papers closed to her, flipped to the last page and signed under where her name was indicated.

She closed her pen, switched off the night lamp. And it is when the darkness that surrounded her, she felt to open the Bible on her desk and read a bit. She turned the night lamp back on, got her Bible. And randomly opened a page. And she read aloud what she saw, “And ye shall know the truth and truth shall set you free.”

Bride Seeing

Bride Seeing. Meh, that doesn’t evoke a feel. Maybe it is a the literal Anglicization of a term that goes just beyond the phrase itself. Hence stabbing the heart of all the English loving crowd of the populace, I’m borrowing the original Malayalam phrase for it – Pennu Kaanal. Pennu kaanal ceremony, and for those Malayalam skeptics out there, I’ll shorten it to PKC.

I’m certain the variations of this exist across the length and breadth of India, but the one I’m more familiar with happens in my home state of Kerala. PKC is the initial step in a guy losing all the carefreeness of his bachelor life and an admission of the girl losing all hopes of ending up with a George Clooney, Shah Rukh Khan or Virat Kohli and submits to pragmatic realities of life. Err correct that, PKC is a solemn ritual where a prospective groom meets up with a prospective bride at her place, with the decision of a lifetime resting on that singular visit and its told and untold connotations. On an “auspicious” date and time as predicted by a panchangam or an astrologer, discussed and iterated multiple times to suit the convenience of the prospective groom likely coming home on a vacation from a job in the Gulf (bear with me, I’m going by averages here! The average Malayalee still works somewhere in the Gulf) and the prospective bride’s family, the groom-to-be and family set out to head to the bride-to-be’s home. For the sake of this article I’ll skip the prospective bride/groom terminology and refer to them as bride/groom. Saves me some typing. Come on, I’m an engineer. Optimization, procrastination and lethargy (as much sweet sounding they seem) are the three things I learned in college. But that’s beside the point.

It all starts from some nosy neighbor or *that* jeju ki cousin ka phuphaji ka didi ke saans bumping into your mother at some social gathering, all the more spectacular if it is a wedding. If you are passed out of college and employed for a year or two, any conversation between your mother and such a person will not bode well for you. Such a conversation will have its regional seasonings but a short transcript would be like this:

“Aur aapki beta kaise hai? Kaam dhaam kaise chal raha hai?”

“Bhagwan ki krupa se sab theek hai tai. Do saal ho gaya job mei, ab ladka keh raha hai ki usko higher studies karna hai.”

“Arre higher studies kaay ko? Engineer to hai hi who. Ab koi acchi ladki dhoodh lo aur shaadi kara lo.”

“Lekin tai, wo bade forcefully keh raha ki usko foreign me jaake higher studies karna hai. Aur koi charcha nahi ho raha ghar pe aajkal.”

“Kya karoge higher studies karke? Waise toh accha college mei padhke accha naukri kar raha hai ladka, wo bhi Bangalore mei. Ab Amreeka jaane ki kya zaroorat? Wo dekh apna Vivek,, Payal ka beta. Wo bhi yehi keh raha tha. Payal ne nahi maana, pakadke shaadi kara diya uska, aur dekho kitne khush naseeb zindagi hai unka. Meri baat suno, aajkal ke ladke aise bolte rahenge. Yeh Amreeka jaake kitne bacche bigad jaate hai tumhe pata hai? Uski baat math suno, tum ladki dhoondna shuru karo, wo accha bacha hai, apni maa ki baat wo maanenge.”

The next day your mother calls you. You awake from half slumber in the morning and your mother tells you, “I saw XYZ tai today…” The moment you hear that you know what has happened and what is going to happen. Mentally shouting all obscenities at that random tai (and making plans to booze off this pain if it is a weekend), the guy protests but in these life (-and-death?) situations, somehow taiji’s words carry much more weightage than yours!

And so starts the search. Malayalee mothers and fathers search from ends of the earth for a bride or groom as be the case. A decade ago, it used to be the classifieds section in vernacular newspapers. But not to be left behind by the tech innovations arising out from garages in Silicon Valley and dumps in Bengaluru, the “reputed Nair family” fathers and the “Latin Catholic Vishwakarma” mothers get new Android phones and install the matrimonial application recommended by their peers or jeju ki cousin ka…. The standards are high; the filters are in place. Often the guy or girl is shocked to read the description of themselves the parents have written about him/her. “Amma, I never knew you had such an awesome impression of me. Why didn’t you tell me earlier instead of beating and scolding me all the time? I’m such a perfect kid, thank you for telling me at least now. By the way you talk of us being from some reputed family, is that actually the case? When did that happen?!” The only thing that would be certainly true in a random profile picked online would be his/her date of birth and phone number.

Okay, okay. I’m rambling. I’m mixing up preambles with the actual title of the article. I’ll get back to PKC. There are bound to be ramblings but that is me the writer (mis?)using my author’s freedom to the extent granted. I’ll skip the stuff that happens from the groom or bride search, filtering till the setting up of PKC. Fast forward to the actual day of PKC. The groom is on vacation so he and his family set out on a fixed date and time in the biggest car they can find (“Oh come on, he is working in the Gulf. What will girl’s family think if we go in Maruti 800!”). So Matthew the groom would be accompanied by his achayan Thommichan, ammachi Lillikutty, George achaachan, Molly chechi. Or if it is Vishnu, it’d be his papa Narayanan Nair, amma Kunjulakshmi Amma, ettan and  ettathi. Meanwhile, preparations would be full swing at the bride’s place. As if the groom and family haven’t seen edible food for days, there will be a welcome drink (don’t perk up if you think it is that stuff you get, you know, you know, I mean…, not that!), a course of tea and snacks and some main course palaharam, depending on time of the day. It is like Rashtrapati Bhavan when a foreign head of state and an entourage is coming on a state visit. All this while, the bride would step into the kitchen every so few minutes, check up on how the culinary preparations are shaping up and upload a handful of pictures on Facebook and Instagram of those delicacies in multiple angles and with multiple image processing filters. “Oh man, I’ll break my previous high for number of likes in a single day!”

As a side note. There are multiple images that come to mind when I hear the term PKC. There is the tea offered, the accompanying sweets, the younger girls in the bride’s family crowding around some door or window to catch a glance of the groom with not-so-subtle giggles, the sound of the bride’s anklets, gajra (mullapoo) on her hair…and much more. But I think in terms of importance, Cuticura talcum powder probably trumps all. Let us admit, we Malayalees are not generally fair skinned but we are as obsessed with fair skin (“untanned” is a less racist term in a place where sun beats over our heads with all its fury 10 hours a day for 300 days a year) as any other Indian is and the short term solution to that is Cuticura. Cuticura probably makes and breaks more marriages than they care to acknowledge but credit must be given (and taken from) where it is rightfully due. Oh, and also Parachute Coconut oil. The father whose head is as bald as a field after crops have been reaped extols the virtue of regularly applying coconut oil at least five days a week for over five decades. The son is concerned whether his Brylcreem effect will be nullified by use of coconut oil. That is an ongoing debate, I’ll not delve into that.

The party of the groom reach the girl’s house. All those pleasantries are exchanged. “How was your flight from Gulf?” as if, if the flight were bad they could do something. “Did you travel business class? I don’t go economy class nowadays, the ACs don’t work in that class.” “Is your manager Arab?” Blah blah. The groom had bought new shirt and jeans for this day - specific instruction from the mother who thinks that’ll propel someone from cattle class looks to look like those guys who show up in advertisements. And since this is the first day wearing it, the groom now realizes that in his haste, his jeans are a waist size too small. The elasticity of jeans is in a very “pressing” war with the muscles lining his lower stomach and the stomach is dangerously bordering on winning the war, but the groom has to indeed put on the best smiley face. “And I thought the real war would begin after marriage!” And so on goes the show, till when everyone is exhausted about topics to talk. Job details, check. General Gulf news, check. Last monsoon and its stories, check. Condition of roads and traffic, check. There are only so many things two families who are complete strangers can talk about. And when the topics are dispersed with, the bride’s father turns to her mother and whispers something in her ear. She turns to some relative sitting next to her and does the same. The relative turns to the person next to her and the same process repeats. “Oh come on, I know what you are telling, you can as well tell it out loud instead of doing this silent murmur message passing thing.” After a few hops the message has reached the person closest to the door and he/she patiently waits even though everyone knows what is the whisper all about. And when it “officially” reaches the last person inside, he turns back and heads inside. Action time.

Aah the Noopura Dhwani. The mellow sound of anklets fill the air. Does it have a rhythm? A flow to it? Does it sound like “aishwaryathinte siren” to borrow from a popular Malayalam movie? He never really bothered to study Doppler effect but the groom knows enough to make out that as the source of sound comes nearer, the sound gets louder. Poor Mr. Doppler, after all that hard work, his theorem has been sidestepped. The clinking sounds of the anklet reaches its peak. And a girl makes her way to the door, snatches a peek at the groom, and with a giggle, stows herself behind the door. “Oh no, that is my cousin’s daughter, she is very naughty.” And that is when the bride makes her entrance. She’s in jeans and top, clutching a mobile phone in her hands, her phone emitting singular notification sounds of what are invariably messages asking for live updates. “Could you do a live stream on Periscope?!”

The awkwardness shows no sign of abating. The bride’s family stare at the groom, and the groom’s at the bride and they expect us to start talking like we were best friends who are seeing after a long time. All those rehearsals of watching YouTube clips of PKCs from movies have gone in vain. Both don’t know what to say - and neither of them wants to screw up bug time asking those random questions “Which college did you study?”, “Who was your favorite teacher?” Ugh. Finally, as the awkwardness reaches a crescendo, someone mercifully says “Why don’t they speak to each other privately?” Thank you uncle. Remind me to get you one of those Whiskeys from the duty free shop when I come next time.

So off they head off. Both are relieved, probably for different reason. The groom feels that with all the discomfiture his jeans are causing him, a walk even if ten steps it is, would be useful to “set things right” The girl has not checked her last Facebook photo upload for over twenty minutes now, not to mention about all those texts pinging her phone every few minutes. She’s eager to “get back to action”, online. And so they move to an adjacent room, and somewhere the ice is broken. They start speaking about random things - things that either of them really don’t care about and which neither of them would’ve spoken had they known each other prior, but hey, this situation warrants things happening differently! Eventually after some few minutes of random chit chat they are called back to the living room where everyone is. The parents of either parties cast furious glances at their wards to see if they can discern anything from their facial expressions or their body language and the bride and groom try their level best to mask their feelings. After all, he/she is right now the center point of attention among their relatives. Such occasions come rarely and who wants to move the spotlight out huh?

By now, quite a while has elapsed and multiple courses of food and drinks have been served. Certainly the groom (and for gender parity, the bride as well. Puritans, pardon thy for this unholy reference!) would much prefer a McDowell’s and a few pieces of Tandoori chicken for touchings but alas the occasion demands much gentler recourse and he has to wait till he gets back home, to tonight for “opening the bottles”  And so, with the topics of general discussions already stripped to a bare minimum courtesy over an hour of absolutely useless and unfruitful conversation, someone from the groom’s party, most likely his father initiates the process of gathering the crowd and making a move on. The apprehension is palpable in the air by the time the groom and his party get back into the car, for both the families are waiting for to hear THE word from their kids. The one word. Depending on that word, these trips in car by one family to another could be a regular theme for years to come or alternately would soon be forgotten in the annals of time. As with happens in Indian movies, since eventually the hero and heroine come together and live happily ever after, I’ll take a leaf from that book and say that it was a happy ending. Now, depending on where you come from, happy ending might mean different things for you and there is that..! Hence, I’ll sign off without a climax, for a change. That, my very unfortunate reader, is upto you to fill in!

Post Script: It would be incomplete without mentioning what is probably the precursor to all those Central Bureau of Investigation and Federal Bureau of Investigation. The pre marital investigation of groom/bride by the opposite party. According to the Six Degrees of Separation theory, any two people on planet are connected by no more than six degrees or steps. In other words, if we map from person A in continent A speaking language A to person B in continent B speaking language B, we can find a friend of friend of…(maximum six times) … of A who will be a friend of B as well. Malayalees have understood and assimilated this theory better than a lot of other species and as a result, whatever the circumstance, the bride’s family is indeed able to dig out information about personal and professional aspects of the groom and his family and vice versa. Someone should file a patent application for recognizing the pioneering efforts of Malayalee family (or Indian families in general) to the science of investigation and their contribution in making the field of personal and private investigation where it stands today….

One Last Step to Glory

As she stood there, on the edge, her entire life flashed before her eyes.

She remembered reluctantly walking to school holding her grandmother’s hands, the night out studies for her board examinations, college and hostel life. Her marriage, birth of her first daughter. It seemed as if she was watching herself through a kaleidoscope. Her thoughts were interrupted when she stole a peek to what lay below her. A long way down, she could see the huge river meandering through the landscape.

Fear gripped her body. She felt numb as she stood there. If the wind were any heavier, she thought, it’d have done for her what she was lacking the courage to do for the past few minutes. A gentle push was all that was needed for the solitary step ahead. Into emptiness. Maybe into a new lease of life.

She closed her eyes. She knew she had to do it. She had thought about it, she had made plans for this moment, and yet when it finally arrived, she seemed to be powerless to actually take the leap. She sighed, as she thought of the loving face of her husband and the cherubic face of her daughter.

She closed her eyes. And taking a deep breath, she spread her arms to either sides. The instant before she actually took the final step, she felt angelic. And she took the last step, she leapt.

The river seemed to get bigger and bigger and she approached it with the speed gravity permitted. The same body of water which was comfortably distant a moment ago, seemed all eager to lap her up, as it had undoubtedly done with a thousand others.

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As she felt the chord tied to her leg tighten, she had a feeling of elation. With that, she mentally crossed off Bungee Jumping from her life’s to-do list.