TRAVELLING DOWN AND OUT (Part 1)

My wife and I found that there were a lot of places thin our immediate reach worth spending a day. We used the public transport for conveyance and were happy eating out in village teashops or roadside joints. Most of the times we didn’t have a specific landmark to visit. We strolled through the country roads, talked to the children, made friendship with the strangers and moved on. My son in particular was very receptive to new experiences.

We went to a place called Oorkadavu at the outskirts of Kozhikode city, amazingly serene and picturesque, to spend an occasional evening. The river Chaliyar was quietly flowing and we walked through its banks to a bend. The sun was setting over the plantations and it was a perfect moment to reflect on our lives. Life had been a difficult teacher, always demanding and never giving us any good grades, but we were not going to complain. Not that we believed in the unquestionable authority of the teacher, but we had a feeling that we became sort of a refined lot after taking many setbacks in a row. There was absolutely no bitterness.

Slowly our itinerary took a bigger route. We toured the neighbouring district, Wayanad. We greeted the new millennium in a modest hotel room at a place called Sultan Battery, 2000 odd feet above MSL. Bhajans from the road down below wafted through the early morning mist and woke us up. A small group of people, men and women wearing white cloths could be seen as abstract figures in motion. They used simple musical instruments for accompaniment

We didn’t join the conducted tours arranged by travel agents and never hired any guides. At times auto rickshaw drivers doubled as our guides even without a formal request. Prakasan was one such. He drove us to the Soochippara falls in his newly acquired vehicle.

The roads were ill-maintained and he took great pains to move us to the nearest motorable point near the waterfalls. Then on, it was a dangerous trek upwards through the forest. If one slipped from the narrow trekking path, one was bound to fall into a steep gorge with practically no chance for immediate help. The area was uninhabited. We thought of giving up and return through the same vehicle. Luckily Prakasan was made of different stuff and he came forward to become our impromptu guide. Trusting him fully we climbed our way up and the light was receding. We wanted to get back to our base before sunset. It never crossed our mind that the fellow, known to us for hardly two hours could snatch away my wife’s gold chain or signal his collaborators to pound on us while trekking. We were not worried. After the tedious trail, all of us settled down on a rock near to the bottom of the two hundred feet waterfall, took to its comforting and forgot all our troubles.

We visited the heritage sites too. Many of them were raced to ground and even the remnants were not visible. A group of children from the neighbouring UP School at the Pazhassi Raja fort volunteered to show us around. Somebody had written obscene graffiti on the wall and the students seemed to be worried about our seeing it.

Pazhassi Raja fought his last battle here.

One of the boys pinpointed to a place. I was reminded of a similar statement made by a villager sometime back when we visited Lokanar Kavu to get a feel of the great martial arts master, Thacholi Othenan.

See, Othenan was felled here by treachery, he said.

We didn’t know how to respond. There were no signs of any monument in sight, only a Palmyra palm leaf was dug into the ground. It stood as a befitting memorial. All others, people and monuments were racing towards oblivion.

We went to Thirunelli and stayed with the Warrier family who were in charge of the daily chores at the temple. A room or two were earmarked for guests like us willing to pay for the hospitality. The Warriers kept us occupied with interesting information about the place. The history of the temple was engaging dating back to an eighteenth century ego-clash between kings which ultimately resulted in the construction of the temple in the thick of the forest. We listened to the couple sitting on a wooden bench in the verandah while a simple vegetarian dinner was being readied inside.

Thirunelli also provided us the venue for first meeting with the adivasis. We were apprehensive about communicating with them as we thought the language would be completely alien. Another preconceived notion was about their dress. We met a small group of Adivasi youths at the village square and found them clad in normal clothes- shirt and lungies. Their Malayalam was not grotesque, either. We requested them to escort us into the forest and they happily agreed. The boys were in their late teens, drifting after discontinuing their education. None of them seemed to harbour any fond memories about schooldays. They guided us through a lone path running by the side of a stream at a slow pace. Our silly questions on life in the jungle were answered in detail. The main topic centered on rouge-elephants and we were given essential lessons in identifying them, especially the moments of vulnerability. We stepped into the stream when we felt tired and ate boiled eggs and bananas. Further journey by crossing the stream into thick woods was vetoed by me as all the three of us, my wife and son especially were increasingly getting shaky, gripped by an unknown fear.

Let’s return

We pleaded to the sons of the forest.

On our way back we found a house aptly named as Koomankolly, complete with compound wall and iron gate. The old tile-roofed house was owned by the famous Malayalam novelist P.Valsala to write her books in peace.

Hey, the wild elephants move around this place, I exclaimed.

The adivasi friends agreed in unison.

It was revealed to me instantly that we had to travel quite a long way to reach the forest. Until we felt that the pulsating quietness of the woods was a part ourselves.

(to be continued)

MURAL AS A PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVICE

The “Karma Theory” is rather strange. One goes through umpteen stories embedded in “Puranas” which correlate rebirths to good or bad deeds done earlier. Take for example, the case of Indradyumna. He was the King of Pandya. Not an also ran, but a heavy-weight in kings. Once Agastya Muni visited him when the King was busy in the royal toilet, a royal pond to be precise. Agastya waited for a while and cursed the King for breaching the protocol. The time-delay in spreading the red-carpet for whatever reason is unpardonable. The King becomes an elephant. Luckily each curse incorporates a “winding-up clause” which exonerates the wrong doer if he/she undertakes the “jail term” with understanding and restraint. He/she gets back the freedom. Somewhere around this time, a Gandharva named beautifully as “Who-Who” was voyeuristically moving around at the bath-places of young women. Apsaras may be. Who-who was a hard core voyeur, no doubt. He was asking for a curse and he got it. He turns into a crocodile. It so happens that the elephant is caught by the crocodile when the tusker stepped into the river. A fiery battle follows with the elephant loosing. Faced by sudden death, he prays Mahavishnu who does appear and kills the crocodile. It’s a win-win situation now. The elephant as well as the crocodile are saved. Both the King and the Gandharva attain Moksha. The Karma ends and there is no more births. It is interesting to watch the killing scenes depicted in the murals. The divine killer is holding a deadly looking weapon and pressing it into service too, but observe his/her eyes. They are (invariably) filled with Love. Absolutely no trace of anger or hatred anywhere in sight.Violence can also become spiritual, who knows!I saw the mural “Gajendramoksham” at the “Krishnapuram Palace”, the abode of Kayamkulam Kings.

They were bachelors. The king has got a designer bath-pool inside the palace living area. The pool has a long walk-way on one side, a corridor like structure where murals are painted on the closed side. The other side is open. The King takes bath every morning and climbs the steps to the changing room. As he emerges from the pool, the sun rising, the mural Gajendra Moksham arrests his attention. It’s a psychological device, CPA perhaps, to keep his mind steady and serene. Applying the technique to modern times, luckily a cheap substitute is available. As you are aware, (even) Mallu painters sell for more than a crore. Commissioning a mural is out of question. There is a way-out, still. Any number of photographs are available in the print media. They appear at frequent intervals with alarming regularity. Yeah, I’m talking about the photographs of suffering like the Sree Lankan Tamils fleeing for life,

the Palastinian children killed in Israeli bombing, stunningly beautiful Kashmiri girls killed by militants lying in state, the fragile and undernourished Adivasis made to stand erect at gun-point by the police, the sickly Somalian baby being attacked by an eagle………….The images are endless.Fix these pictures on the wall near to your dressing area. They have the power to work on you without consent. By the time you are leaving for office, your mind would be so detached that no distracting thought would ever enter at least for eight hours. In fact, you will be in a state of delicate sadness! However, its an ideal platform for any kind of operating environment!Try it, for a change.

wwr,

Pradeep

Dinner with the President

Recently, I saw a documentary, “Dinner with the President” by Sabiha Sumar & Sachithanandam Sathananthan/Pakistan/52’30”/2007 at the festival circuit. Lasting less than an hour, the documentary portrays quite literally, dining table talks with the (ex) President Musharraf in his palatial bungalow. The lady and her husband are very close to the first family and they ask questions regarding the intricacies of power to the President. The questions are rather pointed, “What sort of role the General would assign himself as the Head of the State?” The reply is crisp and to the point. That of a facilitator, Musharraf says, he would act as a facilitator for change. Change is inevitable, he adds. People are supreme and they are destined to make history through changes. He is just a humble administrator. “I would rather act as a catalyst”.

Fine. At least, the General is familiar with the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, Karl Marx and Mao Tse Tung. He has got a grasp on Bhagwad Gita too. It is Gandhiji who said the best government is the one which rules the least. “States will wither away”, Marx forecasts, towards the end of the revolution series when countries and demarcations cease to exist. “Rthm is the word”, Bhagwad Gita enlightens, and one has to align with it. Rthm is a complex expression which can be loosely translated as a variant of Dharma. It denotes the symbiotic relationship between all things in Nature. The interdependence of things. Rhtm helps you locate your (exact) position and once this is done, changes no longer become a source for concern. And finally, the Mao part. He is the one who put people above all. According to Mao, history is created by people and not by Rulers.

As Musharraf is doing justice to the colourful Pulav served by waiters wearing white hand gloves, everybody listens in rapt attention. In fact, all are awe-struck except his wife and mother. Begum Musharraf is a passive listener. The First Lady shows an element of disinterest whereas the First Mother, in contrast, cannot stop interfering. Her persona is familiar to anybody who traveled through North Indian villages. Tall, lean and bespectacled granny type with an aura of authority. Normally reserved. Such a lady speaks in chaste English,

“My son was a leader from his childhood days….his friends and classmates used to look forward to him in moments of crisis”, she says.

And the litany goes on.

Would she harbour the same fondness for her lesser sons? I am not sure. (Why doesn’t Begum Musharraf utter a word?)

Is mother’s love conditional too?

I don’t know.

“Shall I take leave of you now, my son?” the mother grasps the Presidential hands and gently leaves, escorted by orderlies.

The other diners are still in awe.

One of the prime-requisites of the “successful” leader is to instill a sense of fear among his/her followers. Sabiha Sumar and her husband are pals of General Musharraf. Still they are treating him like hot potato. I think there is an element of Hitler in every “successful” leader, be it a nation, sect, music-group or whatever else.

After her dinner with the President, Sabiha goes on to meet the religious leaders. The Mullahs are visibly uncomfortable in her presence, for she is the sophisticated type, wear salwar-cummez and her hair is open to public gaze. She asks a few ticklish questions to the clergy concerning a woman’s right to choose, the double standards practiced by the society and about freedom in general. The all-male-bearded audience gets irrevocably irritated and leaves en masse.

In my opinion, the fear element worked here also though in a subtle way. The fact that Sabiha is close to the corridors of power unnerved the Mullahs. They cannot do a fig to her but not vice-versa. She can do a couple of things to them as she has access to the Presidential ears.

A couplet from “Thirukkural” comes to my mind. Power should be treated with detachment, it says. The example given is that of a beggar receiving alms. What would be his/her state of mind when a coin is thrown to the bowl?

(Thiruvalluvar (circa 200 BC), weaver by profession authored Thirukkural)

Exhilaration? No

Pride? No

Hate? Not at all.

The person takes it as it is, presumably without any emotion. Power also should be treated that way, according to the Kural. In fact, the Indian history boasts of too many such rulers who touched power wearing gloves of detachment. They considered themselves as trustees or caretakers of people’s wealth bestowed to them by chance or destiny. In other words, they considered themselves as mere Managers of the Big Boss, answerable and accountable always.

The nearest example is that of the Travancore kings. By the way, I am not advocating a walk back into the bygone era. Even in Maharaja Swati Thirunal’s (see pic) time, an amount worth Rupees two to three lakhs was spent on buying silk every year. Burlesque, of course. I am just trying to showcase an attitude to handle power. There is a catch however that the mindset of detachment is directly coupled to several other attitudes like resisting indulgence, deriving happiness from essentials, leading a high intellectual life etc…

Do you agree with me, Sir?

Thank you for reading this far.

wwr,

Pradeep