PEACOCK FEATHERS IN A TERMITE-EATEN TEXT BOOK

Koya NPK Muthu, Untitled, acrylic on canvas

 

  Two Weak Hands

The shop is run by my father. He is the only one there, and he alternates as the cashier and the weighing man. The shop is a retail outlet of public distribution system of the government which supplies rations – rice, wheat, sugar and kerosene to the rural folk. Father takes me, a three-year-old kid to his shop during the evenings. The place is illuminated by a sole kerosene lantern. The little fatso is placed strategically on top of a sack filled with rice. The village women bother him constantly by asking silly questions. Fatso is disinterested. He is too shy. Slowly he falls into a slumber.

Please take him home

The women urge the shopkeeper and he does that. The shop is closed in a hurry. He carries the little one in his folded arms with great effort. He is a tall and lean man with hands resembling the drumsticks. Darkness has now fallen everywhere and the little fellow lies like a dehydrated tuber leaf over the drumstick props.

Nandan P.V., Untitled, acrylic on canvas

  The House

Facing the north, there is a small verandah, two tiny rooms and a kitchenette. The verandah functions either as dining or office cum drawing area. There is a front yard where guava and drumstick trees are at their youthful best, jasmines and Nanthyarvattom (crape jasmine) in full bloom. Beyond that, the domain is that of water. The ribbon like stretch of land is covered by water on both sides. A latrine in water supported by coconut trunks completes the scene.

 Letters In Sand

The Asan initiated you to the world of letters. He took the child’s forefinger and wrote the alphabets on rice. He wrote the first set of nine alphabets on a dried palm leaf with his narayam (a pointed writing instrument made of hardened iron) and handed over the leaf to the new disciple. He or she was to learn them by writing repeatedly on sand.

My first Asan, Raghavan Vaidyan practiced Ayurvedic medicine as it was his vocation. He initiated kids on the Vijayadasami day, the day earmarked for learning alphabets and passed on the remaining formalities to lesser gurus. They were full-timers who made a living out of teaching alphabets. Kaimal Asan was one such. I went to his school which boasted of a thatched roof, bamboo curtains and plenty of clean dry sand. There was a Kooja (earthen pot) filled with drinking water with a few pebbles thrown in for cooling. Kaimal Asan was fair, bald headed and bespectacled. His most precious possession – a chronometer- always stayed with him, in his shirt pocket. We used to look forward to these moments when he took out the machine and nursed it like a newborn child.  We had plenty of time to do whatever we felt like. We studied in unison in rhythmic movements. Education was like singing in a chorus.

 The Medicine Man

My first guru Raghavan Vaidyan, apart from initiating children into learning mother-toungue, treated the village folk for all sorts of ailments. His specializations included psychiatric disorders too. When he treated any such special patients, news spread and everybody made a beeline to his place. Raghavan Vaidyan stayed in a ‘brick and mortar’ house, plush by village standards. The kitchen and eatery were separate blocks. People gathered at his premise watched with bated-breadth as he handled the patient. Once it was a girl in her early teens. She was in a belligerent mood and refused to obey the Vaidyan. She started abusing him and shed her clothes in a moment. Outraged, the Vaidyan took out his long cane and started beating her black and blue. She cried for help pathetically but nobody moved.

Deepthi P. Vasu, "A reminder for the Universe" gouache water colour

 

 Obscured By Light

The evening was over. The time was past sunset but darkness had already covered the village with its blanket. My mother ran short of cooking oil and she asked me to go and get some. There was a provision store at a stones throw but I wouldn’t venture out as I was scared of darkness. My protests were overruled. Mother armed me with a kerosene lamp and I edged ahead reluctantly, keeping the lamp very close to my face. It was blinding me. With the lighted kerosene lamp on one hand and the empty bottle on the other, I was moving towards the river. The geography of our village was such that long stretches of land were surrounded by water on all sides. Makeshift bridges made out of coconut trunks connected them. Like a somnambulist, I walked past the familiar grounds to an unknown destination. Suddenly someone caught hold of my hands. “Hey you”, he slapped me. Dharmadathan, my uncle was watching the movement of light. I was jolted back to my senses and was saved.

 Vayanayila (cinnamon leaf) In The Trousers’ Pocket

 I joined the government LP school near to my house. There was no such thing as a kindergarten or a nursery school those days. A huge Gulmohar tree stood like a pillar of strength in front of our school. There was a temple nearby devoted to Devi, the primordial mother. My villagers paid regular visits there with whatever offerings they could spare... money, coconut oil, fruits or flowers and prayed in loud whispers. We explored the small sacred grove behind the temple during the breaks and collected canes and vayanayila. The canes were presented to our teachers and the leaves were kept for us. Belief was that as long as vayanayila was intact, the teachers would never beat us. We played the game Police and Thief and criss-crossed the school ground many times a day. Occasionally the roles reversed with the thief chasing the police. The scientifically inclined among us mixed lime with water in a small bottle, covered it's mouth with a balloon and placed it under the sun. The balloon got larger and larger until it lifted the bottle off the ground. The experiment invariably ended up in crash-landing.

            Gopi, a classmate showed me a small bell, curious one indeed, which might have been fallen off from the anklet of a dancer. He said it was bestowed to him by none other than a “Saip” (foreigner) who was traveling aboard a helicopter. The white man was standing over the tail of the chopper and was delighted to see Gopi on the ground, he said. The bell was thrown down as a present.

            I believed Gopi in full.

Running Through The Rain

All of us moved to the third standard. A new girl, Sunandamma, had joined. The schools in Kerala always reopened in the rainy season. One day, it was pouring “like an elephant’s trunk” making it impossible to venture out. Sunandamma couldn’t hold up any longer and she urinated in the classroom. The school had a urinal, one without a roof, situated at a distance. Sunandamma couldn’t have made it even if she wanted to. The headmistress got furious and sent her out. Crying aloud Sunandamma ran to the toilet through the downpour. After a couple of minutes she came back completely drenched. Her anguish and humiliation were showing as tears rolled down. All of us felt like crying. The headmistress came forward and embraced her like a mother. She began to dry the girl’s hair with the loose end of her saree. Sunandamma was still crying while she encircled the teacher with her slender hands.

And it rained through day and night.

Surendran P.Karthyayan, "Mookkuthi"