wutheringheights

My first train journey started with a fall. I was three year old. The compartment was waiting at the ‘outer.’ Since it was a break-up journey, we got inside it a little early. While my parents were busy arranging the baggage, I played up-and-down on the exit ladder. My first attempt was good, but the second one got spoiled. I lost grip and fell down. A railway employee (or a policeman?) who sat nearby immediately took me into his hands and performed a ‘pendulum-shake’– towards left and right for five times each. I was ok. But still, there was a mix of mud, tiny stones and blood oozing from my mouth. The sad patch was soon taken over by surprising images -- the midnight sun of the engine, waterfalls and the cashew uncle. We were on our way to Goa . A handful of peeled cashew nuts would come out of the window before our compartment. My dad would receive it with his right hand through our window. One or two might fall down. It was magic. Although I was clueless about its origin, I enjoy

wutheringheights: A tribute to Pavada Sir & Jumper

Last week while reading Kigsley Amis' Memoirs, 'Jumper' came to me . The context was different, but still 'Jumper' took me to my school days. We had a neighbour, a Singapore-returned, who used to wear only bell-bottom pants. To the 'creative' locals, it looked like a skirt, so they called him '*Pavada Sir'. The stout, polite man was also a magician. We got to know about this when he performed a show in the local temple in my hometown Attingal. Pavada Sir started off well, but failed while lifting a flowerpot using a thread. When the crowd laughed, Sir tried to pass the buck. “See, I told you guys, I needed a very calm atmosphere. Since you people made noise, it didn't work out.” That was the first and last public performance of Pavada Sir. Pavada Sir didn't mingle much with the locals. The only person who he used to talk was Raghavan Nair, his childhood friend. But Nair never thought that he would have to pay a huge price for this friendsh

Black, white and sepia memories...The picture of OV was taken at Santhigiri Ashram in Pothencode, Thiruvananthapuram. EMS... at VJT Hall, TVM.

It's 1 am. I was watching Andrzej Wajda's Kanal , a movie on the Warsaw Uprising, when I experienced my seventh earthquake. The third after coming to Chennai. It was a minor one, which lasted almost twenty seconds. It took barely five seconds for me to realise it was an earthquake, but i didn't get up. Soon my mobile started ringing, it was Bishwanath (he thinks i am an earthquake specialist, because when the Lathur tragedy happend, I was in Pune). We talked for ten minutes. I switched on my TV, there was no news... As i write this, there are two things before me. Kanal and earthquake. Should i write a poem?

A couple of years ago while walking through the busy M G Road in Ernakulam, my friend and I ran into two sex workers. We were drunk, heavily. Srikanth was then an active member of a group which organised seminars for sex workers all over Kerala. According to him, they (sex workers) are doing a great service to society. And in most cases, they act as a grievance cell for men who are in search of a close heart -- a cot where they can share ‘everything’, confess everything. As we slowed down, a welcome gesture came from one of the ladies... The usual communication test began under the shades of neon. Srikanth was not interested in the ‘eye-gesture’ business. He looked sad and apologetic. “S, I want to touch her feet, as a token of respect. Can you ask them?”, he requested. The two ladies knew we would approach them. “Hundred”, the elder one made a sensible move. Fine, but how would I convince them about my friend’s unusual intention? I looked at the younger one, who looked new to

I am not an admirer of  Muhammad Ali but I am an ardent fan of Hulk Hogan. The reason is simple. In the late 1980s, almost every Malayali who worked in the Gulf returned with a couple of video cassettes of American wrestling. The availability of such cassettes abroad, especially places like Dubai and Sharjah, made Hogan popular among us. I don’t know much about American wrestling but I like Hogan. I still remember an yellow-colour cassette my uncle got me from Dubai. The cover showed different poses of a heavy man with long white mustache and hair. What was special in Hogan compared to other wrestlers, you might ask. I like Hogan because he was an embodiment of defence. You would see him badly beaten up by rivals, blood oozing from his mouth but once he had decided to get up, no one could stop him. So much was the power to stage a come-back. I have seen cricketers returning to form after a bad patch. I have seen business magnets making remarkable come-backs. But I have never seen a

I had left my house for lodges a couple of times during my college days. Maybe this was because of my great fascination for old, stinky lodges with common toilets. I was also attracted by the mysterious presence of creatures like bedbugs, mosquitoes and cockroaches in the interiors of these ‘budget’ rooms. There was a sense of rhythm in our live-in relationship. The cockroaches were the most liberal, as they were occasional visitors. Once in a while, someone would perform a mid-night-walk over my body. I could even feel in my deep sleep the ‘hairy legs and antennae’ moving from one end of my body to the other. The action would last only for a couple of seconds. The mosquitoes attacked me only when they wanted food for thought. The bedbugs were the most dangerous. They were good mind-readers and they did this even in my deep sleep. Despite the disturbances, we shared an absolute tent of unity. A friend of mine had an interesting experience when he was staying at a rented house in

A former colleague today invited me for her birthday party. The invitation over phone was different. "Hey, Saju. I turned 40 today, just want to celebrate it. Please come to the Guindy Race Course club tonight." Normally, I avoid birthday parties. I hate being formal. If at all I want, my communist hangover comes as a barrier. But today's invitation was different. This is the first time someone inviting me for a birthday party after disclosing the age. How many women do this? I still remember how furious my mother was when my dad got her age wrong (two years more to her exact age) while booking a railway ticket some twenty years ago. Let me tell you another incident from my childhood pages. The character was Sarada, a vegetable vendor. If you asked Sarada how old she was, she would immediately tell, "I am 38 now, and next Dhanu (March) I will turn 39." Nobody would believe Sarada's words. Because her elder son was 30 when she said this. Usually, Sarada wou

Six months ago, when I visited the controversial Thoothampara Estate near Nelliyampathy, I saw a deer's skull kept for drying outside the storehouse. I immediately took a couple of pictures of it from different angles. The workers told me they would send the skull to the forest department in a month's time. Recently, a wildlife enthusiast from the area told me that the skull was missing from the storehouse. I had my own doubts about the skull when I saw it. The kind of care it was getting made me believe that a "rich enthustiast" would turn up at any moment. Good that i took the pictures, otherwise you might ask: How does it look like?

A couple of days ago while returning from work I stopped at a shop near my house in Velachery. An old woman and a little girl were standing before the shop. The woman was counting some old ten rupee notes while the little one was busy. She wanted chocolate, not the usual ones but Kinder Joy. The poor woman was struggling to pronounce the word so she asked the shopkeeper, Mutta chocklate irkka, saar ?,. The shopkeeper laughed. The little one's ego was hurt. Patti, Kinder Joy, thereelya, she tried to explain it. The shopkeeper's reply was a bit surprising. "If I stock Kinder Joy, I will definitely lose my regular customers. I used to stock it but you know whenever children come to the shop, they ask for it. The parents (rich or poor) will lose Rs 30 at a stretch. It's a kind of addiction that children get from this egg-shaped toy. The next day they will again ask for it. So my customers suggested I must stop ordering this toy which I obliged." True, that's wh

Rajan died yesterday. At 47, he was not healthy but never showed any visible symptom of illness or uneasiness when he came to see me during my holiday in Kerala last month. We spoke for a long time, in fact he was asking for a copy of the coverstory that I did for my paper eight months ago. There was a reason for it. The story was a satirical attack on politicians. I met a couple of genuine boozers from different parts of Kerala and asked them what they would expect from the politicians. Most of them replied quite boldly and of course they were right. Rajan spoke against his favourite party, Congress. He went on and on...from his childhood to being a Youth Congress member. He said despite his hardwork, he couldn't make anything out of politics. "I am still a poor man. I don't have money to take care of my mentally retarded son. After all I have to find a good guy for my daughter. I don't know when I will have money for all these things," he said. He was sad. Me to

Watching Ritwik Ghatak continuously for two days brings back memories of film festivals at my home town, Thiruvananthapuram. Akira Kurosawa was our favourite those days. I never had the opportunity to watch Ghatak so close. Yesterday, i saw Subarna Rekha and Nagarik. Today, Komal Gandhar...more to come....

Yesterday, a neighbour couple adopted a 4-month-old baby girl from a reputed orphanage in Chennai. She was sleeping when we, me and my 5-year-old daughter Mihika, went to see her. Though I was happy seeing the child, I was a bit disturbed with questions related to the baby's birth....who's her mother, dad? How did she become an orphan? etc etc.. Whatever it be, i didn't want to spoil my mood, for this was the first time in my life i came so close to 'adoption'. I had studied the subject in my Law days, but never got so close to the process. A friend of mine once told me he wanted to adopt a boy since he has a daughter. He had a reason. It was in 2004. The tsunami had just hit the Indian shores, killing thousands of people. He wanted to adopt a child among those who had lost their parents in the disaster. The idea sounded nice to me and i encouraged him. A couple of months later, the friend told me that his wife was pregnant and he wanted to abort the idea of adoptin