A Case for Fitness

I was going through local news and came across an interesting piece. There was a raid in a local lodge for 'immoral activities' and among those caught, was a man aged 78.

That should be a lesson for those middle aged guys that let themselves go all soft once they are in their 40s. The above news  underlines the fact that fitness is the key, yet again.

The young ones managed to outrun the police.

Making A Name For Yourself

I have often wondered what a person has to achieve in life in order for future generations to remember him. Everyone cannot be a Gandhi, or an Einstein or a Genghis Khan. Even if you were prepared to settle for something less, what is to be done? There were those statesmen and bureaucrats who made waves or even minor earthquakes while they were in power. But nobody seems to hear about them anymore once they retire. And not everyone can hope to be even one of those. You tone down a little more and think what you have to achieve so that people of your tiny village will remember you after you are long gone.

I have stayed out of my place for extended periods but it is as if I lived there all my life. I remember the junction where the bus stop was, 35 years back. That time there was a tea shop and another shop that sold rat traps and such knickknacks and toys on one side of the road and a pan shop on the other side. This junction was a place they placed cinema posters of movies playing in local theaters. Walls of those establishments usually had posters and other graffiti on them. But what I am trying to remember is the people. Do I remember the famous people that lived in my village in the past?

When there is a death in the village, I become philosophical and think if those people are going to be remembered a few years down the road. Would their grandchildren remember them? Do I know anything about my Granpa's dad? Very little. And no idea about of my ancestors before that at all. And it will be the same more or less for most people. If you forget the 'progress' part out of human life, they lived just like us. They played, got drunk, partied, fought and  had kids etc. They thought they were important just like we all think we are important and look where they are now. Not even their great grandchildren remember them.

I try to think and remember people that lived in my village in my time and that are dead now. Mind you, I am not trying to remember the name of some people that are dead. There is a difference. And I don't seem to be able to remember any of those 'pillars of society' when I try. The first names that come up to my mind are Raghavan and Pavithran. I try to analyze why these, of all people.

Raghavan had a knife wound he was proud of. He was a rowdy when he was younger but once he retired, he turned his focus to booze and smoking weed. He was found dead in front of a shop one morning. As to Pavithran, he was known to have a career relieving people of their possessions when they were not looking. He worked nights. He took his own life one day.

I have a theory forming in my mind by now. To be remembered, to be part of the colorful history of your village, you need to have a 'reputation'. But then, by this time I remember another couple of guys. One is Keshavan and the other is Madhavan. They didn't have this kind of 'reputation' I touched upon earlier. I think.

Keshavan was known because I remembered him only as Viruddhan Keshavan (Keshavan the Rebel). A name given to him by the village affectionately long before I came on the scene. And Madhavan was always known as Thoppi Madhavan. (Thoppi= A Cap) Madhavan once entered in to a bet with somebody and lost it. So he was required to wear a cap for a period of time. Just that he never stopped wearing his red cap ever after. It became a fixture on him forever after. Hence the name.

So, what is the common thread here that joins all these guys I remember as part of the history of my village? Raghavan was always known with his caste name prefixed to Raghavan. (He was a goldsmith by caste) Pavithran had his career label prefixed to his name too. So I adjust my theory a little and conclude that it is a name that you earn in your life that makes you a legend later. You might be an upstanding citizen of your time, a pillar of society and all that, but it all come to naught a few years after you are gone. You are just forgotten.

I sit back, satisfied with my analytical skills. Just the same, I think again to make sure there aren't any loopholes in my theory. It would be a nasty shock to bump in to any old pillars of society when I am parading my theory to others later. And at this stage itself in my fantasy I bump in to a solid one. This guy hailed from a respected and wealthy family. He never was known to booze or smoke weed. If he had a knife wound, he hid it well. I always remembered him dressed in a white mundu and white Khadi shirt. No red cap. For that matter, no cap at all. He didn't fit in with any of the characters I mentioned earlier. I know my theory can't be that off the mark. I think hard and then I get it.

He was known as 'Nehru' in the village because of his dress and the fact that he looked somewhat like our first PM minus the cap and the rose in the buttonhole :D


------------------------------------------------------------Some of the names have been changed in this story

Going West

First things first. Here, by west, I mean the western side of my village. In the old days when I was a kid, the west was just rivers, canals and rice fields. My Grandpa lived there. So, I used to visit his place when I had time. It was fun there. I get tender coconuts every time I visit. Plenty of mangoes when it is in season. Can fish, play in the water, get a country boat ride now and then through the river etc etc.


I walk a short distance on the main road, then another quarter of a km on a dirt road. Which ends at the river. Here, on sunny days you see women washing clothes. There is a bridge, which in the old days was essentially 2 planks, each a foot wide, joined somehow together, side by side. You climb the steps and step on  the bridge and the adventure begins. As you get to the middle of it, the up down motion starts getting very noticeable. Once you cross the bridge, you get to the 'west'. No vehicles beyond this point. You walk on a ridge, that is a kind of barrier that separate the river from the rice fields. Uneven surface here. If you are lucky it won't be very slippery. You walk on the ridge, which is about 4 foot wide, for another 200 meters and get to a place where you can let your breath out and walk without fear of immediately falling in to the river or the lake on the left. ( Lake, because the rice fields around this place are mostly not cultivated usually. So it will be filled with water. Generally water lilies and such vegetation floating around.) This is somebody's property but people are allowed to walk through,because, if someone were to block the path, then no one will be able to move around those places. You soon come to a small stream or canal. The bridge here is a concrete beam with a rectangular cross section. about one food wide. Only a small distance to cross and it doesn't oscillate. Now I stand in my grandpa's property.


Most houses in the west typically stand on land raised from low laying areas. So when it is monsoon season, most houses will briefly have 'running water' facility through them. When it is real bad, people move in with their relatives on higher land. It becomes practically impossible to walk on the ridge then. Water will be flowing over it in a strong current and you would have no idea where the river or the lake began.


They live in the middle of water but they have to bring their drinking water from some distance away. Because if they dig a well, they get salty water around those places. There are more houses towards the west and worse canals and bridges. Some of the canals will have just a coconut tree trunk for a bridge. Usual to have a slight rolling motion towards either side, in addition to the up/down motion. Someone who is not used to these places would gladly throw in the towel at this point. Yet, you would see women walking those tree trunk bridges with a pot of water on their head and another pot in their hand. If you were contemplating crawling across, they could even take your hand and walk you across without any problem. If you are a kid being helped across thus, having a one track mind helps. You just concentrate on not thinking about the abyss below till you are across.


You would think these ladies of the West could  whistle a merry tune while balancing a pot of water on their head, another on their hip while helping a kid across by the hand. But this was not so. Surprisingly, these brave ladies could never whistle.


My step Granny never even sang. At best, she recited some verses while she prayed at home or in Church which was mostly in subdued tones. All the years I have known her, she looked essentially the same. Always the proper dress for women of Christians our side, old fashioned. This traditional dress always fascinated me as a kid. ('Chattayum Mundum'. The white Mundu is wore such that it will have a fan shaped tail. The tail is what makes it look funny in the eyes of kids) My aunt could sing one or two lines of popular songs but the less we talk about that, the better. But there was one thing remarkable about her. She had, and still has, a hearty laugh for the occasions when she found something very funny. Many years later, this laugh would be used by diesel auto-rickshaw manufacturers for the start up sound of their autos, when they  release them in the Indian market.


My Granpa I always thought was an ordinary old man. He read his paper, smoked his beedi, went about his farming etc. But he was a very wise man. I divined this by chance.Once I was there, me and Granpa were trying to read the newspapers. Women were chatting loudly with the neighbors who dropped in for gossip. Those days people had lots of time, see. This loud chatting was getting on the nerves of us, the Men. They stopped only to draw breath or to shout a curse at an errant hen that came too close to the house or to scream at the neighbor's kid that went too near the river. I sense my Granpa getting exasperated with his reading. He lower the paper and mutter through clenched teeth,


'Vekili!!'


Now that is a slang term to describe unruliness in general. I liked him saying this. Shows him in a new light.


Years pass. Granpa is no more. I am unmarried and so theoretically should be having an orderly life. But there are times when one encounter this scene again in life. Typical family with women and kids raising a racket (sounds of domestic life) and the men of the home pulling out their hairs in exasperation. I tip my imaginary hat to the old man, remembering with awe the time he said that one word in my presence.


'Vekili!!'


He was indeed a wise old man. 

Yaadon Ki Baraat Nikli Hai.....

I knew this tune as a kid.  Only, just forgot the opening lines (all of the lyrics I knew of this song) and the tune was long forgotten. I was looking for some old songs the other day and came across this song by chance. It is always a nice surprise coming across long forgotten tunes.

I used to be a good bathroom singer till I was in to my early 20s. Always loved the acoustics of bathrooms. It sort of give a resonant quality and booming nature to my voice. I am sure I could have given even Rafi or Kishor a run for their money, if they cared to enter in to a singing competition with me in the bath. Not that they would, mind you. They wouldn't risk being shamed and thus taking a hit to their reputations.

In those days, the average shower time went like 60 minutes, the duration of an audio tape. Being a perfectionist, I would sing all the songs in my latest cassette from the beginning of side A to the end of side B. In the order they appear on the cassette. If it were in other languages, I sang what I knew of the lyrics and hummed along merrily the rest. Complete with background music whistled in where needed.

This bathroom singing faded a bit once I got older. Mind being heavy with other thoughts while in shower, like the design of a device that would facilitate harvesting of coconuts or  what to move next in an online chess game or thinking up some nasty things to write in the latest blog war somewhere etc. I still sang now and then but it was only for the duration of the shower. This happened when the heart was light and I absolutely had to sing.  The practice of showering for the sake of singing was abandoned long back.

So I come across this old tune again after a long time. So when I go in to bath, I naturally burst in to song spontaneously. I know only the first line and the rest I hum and whistle. The casual listener outside, if any was there, might suspect I was being tickled in between but I assure you, this was far from the case. One cannot be expected to sing the same way when he is soaping his back as when he is soaping his chest. The pitch goes a bit higher while soaping the back, the rhythm subtly getting livelier there a bit. Just like variations naturally happen when the singer  is applying soap to the face. Soaping done, I shift gears and now move my hands to wash off the soap and be as good as new again. Song gets a bit shaky when I run my hands through my hair, taking care of the shampoo to go as well. All is well till my hand comes back behind me again.

Here my hand encounters something, which I could have sworn was not there in the Pallavi (First stanza of the song) and worse, it seemed alive. Song freezes on my lips. I take a smart step forward, move my hand in a swift flicking motion near my derriere and turns, all in one fluid motion. Almost a dance step, only my mind was not on dance then. There is a small splat sound. I see a small green grasshopper lying on the tiles, apparently in a stunned attitude. I frowns. I doesn't like interruptions when I am concentrating on something. I consider what to do with the intruder. Kill him? Almost as soon as I think that, I dismiss the thought. I am supposed to be in a good mood today. The g.h somehow wandered in and was probably sitting down somewhere thinking things himself  when he found his environments getting flooded. He hopped and landed on my behind along with the droplets, in all probability. I gather a thoughtful mug of water and try to persuade him to move towards the wall and higher grounds from there. This achieved, I continue my shower but without singing.

I think about this new incident. Why, of all insects, a green grasshopper in my bathroom? Why he landed on my person there? There is a belief that these green grasshoppers bring luck. How does it mean bringing luck from this unexpected angle?

I am getting hungry and decide to finish shower and dries myself. I think about whats on menu for the supper. I remember being told today it is going to be  tapioca with Karimeen (a variety of fish, very tasty) Curry. Now too much tapioca is something the stomach could rebel at, with or without the curry. I idly worry if the grasshopper portends a windfall on the other side come next morning, something I could always do without. I eat in moderation and think how I am going to write all about this later....

 Too bad there is no Moral of the Story to go along with this. Hmmm. How about, 'Watch what is creeping up your behind while you sing and make merry in your bath'?


12 May 2012

Being More American Than Most Americans

In the old days, lots of Keralites used to go abroad looking for better opportunities. (They still do even when we have more opportunities at home these days.) 2 or 3 decades back, there was the trend of typically Christian girls, training to be nurses and then going to the USA. Then they come back and get married to someone from Kerala and then take him along soon after and they probably settle there.

First time I heard of this was when I was a small kid. A close friend of my dad is married to a nurse. She first went to the USA and then got the papers all ready and was going to take her husband abroad. Apparently, this was big event then. So his colleagues decide to give him a send off. They hire a van to see him off at the airport. I was the only kid in the party. Don't remember if I was even 5 years old. I didn't have politics then, so I was only glad to go along for this. Shucks, if somebody gave me USA on a platter then, I would have tied a string to its leg and dragged it around happily for days. The journey to the airport was nice. As usual, I get a side seat and enjoy the views. The elders made a racket joking, singing and shouting as they are inclined to do on these kinds of occassions. We get to the airport and I get to see an airplane close for the first time, sitting down on the ground. It made an awful noise though. I have something to think and to talk about to people for a life time. Most folks haven't seen one this close, I was sure about that. After the bird has flown, we go back. We stop at a lot of tea shops for refreshment on the way back. The noise slowly subsides as we stop for more and more refreshments, as I remember it.

.....

I don't know why my mother used to joke about this trip to her friends and drag my name in to it every time she talked about it. The story goes like this.

After the trip, we get home and my mother ask my dad if he was drinking toddy. He innocently ask mother, 'What toddy?'. So mother ask me if we went in to any toddy shops. I say no. She ask if we stopped for tea while on the journey. I say yes! She ask me if the walls of the tea shop had white painted wooden screens in them. I say, 'Yes!'. And my mother and her friends laugh.

(in those days, those white painted wooden screens were a fixture of toddy shops) 

 Years goes by. My dad's friend visit Kerala now and then. He brings presents for his relatives and friends. I remember he bringing me dress and chocolate. (I still didn't have politics then!) More years go by and I slowly become political. So when he comes for a visit, I like arguing with him I suppose he was mostly egging me on but I suspect he was at least a little being more American than most Americans. We argue about India and America. I still remember the time he acted out how our then PM went to the USA to seek aid. To beg, in his view.

I don't know how I replied to that but I don't forget him acting it out I was not angry at him and laughed at his acting. I must have been in my early 30's then. More time pass by. Last time he was here, I was in a better position for our argument. And I am getting better with saying things in that dry tone and straight face, ya know. This time I thought I was getting him unsettled. He was trying to hit below the belt and his wife was getting concerned and trying to cool things off in a diplomatic way. Our families were around watching. I didn't resent the old man. I could still believe he was playing. So at a point I tell him that I am leaving the argument because I can't go beyond a limit and laughs. (I call him uncle) He suddenly beam and ask me to step close. Says, 'Come here. Let me hug you!'.

Some American thing, this real hugs. I am not much in to those but I sacrifice my fine feelings and step forward. All is well.

---------

I can't stop this without stating that, he bought a property in Kerala and is planning to retire here I should ask him next why retire to the 3rd world India when he is an American, dash it. I am sure he will tell something about sentiments for the good old Kerala. 

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 If you are interested to read a little more about toddy shops in Kerala, search for 'the toddy odyssey'. An article that I came across about these shops. I was researching to see if the white painted wooden screens still were there. I think it is well written.
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(I posted a copy of this in the other site too. This is for the occasional visitor that is not a member of the other site)