My story begins in a village called Nellur somewhere in ottapalam area of Trisshur disrict in kerala. The place is situated by the side of the longest river of kerala- Bharta Puzha(Indian River). To one side of the river, spalshes of greenery covered a small Nellur Railway station in itself camouflaging a much greater and more developed town of ottapalam full of normal city hustle bustle but realtively better than cities as people here are not of cut throat mentality but are calm and peaceful. I know you all will be asking me why I am telling you about a city starting the story with the name of a village. Well ,I will take back to that beautiful place covered with tall coconut tree cashewnuts palm trees and whatnot. I don’t think the words of an ameture person like me will ever able to describe the beauty of the place. Well for now I think you all have to satisfy youself with your own wild imaginations by making it all run amok as much as you can.The village of Nellur is situated on the other side of Bharata Puzha where one can see a small port concreted with cement by panchayat authorities which also goes off after two months of its laying and inaugration- forming potholes during summers and miniuatre ponds during rainy season telling the story of deep rooted corruption which has also managed to reach a place like this. Well let us cut this social problem crap and move on. On the port on can see auto’s waiting to get the people coming from the station to meet their loved ones in the village of Nellur. Boats can be seen parked in front of the port floating on the remanants of the monsoon’s water quietly narrating the story of human ingratitude,using them when they need them and throwing them off when not needed.Moving on when one hires an auto and gets in, the first thing that they see are heaps of cements and bricks littering the road making it all more difficult to ride along with potholes. One can see trucks parked by the side of road and truck drivers sleeping showing the tardy progress that the place has undergone over the years still trapped in age old oudated ideology of communism. You know why you see those trucks parked there-- because a bridge is being constructed on the river Bharta puzha and you will be surprised to know that the construction has been going on for last 50 years or so( That’s what my dad says). Whether it is center or right or left in power the bridge has never seen itself completed and a generation has passed since its construction was first started. Oops I am again talking social crap, sorry, well you know these are things which always has sustained the people’s gossip’s in the past and hopefully will sustain in the years to come. Well now I must take you to the Nellur village as promised.After hiring the auto and crossing the administration cum political cum Social barrier erected by us over the years you need to go straight and don’t tell your auto driver to stop till you see the chirankara junction-Nellur people’s own town center. And take right from there and go straight till you reach Navodaya Vidyalya. The road diverges from here and from here you have to take the right side and move along- For Reader’s attention we are now in the village of Nellur and the readers are requested to put their concentration in- maybe for the most heart warming story you all might have ever read. You are now in the village of Nellur.
The sun descended down the green brown hills with sky darkening red with one more day of my vacation going to end. I walked on a path which I like, Delhi staying guy cannot call a road but for the people here this is also enough for them. Slanting downwards it merged itself into the much bigger brother of its own. And to the side of that path Thakkappan pappan was sitting watching at people coming and going and sometime staring into nothingness as if thinking something deep. He has seen the world move on, in front of him at the pace which he only dreamt and now he was there trapped in his own web of problems not able to get out and watching other people coming and going leaving him the job to sit and watch to pass his life.
I walked down the path and got on to the main road crossing a flag post on which a saffron flag was fluttering in the evening breeze. It was the flag of a Right wing party of India. Kerala saw an assembly election only 2 months earlier with Left- led front sweeping aside the Secular party-led front re-establishing their old strength and might. Giving a brief glance at the memorial of a Secular party leader that was erected by the side of the Saffron flag post I walked on. An old man was sitting in front of his house, oops not WAS sitting but who HAS BEEN sitting there for all these years with his skeletal legs long back affected by once dreaded diseases Polio stretched in front him, it seems that he was waiting for his death not so far removed. He smiled at me and asked “Aniyan vittil indo?” (Is your father at house?)
“Illeya”(No) I replied “Acchan auru sthalatha poyerikannu” (He has gone out)
Returning back his smile I walked on to my destination with a sense a urgency as it has already started to darken. After walking on for another 10 mins or so, I stopped in front of a small and an old iron gate with 2 cement pillars erected by the side to support It .I opened the gate which made a clanging sound of rusting iron joints rubbing against each other. As I Entered I saw an array of coconut trees standing to my right and left standing as watch towers as if looking for any threat from the outside world to those living in here. These trees have seen many people come and go but I don’t think any of them has seen the one whom I am going to see now. Older trees might have seen her as a child but it seems hard the younger trees might ever be knowing that such a person also lives in that house. With a long pathway in front of me leading straight down to the house I walked on inching nearer to the house which according to me was a glaring example of what living hell is. I moved on the path which was pretty long and terminated itself in short steps made of mud. I climbed down the steps to see my self standing in front of a house with a lady standing in front the veranda to welcome me. She was lean and thin with a skull like face and wearing an old, tattered sari but smiling at the sight of me which itself was radiating with the warmth which I can bet that you will not get anywhere even in the cosy luxury of the Taj Hotel. I climbed on to the veranda of the house narrowly avoiding a suspicious yellow colored liquid lying on the veranda. It was giving out foul smell and I was almost sure that it must be the urine of the old man who was sitting on, the other side of the slab on which I was sitting. Nearly in his 90’s, His head was bald with tiny beads of white on the barren landscape of his scalp, with all wrinkled face and the back stooping low supporting himself on a walking stick and his old fragile legs swelled upto a size of a football he slowly looked at me as if it was a movie shown in slow motion. He raised his tired hands up to his eyes level and slowly put in on his scarcely seen eyebrows to get a better look at his grandson. But the age has it and unable to recognize me he asked in his worn out yet powerful and heavy voice “Ara Attha” (who’s there?).
“Aniyannte kutty ana, Aniyan live na vannata enda” (He is the son of Aniyan [my father’s name in my village]. He has come on live” The lady in tattered sari replied. But he couldn’t understand and resigning himself from the whole scene he looked at the other side to continue with stories of his childhood and days when he was young, rich and vibrant but off the track in his life.
“Yepla vannade? Entha aniyite kuty knduvarane (When did you come? Why haven’t you brought your sister?)” she asked, still her face lit up with her warm smile. “Yyaan innelle ana vanathe. Ponni ammaede, achannte kude poyerikannu (I came yesterday only. My sister has gone along with my father and mother.” I answered grimly.
Taking the cue that I was upset for not taken along with them she changed the topic and said “Yyaan chaia edakam (I will get tea)” and she went inside. Looking all around to get a good look at the house I admired the skill of the head of this house who has manged to plaster every crack and patches on the wall with whatever he could. The wall of the veranda was no better and here another innovative idea was brought in by him. A line photographs of all their precious and happy memories of the past, of the days when they were happy rich and prosperous now embedded on photographic sheets and enclosed by dust layered glasses were put on the crack’s and holes to hide the poverty in which they lived in.Moving along those lines of photograph and inspecting them closely like a general inspecting his soldiers I got tired looking at the photographs again and again so I went into the house. The main door opened into a tiny hall which was so small that it ended as soon it began terminating itself at a small cement slab at the end which for these people was a kitchen. There was door right besides the slab opening to the back side of the house. To the right of the hall there were 2 rooms—2 small and tiny rooms like a prison cell and with no light inside covered by darkness telling us all the darkness that has engulfed the inhabitants of this not house but a depilated structure. To the opposite side there was a small window that was the only source of light and air in the this small dinghy. I could see a cow standing there,lean, thin, overtly undernourished with bones projected out of her dress of skin munching away whatever it’s owner could afford for her.
But these were the things unimportant for me, The important thing for me was the one who was laying in front of me covering every inch of the floor of that small hall since her unfortunate and a cursed birth. Crumpled and reduced heavily wrapped in torn bedsheets and cloths, lying on an old mattress Was my cousin sister Ammu eldest of all my cousins but destined to live like a tortured soul as a retribution of some past unknown sins trapped in that cage of flesh blood and bone depending on others for her vey survival. She was suffering from cerebral palsy- a neurological disorder affecting a person during a person’s infancy or during embryo development not curable but treatable to some extent. Mouth opened since the time of her birth blaring her overgrown teeth which she sometimes tries to close, her hands tilted, curved, pointed at curious angles giving occasional jerks and jumps like a state demanding secession from the center making curious and strange noises lying there on that old torn out matterres with cotton coming out declaring their own independence from the unending burden of the person lying over them. I caught the smell of a shit seeping slowly but effectively through the sheets covering her and a thin strand of saliva falling from her mouth flowing on the pillow viciously. My nose wrinkled at the prospect of spending here for another 15 min by the side of the girl who for past 28 years has been dependant on her mother even for emptying her bowel.
But I must do justice to her by mentioning here that even in that desperate and pathetic condition in which she was living for past 28 years or so her face instantly lits up and glows when she sees her relatives and there was no bound of joy when she saw her little brother after a gap of 2 years. She struggles and moves as if trying to break open the chain’s with which she has been bonded by the almighty. She creats noises and comes out with phrase’s like ‘kazicho’ meaning Eat or ‘aniya’ Meaning little brother in Malayalam. She tries to lift up her head and moves as if trying to get up and jump up to me to give me a tight hug. I gave a small smile and took out a chocolate from my pocket putting it into her mouth. There she goes again making again all the strange and curious noises expressing her own heart felt happiness to see me. Even in that moment of manufactured happiness I could hear sobbing of the lady in tattered saris who was now sitting besides me. Tears rolling down her eyes loosing itself into the wilderness of the threads of her sari as her sobbing gone soft and pale suppressing the long felt pain in her heart probably accepting the cruel fate that she had suffered since the time of her marriage. I sat there quietly staring at sister unable to offer any words of consolation to my aunt. My cousin sister craned her neck to get a good look at her mother and then looked at my with her beautiful round eyes as if asking me to console her mother who had nothing but tears to devour about all these years occasinaly blamed by the people in hushed voice for being herself evil to give birth to such a cursed child. My aunty was married to to a man who had everything that he wanted in his life, money care love protection support- everything that his rich father, the one who is now sitting on the veranda could give. But as it is said nothing is decided by us the fate turned him into wild drunkard and a gambler to destroy all that he inherited from his parents leaveing his own children to suffer for the sins he comitted. His son was now doing labour job to support his already crumbling family and to mop up the wrongs comitted by his father. Their eldest child, elder than the one lying died of tumour at a very young age inflicting a unhealable pain(No, sorry it was not healed by time even) on the hearts of us all as she was one the most loved in our family after ME(Yeah, I am the one most loved, that’s what I claim).
With these thoughts crossing my mind all I could do was stare at my sis who looked back at me with her beautiful round eyes. Hey don’t feel disgusted about me-- How can you accept me to say or offer any words of consolation to a person whose life’s has been blotted irreparably by the cruel hands of fate. “Ayyo! yyaan cahai terran marannu”(OH! Sorry I forgot to give you tea) My aunty said giving me the glass having tea( No don’t tell me that it is “Cup of Tea”—I know that-But how can you think, that such poor people will be having fancy Cups to serve tea) and wiping her eyes with the end of her sari breaking those uncomfortable moments of silence. I took it from her and blowed over it as it was still hot burning my fingers. That is when I noticed some books and toys lying in the corner of the room. I got up and walked to it taking the books in my hand I asked “Itha arrede anna”( To whom does these books belong)
“Attha chechidea Unnie avvala 123, ABC, Malayalam aksharam padikyan vankiyan paryannu, appo vankichttha aane”( It is of her. She asked us to buy it to learn ABC 123 and Malayalam words) she said getting up and coming over to me.
“Chechi na vayankyan arrayu?”(Can she read Also?) I said in wonder. “Ooo avalka Yellam vaykyan arayum”( Yes she can read everything) She replied. Her face getting lit upwith the same smile with she welcomed me. Clearly taken by surprise I started flipping the pages with my hands( well you know I handed over the tea back to her for a moment). It was full of pictures with ‘AA’, ‘AAA’,’E’,’EE’ WRITTEN in Malayalam. I flipped on of the page and ended up at the picture of a lady holding up and kissing her baby with word ‘AMMA’ written in red letters in Malayam. Yes this is the word that is holds a lot of value in everyones life. A word so pious and holy even the name of God or his name him self will not hold much value in front of it and in this case very important to the girl lying down on the floor who is very much debeted to her own mother. I put down the book and took back the glass of tea from her hand sipping it feeling the hot liquid but sweet flowing on to my tounge and running down to my throat invoking me with same warmth that I first felt when I saw the face of the lady in tattered saris.
Walking back to my house I felt heaviness heaving me down making it all more difficult to walk up on that slanting road landing my each steps with a gentle thud on the ground. I saw a small latern burning itself in front of Thakappan Pappan’s house who was now immersed in every evening drinks howling out old pattugal(songs) at the top of his voice. Watching his sheduled acrobatics I stumbled upon a deep thought on how foolish the Israelis are fighting over a small stretch of land by killing civilians and then claiming that they are doing it as a last resort, How foolish was Ajmal Kasab when he took over the job to murder those innocent civilians at CST, How foolish were those Right Wing leaders were when they murdered Muslims and Christians in the name of religion, Yes, we all are foolish even the great Einstein or the Communist ideals Karl Marx or Lenin for thinking theirs were a discovery unique from everything and their discovery was their own. Yes we all are foolish for thinking that we are the kings because nobody practically nobody is a king as everything in this world was in hands of God. He can make and break, and Aren’t we all lucky for the fact that we are being provided with Two legs and Two hands with a mouth and a pair of beautiful eyes to see all that goes around? Yet we waste away all the blessings of the alimighty on the senseless activites of killing, fighting and spewing venom on each other.
With these one simple but very powerful thought came to our mind that - the most lucky one in this world are not the ones who are Healthy and alive like you and me but the one like my own cousin sis because we have lost our innocence but they are the one who still holding it intact. We all have healthy body which again is subjected to pain and worldly torture but a mind stained and disgraced by our own activities and thinking but for them they are not given a healthy body, only to keep their minds away from the stains of the world giving them all today’s much commercially and spiritually valued-----
PEACE OF MIND.