Little Romance

Looking back it was funny, bit fascinating and a little blushful to recollect the silliness that surrounded the infatuations of the golden teen and early youth. And to now put them into words would look like a long overdue self-confessions of the once juvenile delinquent. The prelate and the confessor are the same. Nope, it is not confession, as there is nothing in this matter that is sinful to seek absolution through confession! I’m trying to live a bit in the past to see how fanciful and fascinating some of the romantic fads were. If one cannot find fanciful, cheering thoughts from those days it will be a wasted la affaire with life- insipid too! They must be seen as the lighter side of experiences that one would be very unlucky to miss out. Not many are unlucky, I guess but as I mentioned many may see it a bit awkward and embarrassing to savour it at a time when one has crossed much of life. It is funny to turn back now and look, really. I mean it. Come on, though it was intense and (serious) affairs of life then!

I’m glad I’m no bard, no poet and or can I be operatic and bring all those into folklore.

I met her again quite by chance many years ago. I was in my home town for a weekend and a car that went past me a distance screeched to a halt. And she opened the door and came out beaming. It was an unexpected meeting, meeting of a kind as I had not had a thought of her for a great while.

 ‘Hello this is a pleasant surprise’, I said my mouth agape. ‘Were you following me or is it that I went the way you would travel’, I asked rather mischievously not waiting for her to reply.

She smiled and we shook hands. She had put on a bit of extra pound and the “Zeenie baby” (Zeenath Amman) looks and appearances that attracted quite a few eyes towards her was vanishing.

She laughed and said. 'Take it any which way you want’.

I was a bit wordless for a brief while, did not know how to move on the conversation and neither did she. A few seconds that resembled ages went by. And then I gathered to ask, ‘are you on vacation here from Hyderabad?’

 She told me that was so.

“Well what about the boss?” I asked and honestly wishing he was not there in the car.

She said with a squint and a slight smile, perhaps reading my thoughts, “He has not come down; he stayed back in Hyderabad on some business”.

‘So what is up with you? Continuing to enjoy life as a loner, don’t you have any plans to have a back pack to tag you on?’ She enquired with a naughty smile. I told her that it was the back pack I was worried about all the while so I decided to let it be so for a while long until I can fool someone.

‘Don’t you go down to Hyderabad for your work?’ she inquired.

 ‘Yes I do, but rarely, have been there a few times just for a day or so and would journey back as soon as I got done with the work’.

‘You could have got in touch. Oh yes I see perhaps you was bored with all that long ago uh?’ She may have meant that as an accusation of sort.

“Hey, are you accusing me? How would I know where in that city you live?” I pleaded helplessness.

‘Come on man if you wanted you could- get the address from my dad.’ She shot back.

 ‘By the way, how are they your brothers and parents?’ I asked as I wanted to divert from the subject.

Incidentally they were from Sind who migrated long ago to Th'puram. She let out a sigh and said. ‘Ill luck seems to be journeying with us. D, died last year, the same end as you also feared and told me once, “He crashed head on, on his motorbike.”

It was some years earlier to that she lost her sister who was a few years older. C was allegedly murdered by her husband’s family. It was a case of bride burning, dowry death if one can call it. The matter was closed as self-immolation- suicide.

This boy D was a freakish speedster on two wheels and a brat, spoiled at that. Though I knew him as her brother, he got to know me from an incident where I played the “Good Samaritan”, when he got fairly bruised in a scooter accident right in my view some years ago while I was in college.

 Two little faces extended out of the car window. Hey I said moving a step towards the car, ‘what is it you have here’ ,I exclaimed and  patted the little faces and peeped in to see a third one- a cute little cuddle spread-eagled in the rear seat.

‘Yea my kids’, she said.

 ‘My goodness, hey this is a fast scoring rate’. I cried out loudly pulling my head out and facing her.

‘Yes man, what can I do, my husband wanted it so’. She confessed her helplessness.

“Yes back pack indeed, as I can see”, I thought.

That was the last time I saw her and it is now about twenty five years. 

Matters of Fact

Over the years a regulation that is so true and that I trust, is the fortune of having friends who are quite a notch above me, as persons- intellectually and as general human beings. To be peeved and be jealous of the qualities or achievements of one’s friends is as foolish as sky diving without parachutes, as trekking to the poles in your sneakers.. To be sequestered in a circle of friends or even acquaintances who are better persons than one, will only enhance one’s being and to think otherwise is because of the paucity of commonsense and the stranglehold of ego. Both can be detrimental.

I advise my children, A and R who are much charmed by the small number of my intimate friends, (as many as half as the fingers I have) that each one of them are notches above me as individuals and in their own distinct ways. They have been from the days they began toddling around as bundles of joy privy to the close relationship, bonhomie that I maintained with these fellows. Both A and R, was closest to one of the guys  who was star-struck in himself ( ‘star –struck’ refers to  a story, an anecdote referring him, I once mentioned in a Blog post on C’s gaffes)  more than they were to us, their parents. And even to this day A is still joyously  animated when he meets him- the hug and kisses..! Whilst R has developed a social restraint that probably age brings to girls. I and C used to once refer to him as the pediatric who lived with us (he was in my house on a transfer to my place of work for almost three years). And that was when he showed his deftness in babysitting and both A and R got so moonstruck by him,( girls generally are and also so he thinks even to this day). His late parents were immensely  affectionate to us (me and the small circle we kept), in a way that they may have even thought of thrashing us as they did him. They were unique loving parents, and those qualities have been greatly infused in him. The help, the support which he and his demure wife extended me and C many years ago in a crisis was a life time apart, which ones very own siblings may desist and ignore.

I, once in a Post titled “An officer and a Gentleman” wrote a about another close friend, whose singular obsession and spirit has seen him become one of the decorated and dedicated officers in the Indian Army, and is now very near to the top of  the pyramid - the hierarchy. It is certainly a matter of pride for me than for him!

And then the ever green unblemished boy old as I’m! He stays so even in his fifties. Modest and affectionate, and was my trusted pillion on many motorcycle diaries we could pen about. A modest, helpful fellow in his own silent way.

Fortunately, despite the intemperate attribute that subsume my character I have been quite able to manage friends with diverse predilections and moorings.

I first noticed this burly grizzly bear standing by the gate of the blocks of apartments where I lived in Cochin.  He displayed a fearful, Kathi expression (those who have a lay idea about the dance drama Kathakali will know what Kathi vesham is),each time I and my fellow -in-mates passed him at the gate. He threw glances that sent the message, “nihilist rascals, exhibitionists, nuisance creationists.” and many other expletives that only he knew about. I felt that he aspired and claimed to be the only modest, cultured and decent individual in that vicinity, while we were impertinent and irritants best avoided, got ridden.

Then one night he crashed (virtually) through the door of my room, with my roommate in tow .He had come there to borrow some pornographic books (in the early eighties we were not lucky to have the luxury of PCs and the NET).My mate introduced him to me. ”Man look here, this is another specimen from your town and look what he has come for”. He shook hands with an impish giggle. What a contrast from the fearful sentinel at the gate, I thought to myself!

And from that day about thirty years ago, to this I have not had one instance to disbelieve that  his rough exterior  is a face of affability. But why? Like the pines of porcupine! Only he can tell!

I was an average reader mostly confined to the ordinary world of less thinking and more pleasure that was fictions of the genre of a J.H.Chase  , Desmond Bagley ,Alistair Maclean and some Earl Stanley Gardner stuff. Though excursions to other books of substance like Dumas, Dickens, SKP, MT, Maurice Procter, James Leasor was not uncommon. But a revelation into the wide expanse of Hemmingway, O’Henry, Maugham, Peter Matheson, a distinctly new appraisal of matters through an introduction to J.Krishnamurthy , the awe world of National Geographic ( I ‘m a subscriber of the magazine, now for almost thirty years), these were some of the lasting  gifts that I could imbibe from the association with this beefy guy.

He and the Narcissus whom I mentioned early were (I must say) the best men who managed the tense moments at my home after my proposing to C, a catholic, evoked a discernible quake.

Obstinately passionate about mountains, the fellow perhaps would have been better off born to nomads in the mountains. He was also instrumental in instilling ideas of environmental care and conservation .A fiercely private person even be it his spouse and as individualistic as she is, if not an iota more. Possessive about the tiny little private space that he zealously demands for himself and also agrees that is the right of every individual. An affectionate fellow who may not succeed in diplomacy, niether at home or outside.And I realise and give up at this age that it is best to leave him with his idiosyncrasies and his liberty to be himself. It is always a trifle silly to expect, even it be your close as close can be friends that they be congenial to the pedestal that you want them to be. Because when the nuance of personality is lost and then, I guess they become strangers and friends no more. 

The Contagion

Sometimes I wonder why do people always sport a smile, why are some jubilant in words and the way they conduct. Even in the 'Blogdom' some have not yet posted a piece that is melancholic or depressing. In the presence of some, one could feel their positive, happy chemistry in the air. They spread the redolence of their being, their personality. That becomes contagious.

Whereas some like me though not the exact opposite, one may not find the fullness of the day neither vocally nor in what is now ostentatiously aired on the Blogs. It may be that, only the limited few are my friends is because I'm  so .And the many prefer to vanish at my sight? Yet some are very depressing to be with and gives the feeling that one is cloistered in a subterranean drain. Some people seem to radiate only the sunny side of life. It can be a wonder if it is so true about their lives in real!

Cynicism is betrothed to the state of disappointment in the mind. Isn’t it? But often one cannot help not being cynical and any amount of contrived exuberance may not help and may be unfair to ones reason. But still why is it that some have only stories of ill, sadness and tragedy to tell? To some the dissatisfactions and discontent they get or see in life reflects in their countenance as penumbra and again, even that is also contractable.

My friend often talks about corroding one’s mind and the black bile would diffuse in your being. The intent of his advice is warm, but what may become corrosion to some may not be necessarily the outcome always. Reactions, thought or action is corollary to what we have in life as I mentioned before. The goodness that we had may be imbibed to pervade in ourselves. And to me reactions are an outcome of the situation. I do not see corrosion afflicting my mind, but the reaction on the contrary washes out the pent up elements that can corrode .For me it is a letting out, fortunately so, because by nature I confine .Again it differs from people to people.

But it takes a great effort to radiate positivity and only that. Or is it in the body chemistry, inborn? To not tell a sad story, to not hold bad blood, but to see only the goodness in things is a very lofty trait. Though I would debate if wishing away will make bad not exist, perhaps?

Sathyan Anthikad is a very good director of movies. He has been churning out movies in Malayalam, from the late seventies. I have not missed even one movie of his. What is unique and that stands out in his films and stories are the ending. It is always felicitous and happy. There are no villains in his movies. Yes there are elements that seem lost, who stumble, but they seldom evoke a feeling of revulsion, disgust, fear or dislike in the viewer. We sometimes even pity the bad and the ugly in his movies. The goodness that is in life that we all would like to see is with what he ends his movies.