The Electrician

Someone, look alike of Oliver Twist peeping from outside the main gate of my office. He was seen standing outside with confused but eager look, and I noticed him through the day when ever I ventured out.

The next morning, the watchman came in to my cabin and enquired if he can permit a boy to come in and that he wants to have word with me. Also that he was persistent that he was hanging around the gate since yesterday and would never go.

I remembered the chap I noticed the day before. I asked the watchman to send him in. He came in rather timid watch full but unsure of his next step forward, rather furtively- whether he should make it or not. He was certainly a late teen version of Oliver Twist- the image that we have seen in the work of Dickens. He wore khaki trouser, but no footwear. His long sleeved shirt was dirty and slightly open at seams. His hair was dirt brown and looked altogether not cocooned in a healthy comfortable living.

He was from a village south of Tamilnad, beyond Madurai. He has been in the city for a few days now and his hunt for livelihood was fruitless. He indeed looked distraught and famished. I asked him what work he could do. He pulled out a multiple folded plastic cover from inside his trouser pocket and took out a certificate which was almost in tatters. It said that,”Subu Raj …. Is approved Electrician in grade…” And that he has passed the Electrical curriculum from ITI.

SubuRaj reported to duty at 8. And precisely, the next morning. He was in a different clean trouser and shirt, but crumpled. He was bare footed. I called him sometime in the day and told him that he will have to compulsorily wear leather footwear while he is on work. I remember giving him a little advance for immediate personal chores.

He married in a year’s time. And I understood he lived with his young wife in a rented dingy room near the factory. He proved to be a fantastic worker. He had this keen sense and uncanny ability to handle electrical works, installations, trouble shoot, and all with élan, perfection and neatness. There was no hanging wires not tended points and all the haphazard matters typical of electrical works we often see in many places. I never had a breakdown in the factory and office while he was around. He eagerly ran errands for other members of the staff and fixed their electrical works in their homes.

He did a perfect and professional work in the new factory premises we wanted to commission. Later C asked him if he could do the electrical plan for the 4 acre plot we bought and wanted to build a small house amidst a jungle of trees. He planned things so wonderfully that in no time we planted some four hundred trees on the land. He did a wonderful work in electrifying various points on the land, drip irrigating every sapling. There was a small shack that was built on a corner of the plot, where tools and electrical mains were installed. Suburaj was asked if he would to stay there in the night. He was at ease. We lived some five kilometers away.

One morning around 7’o clock, I and C was on the verandah sipping tea and scouring the daily. The phone rang inside, and C took the call. I went in hearing C give a howl. She turned to me holding the phone and said,”Suburaj is dead, he hung himself.”

I soon began getting calls from other guys in the office. Some were already at Suburaj’s dingy home. They told me that he went back to his room after the night shift around 3 am. He even had tea in the way side shop and chatted with the guys loitering there, smoked cigarettes. He told them he will be back by 8 after dawn. And at 5 in the morning his sister-in-law who lived next doors along with two of her brothers went past his room and seeing the door open she peeped in to see the poor fellow’s body hanging lifeless from the ceiling. No one could tell what transpired in Suburaj’s brain between that short while from the teas shop to his hanging.

I asked the guys to inform the police and ensure that all help is extended to his brothers –in law to transport the corpse to their village. I promised to be there as soon as the policemen took charge.

At 8 am I stopped by the office to speak to the crowd of workers who gathered in shock. I got a call then from one of the staff that Suburaj’s corpse has been taken by the brothers- in law in a Taxi to their village. And that they were in a hurry. The police wanted the sub-inspector to be present before they could visit the scene. I was shocked at the haste and the lack of legal formalities. No autopsy, no police records. It can bring me trouble as he was on my payroll. I called the police station to record my anguish and complaint at the total lack of legal formalities. I suddenly felt something odd and expressed it to the policeman who attended my call. He said,” Why must you worry? The chap is dead, killed or extinguished himself and found in his place. Nothing happened in your premises. Let us not bother much. You take care of your matters. We have a lot of work to do than run after a dead man.”

Suburaj was not cremated in his village but buried and the same evening. I was told his uncle wanted it so.

His uncle a middle aged man came to my office one day and spoke to me. He said that he tried in vain to get the local police to exhume the body for an autopsy. And that he was certain the Suburaj was killed and then hung. He was adamant that the foul play was perpetrated by the two brothers in law.

Later it transpired that Suburaj was having a liaison illicit and amorous with his young sister in law (wife’s sister) who lived next doors. And his wife was upset with the matter and she went back to her village. And that Suburaj used to take his sister- in-law to the shack on our land for his amorous extremities. The brothers in law were furious that they could not dissuade either of them and struck on the plan to put an end to the man himself. I sat listening to all the matters in dazed attention.

 And even when his wife and infant son came with her brothers to collect his pending salary money, and dues, I could only mechanically sit and listen to the eulogies his brothers in law reeled out about him. When they were departing, I commented,”Suburaj did not kill himself, he was murdered and then hung.”

I Did Not Know What to Tell

                   The School Flat with the Chapel

The first time I travelled without shackles- without the company of someone from home was when I and a few delinquents sneaked out on a train journey to Quilon some 70 kilo meters away from Thpuram. We went to the beach there and loitered before eating a good platter of mutton curry and parattha.I must have been sixteen or there about. It has been stifling times at home, more because I was a rebellious character. Perhaps it is better to rephrase and say, a different sort of fellow unusual for a conventional family with quite conservative leanings in tune with the establishment. I ceased to be religious in the conventional sense, no temple and Providence  from that age, was questioning everything including the existence of God or even he himself if he were real; began to be fascinated with skeptical readings in literature. Rebelled against the diktat from home to keep away from friends etc as they thought friends were bad influence, even the good ones next doors. In the bargain I landed with some unsavory elements to the great distress of my mother.

I dreamt about a life in the boarding. While in college I was in awe about the fellows who lived in the boarding. The College hostel was tucked in the midst of a rubber plantation and we used to venture there during recess. It was a different fantastic world. But I knew that my yearning will be still born as I hailed from the same town.

When years later, we had to decide to admit A in a school away from the town we lived, the only option was to put him there as a boarder. Constraints of our work , besides lack of good educational infrastructure in that town we lived then, gave us no room to manoeuvre and the option was to put him in that distant school in Ooty as a boarder. He was then going into the first standard. The agony that we went through, and the distress and lost feeling him as little child went through then, are still painfully alive in memory. Both the children growing up were given enough room to manouevre, and freedom to tell us, talk to us anything and everything. I was keen that they must not feel the constriction I felt when I was their age. They still enjoy the freedom and we hope they make intelligent and conscientious use of that.

There were interesting alumni there. People who came back with their children.  One day during our visit to the school we saw this guy in his forties hugging the huge pine tree near the hostel of the primary class laughing with tears in his eyes. He later confided that he was a parent and it was to this tree that he used to go to while he was border during his bouts of loneliness and home sickness. He said he used to hug the tree for long and feel comfort.

The school was not an elite institution fees wise, as well as by way of philosophy and motto. It was an institution that was begun by an English clergy man some seventy five years ago. With both our children doing their schooling from the first standard there, we can confidently content that their formative years were well taken care by the institution. Now to hope that they carry those things of value they imbibed from there through into their lives.

A, passed out his twelfth from there four years ago. He was the Head Boy in the final year. And being an active participant in various activities especially music and dramatics he was in the elite group fancied by the Principal and the faculty. But strangely the relationship of the whole class with the Principal turned sour towards the fag end of the term. The Principal was a strict disciplinarian and that may have turned the tables on the boys and girls of the twelfth who were all in a rebellious age in their lives. The precarious times when one is not a child, but is neither an adult though one wants to be noted so.

A’s class mate and chum,G, as this boy may be called was a happy go lucky sort of fellow with occasional exploits and fond of girls. The Principal had notified that if found in sneaking on conducts considered unsavoury, dismissal from school, or confinement to the school hospital tucked up far in the campus for other infractions will be certain. Infractions such as carrying a tuck, pocket money, cell phones in the locker for instance.

A, used to tell us his apprehension when he was home on short breaks from school. That G is being recalcitrant and may land up in serious trouble. He was warned by A to avoid his flirtations. He did not want an incident to mar the year. But G being the glamour boy for some girls, A was in a quandary. G was too indulgent! One night during the group study, G and his girl friend were hauled from the garden nearby. It was the Gorkhas who busted the matter. News reached A, and he slapped G for the infringement. The Gorkhas refused to hush up the matter. The lid was blown and G was dismissed. The Principal smelt that the matter was going on for some time and he was furiously cross with A for not revealing it. A was adamant during the enquiry and the threat to strip him off the Head Boy badge, that he was not aware. The Principal did not believe him. He mentioned the matter to me, while I met him to collect A’s mark sheets and certificates after the examination results were published. I felt quite miffed when the Principal covertly aired the accusation to me. I felt cross with A. It was the feeling a father would have when someone accuses his child of infarction and misconduct.

I could only tell the Principal that I will enquire with A.

When I confronted A, he said, “Yes I knew about G’s relationship. I even hit him and tried to discipline him. I forewarned him of the peril should his conduct be known. The whole class was aware of how I took him to task and reprimanded him often. But if the Principal wanted me to be a snitcher, well no, I cannot be one. G is my friend, he may have done wrong. But I cannot disown him and compromise him. Not over even the threat of my dismissal or stripping me off the badge of the Head boy."

I did not know what to tell.

     A, & friends getting ready for the farewell dinner ( 2008)

Bucket List

“Kick the bucket when it is done with”.  This was Edward Coleman (Jack Nicholson) in the film, “Bucket List”. The nonchalance to life when death looms large and imminent! Courageous resignation was evident in the statement.

In comparison Mr Wilson, in Somerset Maugham’s short story, “The Lotus Eater” had the audacious and fearless plan to die at sixty, if nature doesn’t intervene at sixty-to take it away by his own hands. And according to him, what more can one get from life after twenty five years of blissful living and happiness in the island of Capri, with wine and food, books to read,watching the moon risings from the cliff overlooking the bay?  This decision he took at thirty five and gave enough room for his annuities to last till he was sixty.. But he was physically well at sixty and had lost the courage to smother his life. Twenty five years of leisure, and happiness drained the potency of will and courage from him. He was frightened to die. It was like atrophy of the limb which was disused for long.

I know not, now in my early fifties how far and deep the road and the woods are still. In the teens the thought of being erased from the world never occurred- because of the “audacity of youth”. Nor in the thirties- it was still a decade of confidence and feeling of perennial immortality. Even at forty the sun set seemed far away. But it has begun to dawn and one thinks often that a decade or a score of years from now is a mixed boon of grace. Yet, then is it not also true that age is in the mind?

A person once exclaimed how wonderful it would be if she could live till or beyond one hundred. It immediately reminded me of Marquez’s “One hundred years of solitude”. I would not want to see seven or ten generations of posterity. I asked her if she would be prepared to see and know what she would not fancy to see and know. If she sees it fine well she may wish. But the longer you live more are what you see and hear that you did not ever wanted.

If someone asks me to make a bucket list, I would say it’s already done .Contentment! That indeed is a tricky loose and relative term to play with. One can never be, one will ever be, critics may allege. Yes indeed they have a point there. What is contentment is relative to a person. And what makes contentment is the ability to feel content by fulfilling ones needs and not crave for never ending boons. Isn’t it?

I could reel out many of my fantasies to be dropped into the bucket.  Some being, a journey to the Galapagos, Machi picu, Tierra del fugo; a long walk up the Kilimananjaro; a week and more in the Masai Mara; a lonely trek and stay in the icy wilderness of the poles, in the arctic winter; a cruise through the Canadian arctic; a week and more in the wilderness of Alaska;  drifting in the ocean on a schooner on a full moon night;serenading through the snowy splendor and majesty of the Himalayas; a night in solitude by the Victoria falls and a week  in the grassy cold wilderness of Eravikulam; a quite night at home with glass of whisky and reading a favourite author. And if the end come in any of these places like the whiff of air never smelt, well what else can one hope for and ask for? Any other thing ephemeral that comes by is incidental lottery!

Do I need to scheme of millions in dollars? Do I need to harbor fantastic scheme of a mansion for myself? Do I need to own a fleet of BMWs or MayBachs? Do I need to thump to the world that I have achieved? Tethering my ambition to the stars has not been in my person. May be a drawback, a limitation or even a boon than bane! Opinions on this may differ from how one looks at it.

Where does one launder one’s disillusionment? That indeed is a question. But I guess learning to override that and let pitfalls be eclipsed is the sane way out. Though it takes a lot of agonising and immensely painful effort and mental rearrangement – guts, plain and only guts!

In the end the bucket list has to include only contentment. Contentment from not possessing material bonanzas, not from elevating ones ego to a higher plain or what is lovingly termed as achievements. But just simple contentment that there will be happy people around you. The ones you love and who love you- and the ones you brought forth.

But contentment is ephemeral and elusive isn’t it? So is the bucket, it has hollow somewhere beneath, which we do not notice. Isn’t it?

Hey, that's me

It was H.G.Wells who suggested that human cadaver must be put to better use.  He suggested that cadavers be send to medical schools for study and not be interned or cremated.

Well this will be frowned upon by the ultra right wing of the religious zealots, of who we have in plenty. The Islamic didactic edicts mandates that a dead body be interned within twenty four hours of death occurring. And sentiments in other faiths too may frown upon such idea. Immediate family would cry plaint and in horror of such a prospect. How could the cadaver of a son, father, mother or someone near and dear be mutilated and dissected on the dissecting table in some nondescript medical laboratory? Outrageous and bizarre!

I have often thought of the matter, and also the subject of donating ones medically fit organs after death. There is this very good friend of mine who suggested that he may want to donate one of his kidneys right away. His contention was that one can survive well with a solitary kidney. I, predominantly and other fellows in tow pulled down his suggestion as quixotic and unnecessary. If honourable service is the idea, well there are as many that one can think of and exercise. By the same yardstick can one forego an eye? Well I guess he saw the point of my argument. We have not heard from him on this since.

Coming to the point of bequeathing one’s body after death to a medical school for research- has enormous potential benefits for medical science and future generations.  It not only letting science identify and document the reason for death, it will also dwell into the many inexplicable and sudden demises, unknown facets of physiology etc. Why does a healthy man, for instance fall dead with a massive cardiac arrest- while his routine medical checkup gave a perfect ten?  Winston Churchill smoked cigars like as if it was a matter of religion, I suppose. He enjoyed ample dose of High Land Scotch too. A perfect combination for early disaster! But he lived well into his eighties and did not die of cancer or heart attack. He even survived an English winter and with Pneumonia. If I or you enact that fascinating style of living we may not go far. Why is some body chemistry not susceptible to abuse? Why does a disciplined life style not see the person live long, but die of cancer or a heart attack? 

A  cover to cover reading of the fascinating biography of cancer, “The Emperor of Maladies”, throws open much knowledge for lay men like us in matters where science have been not quite successful if not failing repeatedly; where it has been hope plummeting to abysmal despair; inexplicable remissions and  relapse. How mankind and medical science have even after centuries of battle with cancer find itself still groping at times. There is a lot hidden in the physiological system of man that will take years and years to unravel. Or will we ever like the outer solar system? There is acute shortage of human cadaver for study and training in medical schools. And sometimes artificial, synthetic replicas are used. Imagine the fabulous benefits medical science will gather should mortal remains be autopsied. It may re- write medical knowledge itself.

Why not donate organs that are not diseased?  Why must we take them with us into the furnace or underground vault? Why not bequeath it to the needy that the many sins, false hood spoken and done while alive may be nullified with our heart, liver or kidney pulsating in another person, even after we are gone? Ensure our eyes be the beacon of hope for another, while the very same pair of eyes may have feigned blindness at many things?

It has been decided by C, and the children too are aware, that should one of us precede the other, our cadaver must be given to the anatomy department of a medical school. The organs be harvested and donated. True, the grief filled moments may sometimes prove to be prejudicial to the wise cause. Hence there must be someone who would undertake the deed of legal requirements. That is a better way of mourning the passing than wail uncontrollably.

The “Tower of Silence” has a noble idea in it. I would prefer my  cadaver be used for  a medical cause than let it be barbecued and smoked out of existence or let  it be dumped  in some underground pit for maggots, worms and wrigglers to feast to the bones.

If paradise is lost by not queuing to be there with my mortal remains intact, let it be. In any case we do not know the dress code to enter paradise.

Quid Pro Quo

Old woman, Mary John promised to the Virgin of Vellankanni, fifty candles if her daughter was returned safe from her trip to the Kailas Mansarovar. She, as penitence for her litter’s sin in seeking an alien and false God in lieu of the only true God she was sworn to, offered a special mass at the local parish church. And when her daughter came back from her highly trumpeted journey safe and healthy as when she left, Mary John was pleased that her God heeded her supplications.  Still ,when she was told that her daughter’s Land Cruiser almost went off the mountain road in Tibet , but was saved by a whisker she   thanked her God for sparing her daughter  from a life threatening danger . It dawned on her then the sleight of her God, taking away the life of the little white lamb in their house instead. It fell dead one day with no apparent reason (Life of beast are in any case insignificant comparison to human beings).As a bonus to her God she said a twenty one “Hail Mary’s” and twenty one “Our Father who Art in heaven”.

Rameshan Nair was an ardent devotee of the bachelor god Ayyappan who abodes in the hills of Sabarimala. Rameshan Nair is a private contractor and has his fingers in all lucrative civil works in town. He has this uncanny acumen and knack to tackle bureaucracy and the powers that be. He had insider information on the tender just called for the construction of the new Airport terminal that would run into multi million. He manipulated and with insider help defrauded the various quotes and had his bid as the sole tender and at a highly inflated price. He in turn had offered his God Ayyappan a gold crown studded with gems. And he promised to bring it to the abode of the God by himself, only that the contract must go to him. God relented, after all who would not in face of gratification? And Rameshan Nair bagged the contract.

Haji Ahmed had business of rectified spirit. Besides the few thousand litres of authorised licenses the bulk of the merchandise traded by the Haji was smuggled in from distant States. The standing contract with his God and his plenipotentiary was that no untoward must happen to the smuggling of rectified spirit that happens incessantly. His God has been faithfully abiding by the verbal understanding and Haji Ahmed used to uninterruptedly without fail dispatch a sizeable amount in currency to the Masjid treasury.

What is wrong in these three cases of commissions and gratification? They are approved by the heavens. Aren't they?

We have thousands of men and women in India from various religion and faith, scamper to many places of worship- temples, mosques, churches, etc and offer money and in kind for various favours they ask, in advance and post- happening. You help me achieve this, help me get this, save me from conviction, and I give thee in cash or kind. Perfect the quid pro quo begins with the holy Gods.

Thence what is misplaced and wrong about a minister making the extra few hundred millions for favours done to some selected industrialists, and what is wrong, sinful, unethical and unlawful in paying bribe and receiving gratification. The matter begins with God.

In matters of commerce, they say, the fault with Dutch is offering too little and asking just too much. But Indian culture has the opposite we are even handed in giving and taking. The art of graft begins in places of worship. Else how could one explain the throng of men and women flocking the temple at Tirupathi, with the alibi of the story that the Lord should not default in his contract with the Lord of wealth, Kubera? Why do we offer quid pro quo to God? This is not spiritualism if someone argues in that fashion. It is pure, plain and unbridled graft, like the ones that happen daily in Indian social, economic and political life. Why is it that only when it is offered or given to Providence it is offering and to A. Raja it is bribe?

Indians cannot live without giving and accepting gratification. It is engrained in our physiological system and body chemistry. Our culture and civilisation does not jettison that, it embraces. The difference in the same exercise, when offered or given to Gods is termed offerings and sacrifice and when it is handed out to a bureaucrat, a poor peon or an elected representative then becomes bribe.Is there something amiss in our interpretation of the act, the language?

Ours is a rich spiritual culture and heritage. It is claimed in all history books in our curriculum. We have hundreds of years of spiritual existence in India. And consequently, ideally the penury and sufferings in the country should be a misnomer. A spiritually rich country that can claim five thousand years of civilisation , that can offer thousands of years and ancient spiritual solace to the entire world - festering  itself in poverty, disease, hunger and infamy of various hues! A strange contradiction!

Ambrosia

          “There is no love sincere than the love of food”.

Dreams in which you lie in bed and literally drool! It must have happened to most. It often happens to me.

I’m at a sumptuous dinner or party with food that is the envy of even the Romans and all their Gods. Sometimes it will be the typical wedding food in a Keralite Hindu wedding, sometimes the aromatic Byriani and pulsating mutton curry of the Muslim folks amply proportioned with ghee and at times it will also be the grandeur of the food at a Christian wedding. I would be in anxious hurry and impatience to grab the food and stuff it down, sometimes I will be trying to stretch to grab it even, but alas I cannot move my hand or it superficially perceives the food then I wake up with a forlorn jolt, drooling, literally. The realization dawns that it was not only a dream but a nightmarish end to feel now that I missed the whole tempting array of cuisine.

Then I slip back into the abyss of slumber, with stupor of the dog that was shown the fascinating piece of bone and taken away with cruel audacity.

Food, the one that tickles, and pleasures the taste buds and the mind, that gives the heart its ever eluding content has been my fascination.

I sit back to recollect  the  times  I have had food that stays in the heart and long each day that I be consigned to a remote island paradise where I and just me alone will enjoy all that every day , is not  ephemeral and it never ends,  . A life in Shangri-La!

The best of the country side food of Kerala devoured in the thatched  tenement straddling the green paddy fields that tango in the breeze that is incessant, was like paradise brought down to me. I had that many times, but one, a particular time and place was heavenly simple and plain. Spirit that even Gods will not resist (the Kerala toddy) complimented by well cooked tapioca in coconut and tagged with the wonderfully dangerous looking Valla (a kind of fish found in Kerala back waters and rivulets) curry. Supplemented with roasted duck, frog legs, roasted pork garnished with coconut slices and the Entreat the appam with chicken curry in fried coconut gray. Beef ollathiathu (roasted) being an added indulgence. I wished after, and knew I would not mind, if my heart ceased to throb  it would be with content.

Once I went to a wedding reception in Chennai. It was a Muslim wedding. The food served was of only a few dishes unlike the Christian and Hindu weddings in Kerala that never ends and stays on course after course. The Byriani with chunks of juicy mutton garnished with ghee, roasted chicken sprinkled with sliced onions and tomatoes sautéed with amazing composition of masala, a tremendously subjugating curry of brinjal, and then came the dessert carrot halwa in ghee. I still can at times smell that food though ten and plus years have elapsed since.

Once I and C went for a nonsense called Yoga class, which was a discourse with gimmicks by a widely known man in ocher robes. It was a three day event in Chennai, and what kept us glued there was the lunch they served which was pure vegetarian. I do not recall the dishes but exquisite were they, I’m yet to taste any that will match let alone rival that.

Steak! Versions of that are many. Often we are forced to agree that the chunk of meat grilled and peppered can also be termed “steak”. But the best and the unrivalled buffalo steak was served to me and C while we were in Jackson. There can never be any steak that can be juicy and enhancing as that. It was the feeling, the fear that the hotel staff that waited on us would see us gluttonous Indians that we desisted from asking for a repeat of the dish.

Shewarma, the misleading regional versions were attractive, until I ate the beef shewarma at a Turkish joint  in Johannesburg. It was rolled in bread as big as a huge Nan. Rolled and stuffed without a wee bit space with meat, mayonnaise, grated cabbage, and mustard sauce with other condiments.  I kept licking my fingers and sucking my thump till the end of the day.

There is a very mundane, but nostalgic variety among the cuisine I long for each day. The India Coffee Houses are quite famous for their coffee, maslaa dosa and brisk service, besides other dishes. The masala dosa from the ICH as the outlets are called have the same taste and aroma from Srinagar to KanyaKumari.  A plate of MD as the masala dosa’s are called, complimented with Mutton -Omelet and signing off with aromatic coffee will eclipse any depression and augment rejuvenation. No exaggeration. Each morning I wish for the MD and MO.

But finally I reach to the food that most of us in the family, I’m sure, miss now. The local Kerala cuisine that my mother’s sister used to cook. It is true that no food can rival the ones mothers’ cook. But when traded with her sister’s gifted hands, the dishes my mother cooks come second only.  The fish fry, the mackerel curry in grounded coconut and coriander powder with the tangy –sour fruit , kodam pulli( (seen only in Kerala), the simple beans thoran , the avial , the olan(  sliced potato in  coconut milk with peas and green chilly), the theeyal ( drum stick and yam slices cooked in fried coconut and coriander gravy),the sambar , the prawn theeyal and prawn fry roasted with liberal dose of onion slices, and what else! I have not come across yet another array of food ,prepared ,which aids with amazing content - the taste buds and leaves the soul in peace.

 It was akin to ambrosia if not one!

Inherit the Wind

I saw the movie a third time around a few days back. “Inherit the Wind” was the 1960 movie version  directed by  Stanley Kramer, of a real time incident in the USA down south in 1925 that shook the conventional notion and conformity of religious diktat on creation. The incident that triggered the prosecution of a public school teacher for teaching “Darwin’s theory of evolution”. Those were the days when government funded schools in America were proscribed from teaching the scientific theory of genesis of man and evolution of life. The religious right vehemently renounced the evolutionary theory, stigmatised Darwin, and declared him an anathema and a persona non grata. It was sin, blasphemous and a crime to teach or believe that man was descended from the monkeys and the apes. Children were taught the Biblical fairy tale of creation and that was considered indisputable and inviolable.

The movie captures the core of the subject, ‘the right to think’, and not just the ephemeral matter of Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution, or the sleight of God in creation. The right of the thinking man! It was an individual’s right to think independently, which was endangered in the prosecution of the teacher against whom the whole town of Hilsburgh and the establishment panoplies.

                     Spencer Tracy & Frederic March in the film

I heard about this fascinating story and the movie itself from Aravind, my son. He was then in his twelfth class at the boarding school in Ketty, Nillgirs. The dramatised adaptation of the movie was enacted by the senior boys for the school anniversary. He donned the role of Mathew Harrison Brady the fundamentalist politician who appears in court to pillories the teacher, and his close friend Mani, the role of Henry Drummond who defends the accused. In the movie the role of Brady was brought to admirable life by Frederic March and Spencer Tracy the role of Henry Drummond.

The movie had amazing court room drama, histrionics and crisp dialogues with repartees, all which made one pulsate to think. And feel the ethereal pleasure when the mind is free and thought boundless. The movie itself begins with the old song,”the old time religion”, played in the back ground. It ends with the death of the fundamentalist prosecutor who goes hysteric in the court room and dies there of a massive cardiac arrest. The last shot has Henry Drummond, the defence attorney walking away with the copy of “The Evolution of Species” and the “Bible”.

The dramatised version was a highly awaited one, and the boys and the girls did enormous back stage work with dedication to excel the play. I was eagerly anticipating the day as I and C had never missed a school cultural function or sports for the twelve years our children studied in their alma mater. And that being Aravind’s final year in school, I and C would want to move heavens, keep aside other engagements and tide over all difficulties to be in the front row. Aravind, as the Head boy was awaiting and looking eagerly to sign off in style from the school that blessed him with invaluable life in his formative age.

                     Mani Prasad & Aravind ( Henry Drummond &  Harisson Brady) from school days

Then nemesis in flesh and blood (I cannot help phrasing my feelings strongly), struck and I was left behind with whimper and helpless. C had to travel alone to Ootty to the function. I had to prioritise a meeting that was so vital that I stayed back but was a damp squib in the end. Thanks to the people who timed the meeting and made it a successful not starter, I felt in such way that I even believed that they had a design in my misery and missing Aravind’s dramatics.

I waited in anticipation, C’s arrival back with the children late that night as the Pooja Holidays were following the next day. The play was given a standing ovation by the whole audience (parents, children and staff). The best actor was decided in an extremely narrow margin and won by the sweet looking Mani. C mentioned that Aravind sent Mani on stage to collect the award for the best play as it seemed he was anticipating him to be called to collect the prize for the best actor. However though he must have felt a wee bit sad, he said he was happy that Mani was chosen as he admirably portrayed Henry Drummond. It was good to see a healthy competition that ended well. When I met the Principal after a few days he expressed regret that the judges had to deliberate much and decide narrowly the winner for the best act. The play was a great success and when others told me that I was quite unlucky to miss not being there, I felt miserable and terribly sad.

It was only after I watched the film, and without an iota of hesitation eulogise the thespians Spencer Tracy, Gene Kelly and Frederic March that I began to wonder how well the children have enacted the play for it to be so raved about.

Hence I tried to catch up with the lost essence  by watching over and over, the film itself. I would recommend that the film be watched, any which way you can, buy it or down load .The monkey trial as the incident was called in real time had a parting theme as well.

“He that troubleth his own house shall ‘Inherit the wind; and the fool shall be the servant to the wise of heart.” (King James Version of the Bible – the book of proverbs).