Tuesday, November 27, 2007

PGDP AND AMMINIAMMA .

PGDP AND AMMINIAMMA .
2.45 PM 27.11.07

I decide to donate work. It is nearing three. Two hours of work. I will work with rubble and pave a few meters. Yes I do it. At three I remove my shoes, wear chappals, buy a new thorth, ie. towel to wipe extra sweat, roll up my shoes and pave the walk way fromculvert-2, where the tides will be marked. Worked from 3.30 pm to 5pm. One and half hours – half the distance between two concrete posts. That is five feet long. Width is 6 feet : means 30 sq feet. At the rate of Rs.20/- per sq.foot it is 600 rupees work! Material cost – two trolley loads of rubble – That is 2/12 equalling to 1/6th of a load. At even Rs.2000/- per load, it comes to Rs.333. Labour alone Rs.267[- for one and a half hours. Means rs.1068/- for six hours. I decide to work it for a day, teaching a Tamil worker. How to pave rubble. He will work for RS.250/- plus a bonus of Rs50/- for one day and cover the length up to the next culvert. Good idea. I pat myself and get ready to visit the Chakkians at Cheranellore. But the driver is not there. He had agreed to take me, Nambiar and Rajeev to the place, so that we can carry a few pots and a lot of cuttings. That was yesterday. But the ground was not yet prepared. So I told him tomorrow. He said OK. Then it is today. He told the watch man “Sir had told tomorrow”. I said when said it yesterday, it meant tomorrow. Cut off both the it’s and yesterday meant tomorrow. That also means ‘today’ in between is so hidden because it is the most visible. What we see is today. Rather today extends into yesterdays and tomorrows, elongating the rim, the circumference of the circle, widening the view till everything is blurred, the vision, the voice, the noise the seen and said and heard and smelled and touched are all blurred into this evening, it is past nine when I sit watching a very badly blurred east, the saturating sky and my old coconut tree. The year end has started. Winter set in with Diwali in the north. People welcomed the cold and moderately wet, [yet not raining] nights with a multitude of little lamps and the whole place is a spectacular thing from the skies! And it was only in the beginning of the blur. Later it blurred into a frog (frost and smog) You know, in the blur the form cannot be clear. Can be a buffalo. Yama’s people came on buffaloes and picked up the chosen ones. And Yama, the most knowledgeable according to Nachiketa sat in great demure, like a debonair king, young and cheerful, beaming with pure justice.

Then what is impure one? The one with any objective other than the continuation of the sacred laws, made sacred by the sacrifice of millions, all over the world to enact them. Also made sacred by the most important persons of the Constituents Assembly of the most important representatives of the most representative places, both towns and villages of the Most Sacred Nation of the times – India. We have one of the largest congregation of Muslims, another largest of Christians and ten times larger religions, all following different Gods. But every Indian knows that all gods are one. Sebastian the Saint of Kanjoor is brother of Bhagavati of Thekkumbhagam and so on. That is what Amminiamma taught me. She would every year, in the first week of May, come to give me a five rupee note to be put in front of St.George of Edapally. “All Gods are one, alle mashe” “I will bow to every god. If it is not a God, what does it matter. Alle Mashe.” I would have painted a sky and she would say it is fire and end it up with the same alle mashe meaning : isn’t it, master? Like every tag question, the answer had to be yes. If it is no, dear Amminiamma will somehow argue it out, cajole the listeners and establish her point, which would be as simple as seeing a fire in the sky. She would be seeing the other way too. She died after seven, after I had reached home riding back from Chakkians who promised to send the cuttings with Reni, the OISKA teacher, tomorrow.

I came out to get milk, my wife followed for an evening talk and the neighbour said the news and the other neighbour too joined and Sasi, the youngest of Amminiyamma’s children came on bike and confirmed the news. I said thank God, she has completed a cycle. Became a great grandma. Nursed her husband so well for so many years, reached every home in the neighbourhood, usually twice a day and invariably brought something on each visit. Some things like a cashew fruit or a wild flower or a bottle of tender mango pickle. The last item was her trademark. Every year for a decade and a half we spent at least a month with her pickles. Then there would be tender mangoes in brine. “I could not pickle it. You keep it. How many can I put in my China jar?”. And our Horlicks jars, half a dozen of them will fill. Fill with her love and grace.

The body will be brought in half an hour. I get ready to make a visit at 10 pm. I will go first. Baby and Jwala will follow. We all had been very much there at all functions of the family. So exactly at ten I wear a freshly washed mundu, the Kerala Dhoti which splits as easily as its history. Yes, the kind of all including, all embracing nature which welcomed the Jews and the Mappillais. Many called me mappilai, not only Thiru Balaraman who too considered my wife as his daughter, like Amminiamma who considered all of us her children, delivered to her to be simply loved.

Once there were quarrels between neighbours. I tried to be as neutral as possible but made my part clear by declaring that I will not be a party to anything which Mr.Panikkar, her very quick tempered husband who controlled everything from his bed, may be for over a decade and a half. Amminiamma’s stand was very simple and clear. You men do fight or not, we ladies and children are all one. And with none of the men noticing, she will pass on niceties to the children. Her Kallukatti mangoes will spread in all houses. She was indeed the light of the place, my God, illuminating the whole environment.

I reach there and already the body was placed there in upstairs. There was no light in landing. I got a couple of lamps hanging from the top floor and talked to her brother who is quite healthy by all standards. Then to her two sons in law and then the two elder sons in that order, because the mappillai, the son-in- law is more important as a comer means an athidi, the guest. That is what the lady did. Treated everyone as guest. ‘The guest must be treated like God, alle mashe?. I knew more than 90% of traditional Malayalis of age 75 years and above will have the same view. Let some one conduct a survey and let us see. If it is above 75 in 100, you pass me. If it is less than 60%, it means, times have already failed me. At the rate of two failures is equal to (=) one success, my Lord, I feel I will be correct.

That is why I write this, sitting at my usual window waiting for the sun to rise over Amminiamma’s mortal remains at 6.08 am. Must be punarvasu today. Yesterday was thiru-athira the star called Betelgeuse, consorting the Moon. Everyday a star, 27 of them are around the moon. All the stars of the sky stand around my dear, Amminiamma, the great grandmother. She preferred to be called Ammoomma these days.Earlier we called her Amminiamma. Then she was blessed with grand daughters who had daughters of schooling age. And she had become the Matriarch who lived happily protected in the strong shadows of her independent husband who took to nuclear family with the first few who broke the system. And the lady who considered husband as God could easily adjust so well, sometimes protesting [in fake] for that extra tenderness that her all-power-husband had eluded otherwise. Well, the sun would have risen in the hills of east. Still doesn’t appear here. I should make an early visit. I should go. Then I have classes at 7.30 and should take half days leave and attend the cremation. May God bless the day.

I POST THIS AT 1.00 PM ON 28-11-07 and it shows some other time. I understnd that times can change faster than we can think!

I'm Schoolmaster..........

Then what is left? I don’t know. I am only a seeker. Not a Guru. That means I am a student only, not yet a teacher. Means, my Lord, I am only a simple school master. The one who lays academic foundations in the very young minds which, I would earnestly believe will be useful when they build up huge superstructures of different disciplines. Mostly technocratic these days. Or managerial. Whatever. They are all so invariably focussed that in fact there is no time, no space in the time table, for fringe subjects, like values and traditions of the subjects they study or developing a comprehensive outlook of things around. That is why I have to stress on these methods. So I work a full 48 days almost continuously, with overtimes at times, doing a simple civil work of developing a drainage system and levelling a play field.

The methods of it – empirical observation, elaborate site plans with detailed photo graphs, alternatives, procuring labour, making them understand the necessary details, means training, fixing wages, checks, counterchecks and alternations. Oh! My God, some fellows will remember it when they face real life situations. Just my dears, I said my std IX ones – Just to take up the challenge and see through it. A public school boy will never shy away from a challenges. Neither will a school master worth his salt. So I do it for you to learn. And I think it is as much or may be more important than the time-tabled geography. I would show them a lesson on drainage, an excellent footage for lesson 3. I am in 5 ½ of the total six lessons. Maps need to be concentrated Poor things, many did not know the directions. I would make a nice compass on the ground and start a serious attempt at map study. Get Madam Mary Varkey to do a lesion for the Xth children.

To day we start a text book study – covering all points by their reading notes. Point by point – taking extra time, may be evenings. – a period more for a week. And as the dignified Mrs. Daphne would say, ‘You start doing the work and God helps. That is how we got a century last year. Century pass is the norm. With an average of 82% or so. Till now there are six best teachers and mind you, four are from us people. And in fact the best of us missed it and she is matured enough to take it on her stride. She comes from a family of a dozen teachers. OK, divide it by, two, half dozen and more. So she knows the work and does it well. All my teachers are. So I can loiter in subjects like Upanishads and read scientific American because, you know, some body has to do it, isn’t it? At least turn the pages! Exactly, that is what I do. Rapid Reading- Means riding so fast, missing all the roadside scenes. But how can there be roads without roadsides. And by nature I am a side walker. That is why I made a walkway along the sides. And to popularise it I make this compass and the Triple Tree point and the Corner Triangle and so on. The process of doing it, the system followed in their making etc. are to be academic. That makes the school a learning centre. It is a quarter to seven. Time to get ready. Today is Wednesday. 4 periods continuously. Mostly of l hour each. I would put off the drainage presentation and use conventional methods which are familiar enough for the students to maintain discipline.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Home is Bliss

Home is bliss. Bliss is the product of a positive attitude. The sort of feeling that it is all nice and still better be. May be a divine stance where the worldly things have limitations and life beyond needs relaxation, the physical condition which induces happiness and learning. And learning we do, and do it on, till the day the perception ceases and the ultimate of all knowledge is reached. That is when it is all light, all see through, till the ends, some nouns, like endlessness where the negatives and positives intermingle and yet not quarrel and annihilate each other. Just both lose their identities. They simply merge in some noun-form which, all of which get dissolved each other into the solid, liquid, air or ether or whatever we call it, My Lord, it all becoming the only one, worshipped by many as many and yet not exhausted ever by a bit because if you add or subtract infinity from/with infinity, the infinity will remain the same infinity, know?

Today is my father's 15th anniversary. Hardly the man still lives in many-body's memories. Mostly just impressions. And people get aged quickly, their brains losing the shine. It grays. Colours are lost. And in the deepening tones, My Lord, your face appears. That is why You are My Lord.

I try to tell my wife how I feel about you. Somehow she thinks it is different. Whatever is Sanskrit is different. Vijatheeyam, of the other castes, is common in old testament. Those days STRIFE was the catchword. Then The Lord arrived and LOVE became the catchword, but still the old mindset prevails. It is a path of analytical out-casting which prescribes anathemas and indoctrinations. An outcome is this Sanskrit Phobia. I say anything and it looks different and an un-academic fanaticism creeps in and I snail back into my shell and at the most use earphones. That is the last I think. That is why these people who shout the CHEVITTORMA, the thing repeated in the ears in a very different rhythm, would continue even after the heart stops.

The phrase, 'Jesus, Mary, Joseph, be in company with my soul' is repeated till the top of the head turns cool. Then they change it as ''Jesus, Mary, Joseph, be in company with this soul' and cease to be heard. That is death. My father had said it himself, loud and clear, in its different style and died. I am to be near his grave at 5.00 and it is 4.30 now. There I will stand near him while an Episcopal service would go inside the church when it is re-consecrated. Benevolent Bishop Mar Thomas Chakkiath is officiating. I would not meet His Excellency. I prefer to be anonymous like my father. So I roll up my sleeves and put on chappals and reach the school for my class at 2.20. Also there is the peace club meeting.This club is actually a non-violence hub. Mostly little ones. They light candles and take an oath. I just do not rise my hand because oath- taking for me is something like getting married and all. I tell Ahimsa Paramo Darma. That is what Shri Buddha had taught. I tell the students to look at each other. Straight into the eyes and smile. All those who can, can bring peace. They are at peace. 'Be open. Be light and you can bring peace around you', I said. Peace had been the central theme, right from the early times. All have learned the periods from the prehistory to post-history. I mean, post modern and all. And all through the times, from vedic period every chanting ended saying, Peace, Peace, Peace. That is santisantisanti. The physical peace, Spiritual peace and third one, relating to all those beyond. I quickly say the famous santi mantra of YV .Ch. 36 v17. Heavens be peace, the atmosphere be peaceful, earth be peace-filled, waters fill peace, plants bring peace, forests, where the law of the jungle prevails, be the place of peace. [And into the peace, My Lord, You take me]

Those in brackets I did not tell. So small they are. I just told them, dears, both peace and non-violence had been the most important themes of India. And it is internal, as much as it is external. It cannot be imposed. Those who say they can impose peace through war cannot be correct. OK. I do not know. You think. And yet it was not yet three.\n",1]
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CHEVITTORMA, the thing repeated in the ears in a very different rhythm, would continue even after the heart stops.

The phrase, 'Jesus, Mary, Joseph, be in company with my soul' is repeated till the top of the head turns cool. Then they change it as ''Jesus, Mary, Joseph, be in company with this soul' and cease to be heard. That is death. My father had said it himself, loud and clear, in its different style and died. I am to be near his grave at 5.00 and it is 4.30 now. There I will stand near him while an Episcopal service would go inside the church when it is re-consecrated. Benevolent Bishop Mar Thomas Chakkiath is officiating. I would not meet His Excellency. I prefer to be anonymous like my father. So I roll up my sleeves and put on chappals and reach the school for my class at 2.20. Also there is the peace club meeting.

This club is actually a non-violence hub. Mostly little ones. They light candles and take an oath. I just do not rise my hand because oath taking for me is something like getting married and all. I tell Ahimsa Paramo Darma. That is what Shri Buddha had taught. I tell the students to look at each other. Straight into the eyes and smile. All those who can, can bring peace. They are at peace. 'Be open. Be light and you can bring peace around you', I said.

Peace had been the central theme, right from the early times. All have learned the periods from the prehistory to post-history. I mean, post modern and all. And all through the times, from vedic period every chanting ended saying, Peace, Peace, Peace. That is santisantisanti. The physical peace, Spiritual peace and third one, relating to all those beyond. I quickly say the famous santi mantra of YV .Ch. 36 v17. Heavens be peace, the atmosphere be peaceful, earth be peace-filled, waters fill peace, plants bring peace, forests, where the law of the jungle prevails, be the place of peace. [And into the peace, My Lord, You take me] Those in brackets I did not tell. So small they are. I just told them, dears, both peace and non-violence had been the most important themes of India. And it is internal, as much as it is external. It cannot be imposed. Those who say they can impose peace through war cannot be correct. OK. I do not know. You think. And yet it was not yet three.

So I make a quick trip to the worksites and reach home, type the piece and try to blog it before the taxi comes. But it is very slow in my obsolete machine. So I email it to Ms.Vijaya, once my colleague at Kovai where I was on exile. She taught French and I would make her pronounce the names of books and authors. We in Kerala followed the 'Zhan' for Jean sort of thing propagated by Great M. Krishnan Nair, whose weekly columns we read to familiarize ourselves with international literature. And she was one of the very few who read literature for literature and was knowledgeable by common standards – a quality which is rare among school teachers of late. Oh. No. I don't cast an evil eye. I am one of the same trade. I am good. And like me everybody is good.

And I send the piece to her and get in the taxi with my mother and pick up my wife and daughter on the way and reach the church to find the bell are chiming on. It is the Eucharistic procession. Beautiful songs accompanied by an able orchestra. My niece comes running. When was the consecration? 'Yesterday it was,' she giggles. What is at home? Chicken and appams. It seems the chicken centre was not open when she went to by live ones. Then she justified telling it is Friday and being very accurately practicing Christians, we would abstain from meat and will not eat even if tempts a lot and all that and my brother gets cross and gets the chicken in curry. Whatever, it tastes so tasty that I forget to call my driver who was also a parent. I think of it only when my brother says what manners I have. So I run out into the rubber trees and get the man and drink tea and start at half past seven to meet Amminiamma.

Once like my own mother, Amminiamma is now bed-ridden, struggling to talk, My Lord, in the last stage, after a full life. She conveys a tradition, the history of these places, the myths, the mingling of them, beyond her frail figure, as the myth, as the history, as people will talk about her.

Then we return and sleep to get up very early for my daughter to catch the Trivandrum train to refer in the British Council Library. I drop her in the station where the three other team-mates wait with the ticket. Then I go to school and see the effect of the highest tide of the year till now and drop my wife in the bank and give my bike for servicing for I have to attend the wed-locking of two of my brightest old students. Back at home I relearn- Home is Bliss and try to blog this piece.