B-log

2010-12-27T06:37:00.001-08:00

The KGB Case
Oh! Lord, do not bring your honoured post to such mean stupor, I pray.
For every country, royal or republic, certain posts are kept holy, above petty politics and aberrations of our cherished values of truth and integrity. Posts, a short form of positions, means seats in the meeting of a few men who are individually or collectively consulted by the head of the State and the Nation by Law. Those posts are considered above the level of petty law breakers always trying to disrupt the functioning of the legal system. In a democratic republic following parliamentary system, the position of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is highly exalted because it is the CJ, as the Custodian of the Constitution who takes oath from the President.
That is why we older Mallus who felt happy once telling “see how the Mallus are turning the wheels and screws in Delhi” now feel ashamed when our big brothers of International Mallu Association including Tintumon stoop down to the mean level. Come out of it for with honour, for honour, Honourable Sir. Why fall on the wayside and rot? Honour, some of us feel, is more important than amassing wealth.

2010-12-27T06:37:00.000-08:00

Ayurdays 6

2009-06-28T22:59:00.000-07:00

These are parts of Ayurdays, which I wrote when I was treated a decade earlier. Now that I am undergoing similar treatment, I blog a few pieces.

A GAME OF CARDS

Playing cards is a usual method of time pass. Three or four patients sometimes sit around a medicine stand and shuffle the cards. Rummy is the favourite game. Played in a relaxed pace, one by one the cards settle in groups of thirteen like the pebbles gathered on the riverbank by little village urchins while waiting idly for their playmates.

The kings and queens and jacks mingle with common numbers and sit in groups waiting to be picked up by a player. The royalty which lost its place in politics now continue their presence in games and jokes. Some simple cards, which gain consequential importance, would start leading the formation of groups in parallel or sequential orders. Players select them through a simple instant process of wishful calculation. In many cases it is just a random selection. Like in a blind act, the player pulls out a card, places it at a suitable end and rearranges the whole hand.

How did a six of clubs or ten of hearts gain such superiority, such a special importance that the player prefers this particular one over the rest? Or does any preference matter at all? Whatever wilful selection the man does is limited to the set of thirteen cards. They are already selected for him. Both the player and his cards are selected and played by some invisible one. The fate[s] of the clubs- six, hearts- ten, the player and even the bystanders are all just some thoughts in a universal mind, some say. Not a casual whim but a part of an all inclusive, all integrated, all considered plan. Not the leela. But a purposeful act. What purpose? Just be sure there is a purpose and it will be revealed to you, they say.

Thirteen cards are grouped at random. About each group sits a man. The fate of this man vis-à-vis this game is decided by the combination of cards in this set. The earlier they fall into a sequential order, the luckier is the player. The application of his ability is limited to the discovery of such orders and the formulation of groups of three and four. Like in an industrial unit of 13 workers; the easier they fall into a productive order, the luckier is the investor. The better the grouping and deployment of the men, the better the profits. Who chooses the men? The investor? Yes Sir, but they are already chosen for him. His choice is limited exactly like the choice of these players. Then what is the difference between work and play?
Then what is the difference between a purposeful plan and wanton leela?

Ayurdays 5

2009-06-28T22:58:00.000-07:00

VASTHI
Sreenivasan had a vasthi. Vasthi is sort of an ayurvedic enema in which about 1½ liters of medicated oils and concoctions are pumped into the rectum through the anus using a crude device made of a plastis bag. The bladder of an animal was used in early times. It is a bit risky and the doctor would stay nearby. Sreeni was particularly afraid after Asif had described the whole process in its greatest exaggeration.

By seven in the morning a helper brought a couple of soft idlies with a spot of coconut chutney, the only thing allowed for breakfast. By eight the vasthi had to be performed. Half an hour before that the chief of the team which treats Sreeni came and started the oil massage. Sreeni remained tense and felt uneasy. Then the doctor came to supervise the operation. One of the helpers brought a bucket of warm water. Another carried in the concoction. The fat treatment man mixed the medicines and filled the belly of the device and Sreeni was made to lie down in position. He was held by a couple of helpers with his right leg on the left in a side turned pose. The treatment man warmed up the device. The doctor nodded. The helpers tightened their grip on Sreeni. The nozzle of the device was thrust into the anus. Sreeni tried to wriggle but was held down. In a quick pressing movement, the 1 ½ liters of kashayam mixed with oils was pumped into Sreeni. He felt a strong nausea. But he was held so pressed to the table that no movement was possible. A half cry escaped through the open mouth and he was lifted up. The four men carried Sreeni into the toilet and hoisted him on the European commode, which was fixed on a half-foot platform. There the men held Sreeni till the whole thing flowed down with the pieces of idlies and other leftovers. Thoroughly exhausted, Sreeni started to doze off.

Next he was given a warm water bath, while the helpers applied the green gram powder over him, the chief of the treating team went to the kitchen and brought the gruel. After the bath Sreeni was dried up and brought to the room. There the gruel was mixed with the two and a half tablespoons of ghee, usually provided to the patients after the vasthi.

After he drank up the gruel Sreeni felt so tired that he retired to the bed and groaned. Everything is perfect said the doctor after a customary examination.

Ayurdays 4

2009-06-28T22:55:00.000-07:00

MORNING IN THE NURSING HOME

There is a garden here - a patch of ornamental plantation with a few marigolds, tulsis, cockscombs, table roses and everlasting flowers. In the calm of the morning I sit amidst them trying to bring myself to the slow enlightening revelation of another day.

Far to my right, beyond the silk cotton and coconut trees a cock crowed and the morning started. Vannathi, the only black and white bird of Kerala sat somewhere behind our low cost building and sang. A couple of busy crows flew into the south. A lone bee-eater chirped on continuously. Four white cranes flew in formation into the blue above the white long strata of an almost static cloud.

A large dark ant carrying a food load much heavier than himself came close to my feet, smelt something and diverted his course. Two of his friends like conscientious watchmen kept moving about very carefully. A young ill-mannered housefly came and sat on my left shin, looked around and walked up tickling me. The massive sound of a train shook up the whole scene for a while and I shifted position to get a glimpse of the rising sun.

The east horizon is almost covered by a high growth of bamboo shoots. Cashew nut trees line up beyond them. Huge nimbus clouds like shadows of ancient sorrows remain in the background. The golden joy of the daybreak brightens them up. They seem to turn into the passing memory. Behind them is the translucent curtain of morning light. Melting it in a slow smooth process, the sum appears. Bhargo Devasya Dheemati Dhiyo Yona Prachotayat.

The darkness was all that remained in the beginning. All the pasts and futures, the sets of seven worlds, the living and the non-living in them with and without intelligence and the space that contain all that remained as darkness. All that are real and unreal, perceived and imagined, my Lord, everything except You remained as darkness in the beginning. Then you willed, Let there be light. And the sun appeared melting the darkness, the dark ignorance. In the mighty chariot of the seven coloured horses, sitting in the blood red cushion of lotus, holding the varadabhaya signs, Oh! Sun, you come turning the wheels of time. The Suryopanishad says, you are Brahma, Vishnu, Rudra, Ric, Yajur, Sama. From you are born the earth, the air, the light, the intelligence, the organs of perception. You are the sound, the touch, the form and the essence of knowledge. The creator of all and the sustainer of all, Oh! Mighty Sun you dissolve them all in yourself. I bow to you.

Ayurdays III

2009-06-18T21:39:00.000-07:00

KIZHI
[This is a part of Ayurdays, a work I did in 1996. I blog it now, because I am undergoing a similar treatment]

Today my treatment took a new turn. Kizhi is the new course. Kizhi means a small bundle. In this a small bundle of shredded leaves, sliced lemons, powdered grains or some such things is heated in oil and the patient is given a massage with it. The one prescribed for me is called navarakkizhi. Navara is a type of paddy with medicinal qualities. Its rice is cooked in medicated milk and bundled in 4 kizhies. They are dipped in boiling milk added with coctions and used in the massage. It is mostly a rejuvenating treatment.

By five in the evening, good old Raman Nair took me to the treatment room. The tub was kept ready with his two assistants waiting in position. I was made to change into the loincloth and the three together hoisted me to the tub. Oil was smeared on my head. Medicated ghee was melted and applied all over my body. Next a man brought the fuming kizhies in a tray and the two assistants started the massage. In a minute the bundles became cool and other two kizhies were brought from the boiling milk.

The rice in the bundles was reduced by one hour and the kizhies became very small. Thick deposits of the rice paste were formed all over my body and the tub. I was made to sit up and the helpers started to remove the paste with coconut leaves cut into small pieces. There after body was wiped with a towel and a fresh coat of oil was applied.

Water, separately boiled for head and the body were kept to cool in the adjacent bathroom. I was led in. Raman Nair wiped away the oil from my head and body. A few mugs of water were splashed and a green herbal paste was smeared all over. With a bath in the medicated water, the day’s treatment was over.

From you, my Lord, the sky was formed. From the sky, the air. From air emerged the fire. From fire came water. From water the land. And in the land grow the herbs. Herbs produce food. Food makes man. So man is the essence of food. Some of it in me had rot. It had to be replaced. So the essence of bala, best of herbs is added with the essence of animals, the milk and best of food, the rice. Drop by drop the thick liquid entered my body. The thin walls of capillaries received it into the blood bypassing the mouth and stomach. It spread to the different parts of the body thus energizing the whole system.

Bala grows on slopes of Western Ghats. As the topsoil gets soaked during the rains and the nutrients of earth are dissolved in water, their powerful roots absorb the most of it. Millions of moth looking leaves sprout, colouring the hillsides in viridian. Between the summer rains, the sun shines in full beam filling the sky with energy. The leaves absorb the most of it, making saps which fill their roots and stems. The tribals collect them. Agents buy them. The medicine factory extracts their strength. The treatment team pumps it into my body.

But paddy being seasonal, the shoots will perish in a few months. The plants pack all that they can in the long hard grains. The farmers collected them. The agents buy them. The hospital extracts their strength and pumps it into my body.

Cows give milk. Generations after generations they have been producing much more milk than their little ones need. Through the times the human civilization got indebted to them for the plain white liquid, which tastes like the mothers milk. The cowherds collected it. The agents buy it. The hospital medicates and pumps it into my body.

From food did all these living forms emerge. By food they live. And to food, my Lord, they return. They become food. Food forms the basis of existence. Food is the basic bond among the living. And through the complex food web, I am bound to the living world. All my parts are. Yet my joints, contaminated and worn out resist the eternal flow of food. That is death. Before the death slowly gains a disastrous control over me, the great physician decided to reinforce the flow. For this he got the essence of all foods, the herbal juice, paddy grains and animal milk, cooked all together and fed me through the little pores of my body. I got up from the tub with added strength.

Ayurdays 2

2009-06-16T06:21:00.000-07:00

The Chief Physician
[This is a part of Ayurdays, a work I did in 1996. I blog it now, because I am undergoing a similar treatment]
By eight in the evening, the Chief Physician, respectfully called Thirumeni, clean-shaven, clad in a white dhoti and slacks walked into the compound through the main gate, followed by a retinue of doctors, attendants and the manager. Suddenly a blanket of silence fell over the whole place. Movements were reduced. Unnecessary lamps were switched off. Some kind of an unnatural order spread and the four of us who were sitting in the veranda now withdrew to the dormitory. The procession moved into the first cottage, the one just opposite to the gate.
.* * * * * * * *
After the first room, the procession turns to our cottage. We four wait at the door watching the progress. First the dark doctor in charge of this ward comes with a bundle of case files. His steps are measured and accurate. Just behind him to his left walks an attendant. He has an umbrella hanging from his left shoulder. The golden border of his folded dhoti shines in the yellow light. After a short gap the great Thirumeni comes. A corner of his dhoti is held in his left hand. He is upright. His white slack is immaculately clean. The thick rims of his spectacles add to his seriousness. He stops for a moment gesticulates something with his right hand in an authoritative fashion. Suddenly the manager runs up from behind, bends down a bit to hold his left ear as close as possible to the great man’s lips yet keeping the two feet distance commanded by caste rules and shakes his whole head. Four others behind him make a small crowd. The manager murmurs something to them. The shortest among the group hurries to the gate.

Now the Thirumeni enters the garden path. The marigolds bend down as if a strong wind passes. Most of the short plants along the path suddenly fold up their leaves and the great man walks in slow majestic strides.

At the doorstep he stops. Looks straight. The whole building turns around a little and adjusts itself to facilitate his entry. All the lights burn as if someone has switched them on. And the great man is with us in the room.

Two large strands of gray hair neatly fall on his broad forehead. His quick eyes focus on my face for a moment. It is a flash. He turns to Asif and jokes something. Then he snatches a case sheet from the doctor, comments on a few empty columns tightens his lips and stands silently, thinking something. A smile appears slowly and he becomes a close friend enquiring about the food in the canteen, the taste of the medicines and making light remarks on Sreeni’s dialect and Prabhakar’s restlessness. The doctor who is perusing a case file walks a few steps, waits for a while and asks something. The great man turns serious again, looks far away into the darkness outside the window and answers in solemn gravity without shifting his gaze.

The nerves and veins and tissues of each patient take shape in front of his eyes. Bones and muscles twitches. Juices and fires of the body become visible through the transparent skins. Even the minute malfunctioning, the little toxic afflictions become clean to his probing eyes. Discerning knowledge accumulated through many generations surface in his mind. In an extra ordinary process of cross matching an illness with its remedy, the secret cognitive faculty brings out a plan of treatment, the complete course that is needed in the extermination of an illness. Very kindly he dictates the treatment. The doctor in charge of the ward takes it down and he moves on to the next patient.
After the world was created and man appeared, the diseases flourished. Then by two letters the Aswini Devathas were raised. They were the deities of all cures. From them through the rishis the techniques of cure reached a few. Thirumeni is one of them. May God keep him well.

Ayurdays 1

2009-06-16T06:14:00.000-07:00

PIZHICHIL
It is an old method of oil bathing in which I would be laid flat on a special wooden tub and four men would pour warm oil on me continuously for about a hour and a half. Two others would operate the stove and pass on the vessels of heated oil.
It indeed is great that my whole body is rendered in shatters left to the medicines to react and reform, form back into shape in the rhythm of this mantra, slow, steady and sure like the rhythm of the stars, the sun, the moon, the air, the water and everything that is made and unmade, broken into shatters and reformed into shape like my fifty kilos of body matter left to the medicines to react in an oil tub.
Entering into the tub is done as a ritual. My wedding ring and golden chain were removed already. I had clean shaved my armpits and removed the pubic hair before starting from home. I am ready for a new growth – a changed healthy growth.
Raman Nair, the good old head nurse in charge of me came bouncing with a paper packet. See if they all suitable. If not we can get them changed. I opened the packet. Two loin clothes and two towels and a sachet of washing powder. We will need it he said. Get ready. Remove your underwears and come. I shall light the stove. Shortly his four assistants came with bottles and tins. Different types of medicated oils and ghees are mixed in prescribed proportion before heating. It is all done in the treatment room. Asif calls it the workshop. There is the special tub there adjusted at table height. Stoves, stands, racks, basins and handing ropes all covered with a strong odour of oils make the place look odd, something of some other era.

Two of the assistants, one with a bearded smile and other a dumb heavy weight, come to my bed and walked me to the workshop. I took Rs.101/- and held it tightly in my right fist. The other assistants came forward, removed my clothes, tied a loincloth around my waist and made me stand in position. I bent down and touched the wrinkled feet of the old Raman Nair and thrust the money into his hand. It is dakshina, a token of acceptance. Sir, I submit myself to you. Do as you feel fit and bring me health. I place my faith with this token money. Lets start. The leader seemed satisfied. The whole team came forward and helped me to the tub.

Once I was seated, the old man took a handful of oil, closed his eyes and prayed murmuring the name of all the local gods. Thereafter like a solemn ceremony smeared the oil over my head. Next the four others adjusted my position and kept the vessel-stands on the sides of the tub. A piece of unbleached cloth was torn into four. Each helper took a piece and dipped it in the warm oil. Raman Nair made a slight nod and the process started.
Streams of warm oil flowed down my body. The medicated molecules of the fatty liquid in accelerated motion found their way through the little pores of my skin, which usually discharged sweat. In the sudden heated onslaught the poor sweat glands were stunned into inaction. The warm oil had entered through the ducts, filled the little cavities and created a special situation of minute pressure, which made a sort of dermatological chaos. In the micro-milieu, these molecules delivered the required medicines into the tissues, the glands and the blood. The helpers mildly massaged the muscles facilitating the process. Slowly by slowly the level of oil in the tub rose up, the level of oil in my body rose up, the level of oil in the blood vessels rose up, the level of oil rose up around and many of my cells started floating in oil. The thin cell walls tried in vain to withstand the pressure but gave up tired. And the oil got osmosed into them threatening the very adamant toxic things, which caused me pain and agony. Right from the cells, the whole body was thus getting reshaped into a healthier unit.

First of all it was all water. From water did everything emerge, says the text. From water did emerge the long carbonated molecules entwined into strands, which formed the basis of life. From water did emerge the little lively cells, which swarm around in clusters forming columns and groups, which later migrated into the air and land. From water did emerge the Piscean creatures, which made the deep swinging dives into the oceans of air and got their fins changed into wings. From water did emerge the animals, which made the land their hatching place for the land itself had hatched out of the seas. From water did emerge the plants, the clouds and all that constituted the life.

The essence of water was still left in the plants and animals as the thick liquids. Some in me had got contaminated. So the great physician decided to extract the essence of water from seeds in the form of oil, purify it and add those little parts of corrective substances as medicines and pout it into my body. The little particles of herbs and chemicals, prescribed by Sushruta and Vagbhata now entered into my cells and changed their configurations avoiding the un-needed.

Thus from oil did emerge the reshaped cells, rejuvenated tissues, the reformed body. After the treatment the helpers wiped the whole body and I came back to the room to put on a set of fresh clothes on me. The whole room and outside looked so fresh and nice. The world, as Raja Rao said, is of course fit to live. Thank the Lord for it.

Students Strike in RCE Mysore

2009-05-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

This is about Regional College of Education, Mysore, later morphed into the now famous RIEM. I visited the site www.riemaa.com , a product of last years alumni meet. Somewhere I saw a notice of this years meeting, on May 10th or so. A gone date, sorry. But I am truly happy that RIEM has established its identity.

The last Alumni meeting I attended was held under the guidance of eminent Mr. Varma, our long time staff advisor. The man was an ultimate in student management, very diplomatic with some blue blood in his veins which showed in all his actions. The man is no more. Just a digression for BGV.

We were gheraoing The Principal, Prof. Govinda Rao. Remember the man in cream suit walking in right angles. He would never cross the cricket field because it meant gross indiscipline. We had to shut down our transistors, unplug our iron boxes and restrict the use of geysers. And we could never accept the man spying us, young men and women. So we thought to teach the great man a little lesson. We made cartoon posters in Krishna hostel and stuck them along the roads by two at night.

By eight next morning the entourage of peon-clerk-caretaker-Principal-his son and personal assistant with the flask was stopped by the water tank by a few seniors. Soon the crowd swelled into a hundred and more. Prof. Rao tried to argue something and looked sullen. All of us just sat down silently on the newly tarred road. Every one knew what is happening, but none had thought it would be so soon. The great man who was so much respected that the B.Tech. Eds went one by one and touched his feet before every exam was now standing awkwardly in a crowd of squatting students who waited eagerly for his words. He said something like ‘inform my family’ and sat down. The caretaker, clerk and peon sat. PA was allowed to slip with the boy.

As was planned, lemon juice was served to everybody. Being in the second year, I was sort of an errand boy. With all the respect, we offered The Principal a glass of juice, but the man refused. So we went to his Qtr. No. 4, to inform his wife and get the flask. Mrs. Rao was considerably happy to receive us. We tried to speak to her in Kannada. She thought gherao was sort of a seminar. “Why do you want majka from here? Don’t you serve anything there?” We said we will serve him lunch too. We were afraid to spread panic in the family. His son also seemed happy. Why should we inform him that his father was facing some of his most humiliating moments?

Back at the spot the crowd was growing unmanageable. The staff were generally baffled and did not react. It was almost nine and getting hot. Prof. Rao started wiping his sweat and the peon started to fan him. We had no intention to sweat him out. And he refused the fruits we offered. Some went to get tender coconuts. Meanwhile we contacted BGV. The man arrived riding his fantabulous and stopped near the clinic. “Move him to the shade” said the commanding voice. “And stop it soon. In case the old man faints, you will be in real soup”. How to end it was the concern. BGV had a solution. Call Dr. U.R. Ananthamurthy, the cult figure of the campus, who had recently left for a post in the University.

URA came and made a ‘Friends, Romans….’ thing ending in “Sir, won’t you be a little more lenient?” The Professor shook his head and agreed to drink coconut water, provided it is poured into a glass washed in front of him. He will not mind the boys and girls going together to the canteen or playing the transistor if it did not consume electricity which was swallowing all funds. The college was reeling under a crunch in finances. It was the making of another Rao, the venerable VKRV Rao who had vowed to see that the college is ruined. In July 1969, during the inauguration of Ganga, he said “ Your Principal, [Miss Chari] being a sweet mannered lady can get funds for this white elephant. What use have these kind of institutions when millions in the country have no black boards and chalk pieces?” Back in Delhi, he scrapped the Home science Ed first. All dish washers and washing machines of American brands went silent and the attendants used the aprons to dust furniture. Next B.Com.Ed and B.Tech.Ed were closed down. When the axe came down on B. A. Ed, URA left. However the course continued for some more time.

It was half past eleven when the strike was over. We decided to celebrate with a common lunch. We went to Cauvery, the ladies hostel and the girls welcomed us in jubilation. They started pointing out each window, this is hers and that is mine and so on. They crowded around us and it was tough to carry the sambar and rice. The kitchen hands helped us. The rest of the day was spent in groups and pairs.

Soon it was exams time. PSF II was the paper in which they decided to fail the leaders. About 14 of the fourth years were victimized. Many of them did not have any major part in organizing the event. I was in charge of issuing guest passes to them next year when they came to clear the arrears. Most of them were sorry that their trust was misplaced by someone in the Education Dept.

Well, BGV continued to be the benign factor in students matters. At least thrice he tried forming an OSA, but the continuity was lost. Prof. Balaji and Mr. Chandrasekhar IPS of ’71 batch had helped him. They can form a link between the old and new avatars of the alumni association. May the RIEMAA succeed in its aims.

BLOGGING AFTER A LONG TIME

2008-10-22T19:43:00.000-07:00

1.
Back in my easy chair, My Lord,
I feel so cosy. Comfort fills my cells
Which carry a thousand units of RA factor,
Some factory producing kilos of uneasiness
Some call it disease: un=dis, noun in plural
That makes it contemporary.
This is an age of diseases
This is an age of diseases

2.
So let us come to the point at least now.
This is Royal Blue ink.
“Reform Calligraphy”
Is the pen-name, brand name
So I write to reform calligraphy.
‘kal-graphy’ in Malayalam means
image
Ended graphy and started graphics
Like graphic poems
[certainly not like this]
OK, Byebye…….

3.
No current. Mosquitoes abound.
Sun is going to set. Ending
a day of a month of a year of a
century of a millennium….

We will celebrate its 10th annual soon
Still some of us live before Y2K
Filled with umpteen graphies, means of measurement
Merging into one the only one – Truth.
Keats told it is beauty. Sankara proved it by knowledge
Jesus showed it as love. Buddha made it mean more.
Guru Yagnavalkya said it straight – truth.
Lead us from untruth to truth,
The light, the immortality
Which again is truth.

4.
Magpies and crows make bigger sound than the little twits. Children are very noisy. This is a nice locality. Clock ticks. The UPS clacks. Current came. Cyrus barks. He is communicating with the children, ten and twelve year olds, playing on the street, loudly. Louder than that Cyrus enjoys it. Noise is the prime means of communication. Colours do it silently. That is why people talk about loud and noisy colours. Tiny little spots of murmur and even the hiss of a kiss can be seen in paintings. That is why I paint. I have a large collection of them. Mostly worth nothing. That is why I write. Nobody will publish it. So I blog. Blog it out.

5.
Its half past five. At six is Mass
Pray by time table: difficult, but one has to
.Things concerning ones God and ancestors
should not be neglected.
That is why I go. It is time. I go
and come back, eat and edit a page
global warming, for Std VIII.
Children think I know everything.
Foolish. I too think so
Its time to retire.

6
Its night. Quarter past eleven
Fan makes perpetual noise
I break a sentence. Just for its fun
Crumbling the edifice of grammar
And scan this and put it in
Where you know by now
Where else? Yes. It is here
Right in this blog it is. Yes.
Elsewhere, by now, you know
It is like a reflection.

7

I will stop this at ten
Provided Wall Street remains
Stronger than twin towers.

What for, Krishna, What for I fight?
What for I live?
That question triggered Gita.
Sorry if I misinterpret
Real masters forgive and forget
That is how I remain
So comfortable, relaxed
Just a few yards from school
Leaving after breakfast, reaching for lunch
Closing work for tea at home. What easy life!!!

8
It is twelve. I sleep. G’d nite.
My Lord, you make days and
remake them after nights.

The new day comes
More of global warming
The sun is at his energising best
Just crossed the equator
Crossing the mid-line many times
Through millenniums, energising
The Sun, god as worshipped
By many great civilisations
Gayatri is the greatest prayer
Greater when it is sung
Image
Listening it is greater
R. K. Mission has it.

9.
Human voice is an offering
Twisting and turning it
Sharpening, flattening, twisting
Turning, breezing, waving
Dancing in its best, My Lord,
Voice is an offering
Like many things in sacrifice.
Every sacrifice has a cry
Like the last song of Anarkali
He cried aloud and left the spirit
Says the Bible, (Verse)
Not despair. -was reciting Psalm 22
Scriptures elevate to higher planes
People say they overcome emotions
Elevate means to take to
Same - higher planes
Exalting minds.

10
At a point the modulations overtake.
From poetry to music it turns
A layer change of perception
Mind goes beyond music
The next layer is silence
Elevated by human voice
Regenerated in my ear-set
From behind the millenniums
Ever-fresh, ever-exalting
Gayatri Samam.
Buy it and listen in silence.
Tenth part over here.

PGDP AND AMMINIAMMA .

2007-11-27T23:37:00.000-08:00

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..........

2007-11-27T11:07:00.001-08:00

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.

Home is Bliss

2007-11-24T10:53:00.000-08:00

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.

AFTER AUTUMN EQUINOX

2007-09-29T00:17:00.000-07:00

The sun again crossed equator and entered The House of the Prime Virgin. I sit facing Him, mighty, full-shining over melting clouds. The morning is wet. A few butterflies simply flutter in leisure. Some radio ad establishes it is suprabhatam. How nice. Twits and sunbirds and crows all repeat, how nice in this morning. After all the sun in Virgo.

Virgo, because it is the time to sow the seeds. The rains are over. The land is in the state of ‘urava’, [Std. IX.CBSE.] Ready to be seeded. Other connotations just melt down like the clouds in receding rains. Retreating monsoon is like the victorious army, leaving the conquered lands to peace and prosperity. The stock markets booms in spite of the disturbances of peace in politics. [Peace is the foundation of prosperity.] A boom in money market gives a sense of doom for the communists and they go on politicising an American connection as usual. It is a nuclear pact this time. I have a doubt that a majority of the comrades, ex-comrades and the would –be comrades of the colleges are supporting the rendezvous with the Big Sam. Certainly the Bengalis welcome it even at the cost of Nandigram. Why not the Party publicise its own discussions and bring in some transparency? Hiding half the truth is not democracy, Sirs. Transparency has become the norm already. With so many news channels and efficient news papers, you cant hide even your hob-nobbing with lottery dons and quick money experts. So is with ideological transactions and opinions precipitating in your ranks. We, the people watch India Vision, Manorama, Asianet and Surya. Your people may watch Kairali with faith and adoration. But what? Faris? Is it Pharis? Or Karat? Whoever, my Lord, Bless the lot with conditioned senses.
How nice, relaxed and content is this dirty greenish short beaked bird pecking at a ripening papaya and gulping huge morsels after morsels. It had been doing it all these time I was writing! The whole of its head would be inside the hole of the juicy pulp it bore in the hard peeled papaya by pecking and gulping. This is the house of Virgo. Season to seed. This bird will process the papaya seed in its inner organs and deposit it in some suitable place with a little other dropping which would give the sprouting plant its early nutrition. The rhythm of it, the method of meticulous planning and the confident execution is all very relaxed. Content. This contentment is missing these days. Now the green bird has gone and the black crow has come in. With its extra strong beaks it would even hack the unripe.
Yes, it does! The whole papaya falls down in the thick grass below. There the immature seeds will join the earth at last and sprout in the next monsoon, grow to a foot or two, like the grass and dry up like the sex-girls. There are more crows now pecking at the fallen, unripe papaya. It is all part of it. That is Adwaitam.

AFTER A GAP

2007-05-05T02:48:00.000-07:00

God, My Lord
I write
Praise The Lord
In a tiny scribbling pad
And put the date
5-5-007
Two zeroes and the gun-like seven
Bond-like
The seven trailing the Zeroes
Zero-zeroes
Hissing the zzzzzz
Aspirited with gustoes
which, My Lord
like soap bubbles
burst in front of our eyes
in History Channel.
like Caesars and Titos.
Like bygones of Natural History
aired into space
where satellites beamed
the capsuled quanta
for every half hour.

2
I am baffled
After teaching thirty two years
of school level Histories
of our unmatched past
of vedantic synthesis
of all like the temple
which the Mission built
at Kalady.
in Bengali style
with white clad swamis there
aspirants in fact,
serving regency there
talking so nice Bengali.

I clarified with a swami-
in the book- stall,
pleasant faced
He said yes.
After all, I too thought so
that everything started in Bengal
till they got the Nobel,
producing the likes of Bose
and the Nandalal and Ramkinkar,
and our own Malayali there
Guess who. We all respect him.

Ten points lost for each clue.
Basu will do it.
He will do it even more
Like the Great Vivekananda,
the Most Learned of the Last.
Yes, the Last Century
and the last before it.
By the end of it.
during renaissance

3
Yhe Mission built a temple there
Paramahamsa in sanctorum.
Lamps glowing
In perambulation.
The disciples also glowing
framed in black and white.
The white glowing.
The Param.
The final.
Yes, like World Cup
only two left
Black and white,
Untruth and truth.
Unlight and light
4
The Light as Jesus told.
More as Yagnavalkya taught us
yes, to pray (B.U. c2k3v5)
Asothama Sat Gamaya
Thamosama Jyothir Gamaya
Mrithyorma Amritham Gaamaya.
So there the light is there.
Sat, Jyothi and Amrutham.
The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.
That is called parallelism.
5
“You can make many of them”,
said the aging CMI Father
“I too have made some”:
He said after retiring
some seventeen years ago.
As the Principal S.H College.
Pranams to the Great Teacher.

MARY OF NAZARETH, MARY MAGDALENE AND ROSARY SALES.

2007-04-09T00:23:00.000-07:00

After a weeklong catholic charismatic retreat I reach home by two in the Easter morning. The final service was grand. Priests, deacons, alter boys, singers, organists, light & sound men and many assistants got Jesus rise up from a card board tomb. Crackers, bells, loud speakers, bass boosters and a thousand throats sang Halleluiah for an event which is made a media hype after the real Discovery Channel advanced a controversial project which sought to project The Lord as a married man with a son.
One of the best sellers of recent times had actually made the son live long enough to establish a dynasty, which surpasses the ancient, medieval and modern ages to the present times. The sources of Discovery were kind enough to kill the child and publish a snap of the casket, which supposedly contained the remains thus terminating the dynasty.
Last year a book and before that a film had done thundering business during lent. ‘So why not a feature now?’- thought the most academic of all channels. Both its history and geography could be sold later by the respective outfits. In fact I too had almost typed a project report to make some quick bucks by selling pearl-and-gold rosaries along the ebbs of the fresh waves of interest in Marys – both The Mother and the DaVinci prompted daughter-in-law.
I felt the old lady, Amma or Ma as The Guru’s mother is called, had all chances to win. She had always won. Even during WW-I, the first all-world event of the last century, she did it as indeed in all centuries before. The word ‘won’ is not in Shiv Khera style. She did it as a kind and able middle aged mother. The contrast with the sizzling beauty who walked in flowing whites in a full moon night with an amphora of Nardine perfumes is stark enough. So I decided, Ma, The Mother will win the fight of in-laws.
Rosary is often said to be a weapon against Satan, a horrific personification of all about the world including globalisation. Hence the demand for rosaries will increase many times. The product range is quite short for those who really value their rosaries as all time personal possession. I thought a bit of ornamentation would add attraction and induce personalisation. The prototype, made of pearls I bought in Kathmandu and crafted by traditional jewellers of Kerala became so dear that I decided to donate to the church and started waiting for an opportunity. [That is what Indians do with their dearest things – give away to God] Meantime I lost interest in selling rosaries by Internet and courier service. If any one wants more details, he/she gets free advice.
However the great channels and scrupulous publishers pursue their ideas and the devotees get enough grit to pray on with fervour and they do so, of course with rosaries of lesser make.

WOOLMER’S DEATH

2007-03-25T06:43:00.001-07:00

Somewhere far in Indies, in Central America, the first to be found by Columbus the explorer has just exposed what many call a mafia, meaning an organised group of crime doers with explicit economic ends. Poor simple game that was cricket! It was usually paid in the lawns of early imperials and their Indian vassals and schools and later in a flash bloomed into an international craze Oh! Not to play sir, but to watch. Watch in between dazzling ads and sizzling commentaries. Ads brought jingles in cash and it turned into a game of extreme interest, yes, the vested ones. The rules of the new game were of not cricket. Certainly not of the descent game played with imperial British etiquettes. Enterprising Amir Khan made the best of it. The film opened with a coin tossed and spiralled into a momentous tension, spilling energy which circled around and fell flat on the simple choice of heads or tails. Betting was royal. Horse racing is a prime example. Cricket racing just followed. Maybe the earliest was in the mammoth coloseum, which is often depicted as a place to visit. Like a casino. Gaming was an ancient industry and it meant mass betting had grown with history. The element of luck or skills or fate or what we call it as the unknown, the fear of the next, manifested in the excitement, the force to play on by any means to win, to snatch whatever it is the wealth, the power, the women and all other possessions. Gods and demons fought for it in children’s fantasies. Also where they very profound in classics and the folktales where Devas and Asuras and their progenies like the Gods and the Demons fought each other. This simplistic view had no place for the many dimensions which, like ripples generated from the bad evils. Like, My Lord, up to this extent of killing a trainer. A teacher by definition. So it amounts to Guruhatya, the killing of a teacher which was considered a heinous crime both in Greek and Indian traditions. How can it be? Any teacher would ask. Didn’t he teach these boys how to handle the ball? Didn’t they, like school boys, throw a ball at each other to catch as he whistled? Didn’t he share the joys and sorrows of the team? Didn’t he know the under currents? Then why didn’t he leave the job and quit the country? No he can’t. How will a responsible teacher leave his wards in such a time of turmoil? That makes Mr. Woolmer, a martyr of the game. Pranams to him. Pranams to a teacher.

BACK AGAIN [BA 1]

2007-03-23T21:28:00.000-07:00

After an evening bath on the second day of Chaitram, the fifth by thithi, 2-1-1929 by date, I decide to put this in a website. The great immediacy which the modern methods of communication brought into the field made old school masters out. Only the young blooded ones could cope. I had to say bye to that generation which climbed up the hill leaving us old on the wayside to sit and watch the clouds munching groundnuts. I just had ended up an intensive phase of blogging, by my humble standards indenting to put up a few sample pieces called RW, random writing. An old boy, one among our first few batches commented he had seen me with all those oils and balms and now should see me climbing up. The younger ones who started a group in my name said it is moving and I had to excuse myself saying it was just the tiger hill and I had simply stayed back to test my Yashica FX-3 during the turn of the century. Don’t worry, I am online, my dears. Just now in the middle of an oil bath , I decide to put these all in a web site and keep the blog-spot alive and post reactions to something contemporary like Woolmer’s death.

WITH THIS I STOP

2007-03-14T17:23:00.000-07:00

[RW -7. [Random Writings. Book .Part 38. Pages 27.to. 30]

With this I stop this
And wait for comments to continue.
resting half way
hiking to the hilltop.

You go up my boys
[And girls, too]
Then just look down

An old schoolmaster will be there
sitting aside an upward curve
Eating groundnuts, feeding monkeys
Adjusting field glasses to see you all
Up in the top.

You will all win
Shiv Khera told you can!
Vivekananda told you should.
Arise, Awake and
Prapyavaran nibhodita..
…Look in a dictionary
and find the meaning.
I’m only a schoolmaster

sitting aside an upward curve
Bye till the next.

Thank You
My respected reader,
The sahrudaya,
Means ‘with a heart’
Bye till the next
With a heart
Thank You.

poulose.ap@gmail.com

MORNING RHYMES

2007-03-14T11:13:00.000-07:00

[RW -6. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 38. Pages 21.to. 24]

1.

5.30 a.m. Time to pray,
calls the mosque.
Thou art thou alone.
Church bells ring.
Wake up time.
Come, get ready.
Greet The Light.
‘I am the light’ said the Lord.
Come, follow me.
I get ready for church.

2.

It is nearing six.
Some cock is restlessly calling
The magpie-robin is relentless.
Like a China bird in golden cage
‘You think you are the only one?’
I ask her and she replies
Something, black and white
A koel echoes it far
And it is six o’clock.

3.

I get ready by 6.15.
‘Mens Active’ I use
Times changed yaar!
Consciousness didn’t.
Time is that thing.
Does not it change?
Does it? Said the teacher.
Time shrinks, Know?
Yes, Sir, I said
That too is Maya.
We laughed.

4.

After slicing a tender mango,
With a gangrened onion
I sneak out and
Sit in the sit out and
Feel happy
The world is the same.

5.

Do not I see the changes?
Certainly, like a mask
Photoshop tool
Then there are layers
And also my Lord
The stable background
Which can’t be deleted

6.

You delete it and it appears
Purnasya Purnamadaya…
∞ - ∞ = ∞
Confusing is it?
No. It isn’t, is it?
Yes, Madams,
It is isn’t it?
IT. IS. IS’NT. IT.
It is both isn’t and is
Being and nothingness
The single one alone
I bow to You, The Lord
of all and infinity
represented by
pranavam.
………….

AFTER THE DAY OF SORROW

2007-03-14T07:13:00.000-07:00

[RW -5. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 38. Pages 19to. 24]

1

After the day of sorrow
The sun again arrives
Arrival is the word
Which the trains established
in India, A tradition
of management
in which, you know
Loyalty Counted
With British precision.

Each arrival was a celebrated
Like ‘The Gateway of India’

Fan fare….ceremonies
Bells, cronch-shells, pop-guns,
THE SUN
The arrival of the sun
The day begins.

2.

After a day of sorrow
Which ended up amma reciting
Byhearted Psalm No.91,
Marked wrongly in a prayer book
Said strongly by-heart
But it is mother
Who has the knowledge
And in born DNA trait
Of guarding its young like the birds
The fish
In my pond
And all other ponds

3.

After a day of sorrow
Which ended like
‘Do you really feel lost’, I asked
‘not a bit’ she said
‘I too’ said I
‘I trust you’. So many ‘I’s
that made it silly
all ‘I’s entered and You prevailed
like the Sun, The Lord,
of all and all energy,
Arriving stately
And The New Day
Starts.

BACK IN SCHOOL

2007-03-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

[RW -4. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 38. Pages 08.to. 16]

At 10.00 am, I sit in a corner, the moola, an angle, a star, simply a corner of my staff room and write. The school is deserted except for The Principal, The AO, the Office staff and a lone tractor ploughing the ancient pond. They had filled it with laterite soil which carried little vipers of the land. Traditionally there were many water snakes around. I mentioned a little past which detailed the boy’s relation with the school and asked the Principal ‘ Sir, who will represent the school at the last rites?’ It was not thought about yet. So I explain that like the last rites among Christians, the people of all other religions also had the rites and it is good to have someone responsible there at the announced time.

The President of the PTA looked at his watch, a common sign of discomfiture with time. He said if some one had already kept a wreath, then should he …?
I said ‘No, Sir’, knowing fully well how some one could easily call some other one and get a wreath placed there earlier to save time. But, Mr. President seemed concerned and I show him the way and return saying, ’Now you can’t lose the way’. I had planned to go with the CS [Campus Supervisor], because I was CD and know the job well.

00.30 hours to go. So I sit in staff room. No other teacher, no supervisors, no others except The Principal, all alone, I sit under the fan with tube light on and write. Writing, an academic exercise like other physical and mental exercises which the MAX man told, is indeed a tedious thing. What Sankara tells is impossible to follow, the Professor agrees. What the western liberal educationists followed was just copied with alterations here this schooling system. I sip the tea I earned carrying a sachet of milk in the morning.

10.30, the CS reminds me and I go with him. The young priest said the mantras very clearly, knowingly, saying the name over thrice causing a tear as pranavam could never die. The songs the ladies sang were very good. The HM, our tall and fair lady with an AS and a few more lady teachers stood attending the rites. About 40 students, half of them girls, were also there. I asked Sanjay the one who could not pass about his future plans. ‘Any school’ he said. I said him to concentrate on his two papers still left. Then I left.

I left the CS in the campus to tend to his ploughing machine and reported to The Principal and said I was going to the crematorium. ‘Anybody coming, my pillion is free’- I said. None came. So I rode alone. The younger brother did the last rites and Pranav was confined to fire wood flames. Then I ride back and report to Principal that it is all over and sit outside sorting my texts.

DEATH OF PRANAV A STUDENT

2007-03-12T00:43:00.000-07:00

RW -2. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 38. Pages 01.to.7.]

My God, kind thou art, Be kind, I prostrate.

Pranav, meaning aum, the sound that is played as a permanent reveb, so softly in the background like a faint tempura, turned so strong at times to be heard in the roaring winds of March in Mysore and even the tsunami of tears which engulfed many at times.

Pranavam, the echoing of an eternal process of making, keeping and destroying all these analysed at the macro, micro nano, pico and still minute, My Lord, and more deeper where truth prevailed and love filled like a lake echoing the Pramavam, the greatest of all mantras, reverberated in light tones, I prostrate before that the devata.

Praramathma devata, I say it holding folded fingers in my chest, the cage of bones which cover my heart. Yes, the pumping instrumentwhich echoed the seconds ding dong, dub lub. It went on echoing thus in the heart where like light it shined.

Also I prostrate before Pranav, this Xth Std. boy, an excellent example of a student turning teacher. My young shy boy, you grew up in front of me, and grew old and wrinkled and lost interests. No, Sir, no TV, he said. Music? No. Don’t you go out and sit and see nature? This he said ‘Yes’ and looked at me. Ms. Mercy, his class teacher promised to pass him. And in those eyes I saw the retirement, aging, being in bed, the sudden growth of the self and the soul – something that happens to all, the drawing oneself into oneself stage, when like an ‘exhausted falcon, directs itself towards its nest only, even so the infinite entity hasten to the state where, falling asleep’ it takes no desire and sees no dream’ [BU 4.3.19]. I saw him growing, so fast, faster than me, an aging schoolmaster and I prostate before the boy who went ahead, looked in my eyes and taught how the rhythms elaborated in calendars, the time as we call it, stretching and shrinking and in a sudden flash made him grow into the ultimate of all growth and in that twist of the moment changed him into a teacher like UC. [Dr. Chandrasekharayya], my teacher. Pranams to him. Pranams to Pranav, my boy, you go with my son and be happy there doing errands in heaven.

KNOWLEDGE & SKILLS

2007-03-12T00:26:00.000-07:00

RW -2. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 37. Pages 07to12.]

I had been waiting for Pradeep’s SIMC results – the machine open, web site up, refreshed after every few minutes when Jwala calls from NUALS. Excited she is. ‘It is over, Pappa,’ she tells, ‘the arguments’. 23 minutes the Moot Honourables argued her down and still she bubbled and jiggled and seemed to keep her cool. I say her to count the minutes each of the five courts takes to dispose a competitor and make a study which can be used in organising such an event later. I do not elaborate. After all what an old schoolmaster has to do with with legals, a class which Jesus cursed and infuriated and His disciple, St. Paul shred to shambles by arguments which, sorry, I am ignorant to follow.

At 11.30 night I try typing in a piece but soon I find parts of my shrinking brain refuses to function in a dual mode. I cannot type and think together, they both being s different. Knowledge and skill.

Skills are acquired through practice - intense, disciplined, methodical and whatever other means of regimentation practiced in early centres of learning, mostly the seminaries, some f which cherished the traditions. How else could Dr. Illich propagate deschooling? OK. Skills meant the disciplines, including the one aimed at acquiring knowledge, the academic skills.

Then there is knowledge which involves inaction like meditation and tapas and all. One who actually imbibes knowledge did not do anything except a little teaching and spend a lot of time thinking. Knowledge meant that which enlightens the person, the surroundings, the persons he meets and so on. The light, the path, the lighted pathway. Both of its sides have the stations of cross. Such suffering. Every one suffers if everything is a suffering. That is not it. Instead suffering preceded salvation, the goal, My Lord, You set and demonstrated by resurrection, the happy ending of an exciting real-time drama which climaxed in a trial and execution. The divine twist makes it great.

So the typing skill doesn’t go with the enlightening knowledge. Means when typing, current failing, machine offing… That is India. No, Kerala, or say Kochi or just my place a suburb where current, meaning Current Thoma, a VKN character, caricatured on the fashion of great Mundassery master’s own son who published so many major titles in Trichur the cultural capital once. Then the town lost it out to Kottayam, pronounced as kottaayam, double stressed in the middle by Dr. URA, who, later, was Vice Chancellor there. There are about six of us his students in Kochi. Three of us plan to meet in a new house built by dear NC, Shri Sasidharan, retd. Principal, Govt H S School. Prof. Thomaskutty Mukkatt [TK, my room-mate] waits there.

By the time I get ready for my bath, with all these oils over my balding head, the SIMC puts up the results and Pradeep fails to make it up in spite of Prof. Choudhari pumping in all hopes and I bathe and get ready smearing Men’s Active on my drying face to go to Sasi’s new house. TK waited for me there. Both of them were my batch-mates at Mysore, doing a four year course of education. We share a lot of hearty nostalgia and break up for the next rendezvous at a Professor K. P. Sankaran’s place on 25th.

RW-1

2007-03-10T03:36:00.000-08:00

RW -1. [Random Writings. Book 7.Part 37. Pages 01to06.]

6.3.07. After many days, My Lord I return to writing. It is my B’Day, today. Nothing much to celebrate. Just that I turn 55, the age of retirement by Kerala Standards. But being in a CBSE school, I got 3 more years of routine signing in the morning and spending the rest of the day in the school for a monthly replenishment of my meagre account.

The routine was broken today when I went to visit a ninth standard boy, Pranav at his home.He felt a pain in his stomach a couple of months ago. Doctors opened his abdomen to find out the stage of malignancy and recommended chemo. No, said his parents and tried Ayurveda without any long improvement. The boy, mostly on liquid diet lost lots of his 81 Kg, turned thin and old, and lost interest in the TV, music and other pastimes. So they switched to Homeo, administering drugs every hour. Tomorrow he goes.

10.3.07 And he went to Palakkad.
Palakkad is so different. So different that I wash my pen, and fill it anew with Your flowing Grace that I can at least pray for Pranav, distantly my boy, like Manik, Prakash and Kamma who did this sort of writing for me. I was the chronicler and R. N [Rajashekhar Narayanarao] Kamma was the editor. We just exchanged the jobs. Then I migrated to the hills and then the plains, first to the east cost and then to the west. Here my brief was to start a school under the greats like EAG [ E. A. George] Moses and Dr. J. D. Johnson. And then the management changed and I like a distant imitation of Harry, not Potter but Miller, chose to stay put in the suburb of Kochi, painting, writing, gazing stars and guarding a few guppies in a garden pond with walls of a famous fort above which encircled a coloured kingfisher who scooped in a flash and carried the young ones.

I laid a net over the pond, [ not to trap and catch, of course] with a Chinese pot protruding over its centre. Or is it an amphora or even may be Keats that urn, by the way, did he drown in it?

Well, lets be back. At last after Pradeep’s projects and Jwala’s memorials, I was feeling a little free. Last night by 12, I had got the last things printed in Jerry’s colour Lab where young Suraaj charged me less than half the normal rates that too smiling so. My heart melt in gratitude. Now, by 12 noon the girl has finished arguing 23 minutes in the moot court with a set of black blazers in a caricature of Hogwarts.

Having experienced in the hills where blazers and jackets and sweaters were part of the uniform, I didn’t feel it strange but sometimes thought like a muggle master, who just spent some time among the pure bloods which happily my daughter never felt. So simply prepared all those 84 pages and did it OK. Results are awaited. More awaited are the results of my son, Pradeep who carried a 5-in-one project folio for an interview in SIMC, where the Prof. Director said the lad seemed serious about things, a trait he liked. He was also kind enough to allow the boy go out and come in twice, filling him with hopes – hopes of getting one out of the twenty seats and indeed, more so the simple and pure hope, a four letter word, purified like Miller’s four lettered man, which propelled life. Yes, life as an aggregate of all that dared to live.
For the rest, see RW 2

LEARNING BY EXPERIENCE

2007-02-23T05:53:00.000-08:00

Two days after the Thattekad tragedy, at 2.30, I sit in the staff room and write down an old nursery song in Malayalam. I taught it in the first standard just before lunch. One of the little girls insisted that I write it in a tiny piece of paper she tore so well. I write in a Falcon Pad.
Ommanam Kunnunmel, Oradi Manninmel….. On the first hill/ On a foot tall mound of soil/ lived a thousand birds. The youngest of the nest/ Lotus-like, my little bird/ swinging on a coconut leaf…
The swaying leaf is its end point. It was made so for the govt. text book. What I learned is another line. The last line is ‘koodum vedinjengun pokalle…’
Apart from its d-drums and /ng/ nasals, it meant much more. It had a very powerful emotional aspect. Don’t my little bird, the youngest of the nest, do not leave the nest. Do not go over to the nest-less skies, it meant. And the throbbing hearts of a few teachers accompanying their little ones to a bird sanctuary did not only mean it, but experienced it. Yes, emotionally.
This emotional aspect alone gives the real meaning to education – meaning the purpose, the force to make changes in the character, the habits, the outlook and so on.
I refrained teaching what I learned and preferred the govt. version which questions the word ‘raki’ the essence of the famous song ‘rakipparakkunna chemparunthe..’ because that word is not found in the dictionary. That is the fault. Going to the dictionaries and rule books for everything. The forest officials say the river does not belong to them. River officials say it is the forest people who collected the entrance fees from, My God, those little ones of ten and twelve, 15 of them who drowned in front of them. Their bodies were displayed in front of the whole world. Channels vied with each other in telecasting it all live. Thank God, they do not make the drowning live, except in rare cases like a person dipping another in a temple tank, an act of insanity. Live shots from an asylum can be serialised. Yes, I am skirting the point. I cannot think of it casual terms. My son too drowned at twelve and I know it by experience. That is it. Experience is powerful. I still remember my literature classes just because my teachers like Dr. U. R. Ananthamurthy, Prof. S. K. Vasanthan, K. V. Ramakrishnan and Dr. S. L. Byrappa had made the lessons into lasting experiences. Here in Std.1, I acted the lotus like and youngest line of the poem, as if holding the little bird. And the little ones [certainly not kids] started clinging to me. The lunch bell rang and they would not leave me. You eat our lunch, they said. They won’t allow me to enter the staff room. At last they made me promise in their name, my name and gods name that I will get back as soon as finish lunch and wash my plate.
Of course I don’t wash the plate and I had not to go. It is just being clever. So I keep my promise and interrupt the Maths class. I say I shall teach ‘1,2,3,4,5; / Once I caught a fish alive’ on Monday and they, like very matured ones, agree and I come out and sit relaxed in my corner and write about the little birds which flew into the nest-less sky. Or, say, the spread of seas, the water, the cycles of rains and drains, the waves and the tides and even the floods of , Oh My God, the life giving waters into which my little ones have gone – never to return.

USTAD ZAKIR HUSSAIN

2007-02-21T10:02:00.000-08:00

Ustad Zakir Hussain played in Cochin, on the lawns of the Bolgatty palace. The Dutch had built it. The English inherited and bequeathed it to the Cochin Raja. People got its rights with Independence and the Tourism Department of Kerala gave it over to the Dutch and the British and all other nationalities who now come as visitors. Hundreds of them took part in the mega show of music as announced by the promoter who ran a dancing school. She was the disciple of a well known dancing couple and an excellent organizer with a few foreign tours. This one is mega beyond her scale. So an event management group was approached and they did all arrangements. Two of their men climbed the ladders on stage at 6.45, sharp; fifteen minutes after the show had to start. They tied the last pieces, two white muslin, pieces of cloth above the platform which was draped like a divan with gold edged Kerala cream coloured cloth. One of them meant this flag is now colourless and meant no nationality. The second one meant peace be with you. And with you also, said the crowd when the compere wished a happy time. She highlighted the Ustad and actually the par lights focussed him and the cameras flashed and the rest on the stage were almost forgotten. So the ustad himself corrected her saying he was only accompanying the flutist, young Shashank who was really great. Also he remarked that the organisers must have sold standing room tickets to the mosquitoes. The most famous of all insects in connection with music certainly paused a challenge, a physical threat. And a couple of koels, the most famous of all singing birds of Kerala sat on a high branch of an ancient tree fearing the current and light and the many times amplified sound. It was a dark evening of early Magh, the month of festivals. Sound and rhythm played an enormous role in all festivals. The Chenda, that superb war drum beaten by a hundred strong men making excellent music made celebrations. And here in the lawns of a palace by the back waters the Ustad and his calm faced co player made a festival of percussion.
After it rained Amrithavarshini, the Ustad said no more flashes and the crowding with cameras. Enough I gave, now you go. Enough for the photographers. Now for the music lovers. Then the music turned serious. The long shapely fingers were magnified and projected on large screens both sides. Their movements made the rhythm. Some say the rhythm made movements. Hearts beat the rhythm. Breathing grew fast and slowed down to the rhythm. Walking and running and even sitting and sleeping were tuned to the rhythm. Rhythm made the planets revolve and stars pulsate. Universes formed and reformed to the rhythm. Rhythm is an expression of the divine, the unknowable that controlled all or as some say is controlled by all events and processes. Rhythm or rthm as in Upanishads meant much more than the thalam, the beats of specific rhythms, the spacing of explosive sounds emanated on the tight skins of hollow tubes and vessels stylised into beautiful instruments. The humans and animals and all inanimate things are said to be such instruments. ‘Lord, play me like a lyre and let the music of joy flow from me’ – was a prayer. Music is the expression of the rthm in sounds like painting is its expression in lines and forms and colours. The rhythm of thought affected humanity through the movements and revolutions. The rhythm of creation growth and destruction made the sciences and philosophies. Knowledge is the waving rhythm of minds, The rhythm, the beats the movements of these lovely fingers, shown so large and clear on these white screens and heard so loud and clear in these huge loudspeakers. The programme ended abruptly at the end of two hours and the crowd melted into the night

GUNDECHA Bros.

2007-02-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

By the evening, I wait for the Gundecha Brothers, the famous drupad singers. The hall is almost a quarter filled. The programme is jointly arranged by the Fine Arts Society of the city and a bank employees organization which has organized over 200 such events. By ten minutes past the starting time, the crowds entered and filled a half of the hall and the tanpura started sounding the start, OK, the beginning for a longer word.
Suddenly the curtain opens and an introduction about the chandha- prabandha style of drupad singing is read out in impeccable pronunciation. Then the long tuning process. Tuning the instruments and the vocal chords of the singers and the auditory perception of the audience and even the air around. Then they sang Bimpalasi and interpolated the time. Matras and tanmatras, nanoseconds and molecules mixed up in a mood, this elated one of their raga, so methodically explored, keeping the time standing by and watching the way the sounds and movements being created and dissolved on stage. From behind the large flakes of graying shades emerged the music. Waves after waves the notes and tones and ragas filled the stage. Centuries of singing intermingled, keeping the same beats, the same tones, the same swaras into an elaborate harmony of nanoseconds and molecules, all emerging and disappearing to the beats of the same rhythm, the one played on Shiva’s thudi, the damaru, the ultimate drum.
One of the Gundechas played the drum, the pakwaj, the mrudangam of the north. Later Great Amir Khusro cut it into two making the dakkan and the bayan of the tabala. Drupad being a form of the pre-Khusro period, still used the pakwaj. Abheri of the south was Bimpalasi for them. Next they sang Bhairav. The dawn with its brightening grays and the morning notes of all birds and bees reverberated in meaningless sounds rhythmically produced to the strictest of regimens and yet flowing into melodies of old. As time whirl pooled and at times stopped itself in shades, one behind the other into the future [or say the past] and lost the directions, the collective voice of all people and other beings and all things and even non-things made the music, so melodious, so full of feelings that they spilled all the rasas and bhavas – the moods and melodies of old, continuing into the future.
It had started with samagana. Rathantharam is a famous piece. Even Gayatrisamam is great. RK Mission’s Mylapore Kendra has brought it out in cassettes. Even the tone is reflected in drupad because it inherited the samam singing. The tans were so elegant and harmonized in such an excellent way that the resonance stayed even after the programme got over and the brothers were honored and the girl who compeered got a special prize. Music lasts over events and centuries. May the fame of these brothers too last for ever.

Leave Today

2007-02-19T04:08:00.000-08:00

Whah! Whah!, I’m on leave. I managed it by noon. Morning I went to school and got a half day- that is till noon and left at 10 to 10. Then I went there by eleven, made it a full day and escaped by lunch time. Problem was that My Boss, The Principal’s Boss, The Local Correspondent was on a visit and he caught me. He is a trade union leader. Leave register will close on 30th April and all the balance left for all employees will be converted to those many days of extra pay. I said en-cashing the leave is not of my nature. I don’t have to sell my leave and get some money, I told him. So I exhaust my leave. After all I have only a half hour of exam supervision today. That is arranged with another teacher. So I go to drop my wife in her bank. Then I have to pay the phone bill, get a recharge coupon for another, buy a notebook, get bananas for mother and so on. What to do? Saturday was the trip to relatives, nearly 100 kilos of motor-cycling which ended at home by ten at night. Sunday to Fort Cochin, 25 kilos up at noon and back soon in the sun and back soon to the city for Mass and a meeting and prize distribution which I had to cover partially. About 30 snaps. Dinner there and reached home by ten at night. Repetition Eh? Yes dear, in between these repetitions, the days went by and I took two days leave from my blogging schedules. Sorry. I shall try to be punctual. This diary form seems good. There are novels, poems essays and umpteen such forms. But this one seems charming for its immediacy, the nearness, the sort of a belongingness which otherwise is fast vanishing from the hurly burly world.
My son said it is great to know that someone remembers him when I greeted Happy B’Day in the morning. Today he turns 21. Working in the back offices of British Telecoms. Old ladies and retired gentlemen find time to call them with little little complaints. They want to feel some belonging to good old BT and find the complaint cell an easy entrance to a hearty communication. Like in some other BPOs, Infosys does not encourage impersonisation [CPR some number]. He is coming this week. Have to do some assignments for a college which he intends to join. 4 things – one in event management, another advertisement, then the study of an NGO and 4 references from ad or PR people whose firms this boy is to be familiar with. All for 1:5 chance of getting a seat! I buy a few publications and a notepad and talk to an old student’s husband about it. The fellow is with an event manager. Then I clean. I took leave to do a project on housekeeping. So I do this keeping things and dusting and all and the rain comes. The first serious rain of the year. Let me cover the compost and cow-dung and firewood and keep the vehicle in the shed.

Celebration of Love 2

2007-02-14T06:31:00.000-08:00

Plastic hearts. Made for mney. Who buys, pays. And we enjoy going to the hotels and parks and part at the bells of our doms and hostels. OK, times have changed. The concept of love underwent great developments. Naturally the methods too changed. The www united lovers. And they clamoured to be heared. So this day of the poor celebate saint was borrowed to celebrate because it is the nly ne pssible during the flourish, the movements on stage before the grand entry of the prime character or, say in other gender, prima characterina, the long skirted beauty, the spring. That is Holi. The full moon of early sprin, the most beautiful night of Indians of the plateaus and plains. The mahua flowered and the hearts fluttered and the pitchkaris filled the space with dots of colour.

Colours n valentines days were sold in cards and sent as few attachments. You select and we reach it, says those who trade in love. And at the click of a mouse it happens - what? Yes. Love. In the next click it grows, flourishes in chat rooms and nds up in emails. Sometimes some turn to sob stories. But generally ga ga it goes on. Love never dies.

Lovers may. That is what our romantics said. The famous pastural elegy, the only 'Ramanan' ran dozens of reprints. I bought the 50th a special one with Karunettan's cover. Ettan is brother. Yes C.N, the Respected Chairman of Kerala Lalitakala Akademi. Yes the spelling is ntended to demarcate from the English spelled academics. We hitched ourselves withthe Greek, the greatest of all periods in terms of art. Well, I called him so when I met him with the Late Jayanarayanan, about whose short stories some symposiwere held. Mostly post-upanishads. We had been to Ravi, the young bald of reading who lived in 'Stay Hell'. They had changed a parting W with a ladder step H. Steps to the down reached the humid and warm interiors of love. Generations painted it in different colours. And some very clever ones stuck real currency notes on the walls. Lovers collected them and ate ice-creams in exquisite parlours, discussing next days work. It is half past six. My wife comes from the bank. I pluck a bunch of her favourite jasmins and greet her at the gate. Snacks and tea are ready. [My daughter made it!] Yes. Love matures in family.

Celebration of Love

2007-02-14T05:35:00.000-08:00

Those were the days of old, sort of some romantic period. Keats was the hot favourite. His letters to Fanny Brawne were in secreat circulation.Love was not so commercialised like today, 14th Feb, Valentines Day. OK, I switch to love.
What is love? The definitions goes, darshane, sparshane, vapi smarane. etc..It means if ones heart melts in watching, touching, rememberng andtalking to someone special, it is said to be love. Those days there were the vasanthotsavams, the sping festivals to celebrate love. All that is described in the definitions and more happened real in the festivals, which later became drunk and obscene. There were regional variations too. In Kerala, we had the thiruvathira, the celebrated ardra star with the full moon of winter, so cool, so humid that one craved for a kiss. Vilasini the male novelist of great fame had in thousands of pages described it from the angle of a bachelor for life. It was a kind of love developed in Keraladuring those half-remembered days without current and light. Marriageable girls danced with elders and all eligible men sat watching and all. Then it all underwent changes, mostly like in MT's novels. A few had even gone over to Mukundan-Kakkanadan style. But alas! I grieve and shed a bucket of tears that it all got gone with the present, the market celebration of pre-coital love, which melts hearts at sights, touches and more than that. Only that is plasic heart. Made for money.

P4. Mon.12-2-07.

2007-02-12T06:34:00.000-08:00

I left school at 4.00 p.m, exactly. Most of the teachers do. We stand in queue at the Principal's office to sign out. The register will be brought out after the last bell and at its sight the queue breaks and the rush follows. The reverse occures in the mornng. Between the signings the happens in one hour periods. Six in all. The fourth one is shorter by a quarter hour. Then there is a lunch and a break. it is tea time around eleven. In between them the bells announced the periods and teachers walked past each other ascending and descending steps, sixteen at a time. Over a hundred in all. Mostly the teachers were middle aged. A good lot were sick. Climbing up and down was the task. So the minimum time for each change over was about five minutes. To settle down took another five, and the process of learning was trimmed. Noone made any study of these issues because much more serious ones like the falling standards of education and constant failures in Mathematics. The first one was for experts and the second was simply inevitable. Everywhere students failed in Maths and Msc(Maths), both working and non working were drawn into tuition business, quite steady and lucrative. Failure in school examinations ensured admissions in tuition centres. And it became so wide spread that everyone believed it is inevitable to fail in Maths. But in board exams, most of them passed. Why? Because of tuitions. Convincing. Of course it takes a long time to make a lie universally convincing. Think of all the Maths teachers! Years after years to fail the little ones at exams to console and encourage them in tuition classes which ultimately led to the bettr organised entrance coaching institutes. Doyans like P.C. thomas, retired with a famed tag of sincirety and efficiency could attract a few thousands which he dealt in batches and prepared them to get descent marks. Many of them were repeaters. They toiled night and day breaking their adolscent brains to seek, to find, to win and not to yield. And they did it.
Must be their persistence. Motivated or compelled to the core. Success became a life and no-life struggle. Life meant the salary, the perks and the price in the marriage market. and all those many training firms like the petty tuition homes did manage in securing marks and seats and huge money. And the few who still followed the past, clinging on to those outdated values like "money is not above the knowledge" and "truth triumphs" etc. stayed contented though not successful. Poor things. I too happened to be one and quite proudly too.

p3. Sun 11.2.07.

2007-02-11T07:27:00.000-08:00

With all excitement I reached the venue by seven. Sorry. That is only what is possible. A whole night programme is like that. Kerala has many. Kathakali for one. That too days on end. Every night it continued for over a week. Then there is the ayyappan pattu which repeats the same performance in different villages. Theyyam, Thira and the thousands of temple festivals in which it is mandatory to have certain forms of all night events. Of course those days, there was no conveyance, especially after the evenings. Many of them are reshaped for the stage. 3 hours at the most. OK for the just enthused. The matured lot still nurtured the 'whole-night' habit. Those who had properties and reltives in the villages went there during the festival weeks and redid the habit. It was an experience for them. Also for those who, though not initiated, had a passion to know and appreciate the music. I had mainly gone there for Darbari. I was sure it will be there by midnight and it was. Middle aged Shri Vinayak Chittar, an illustrious pupil of Grand Ustad Vilayat Khan played Darbari Kanada. The Grand Ustad is said to be greater than the Venerable Pt. Ravi Shankar himself. While the later, like muggle Hermione, learned it all so well enough to break traditions and globalise Hindustani Music and even Great Ustad Ali Akbar Khan did lend a hand, it was the Grand Ustad who stood for traditions.Now in the evening next day, Sunday, I sit listening the great Khan Saheb of Sitar playing Rag Darbari.

P.2.Sat.10-2-07

2007-02-10T04:55:00.000-08:00

Being a second saturday, I drop my wife in her bank and do some planting for Amma, my mother and continue cleaning and arranging and washing and eating and sitting in sit out with Dolly, my dog [actually a bitch], sleeping so secularly.Rurality has this secure yes, secular too kind of effect on people and animals and birds and even fish.The guppies in my pond are so securely hatching in hoards. It is a dirty little village pool in which dry leaves decay with fallen flowers of the grown up lebernum tree. And there is also a new little shoot which we think is a water lily, rising up and and greeting the sun. By four I go to buy tea dust and milk and make tea. Then I bathe and play Marva. Pt. Jasraj, The Sangit Marthand. Current fails and turn off. Back to my place. Facing coconuts. Young and tender. Sky is like it in Deccan. Cloudlss expanse, greying at ends. There the rag echoed and music extended its rythmic folds and expanded to take in the local forms and ethoes. The grand expanse of wavy lands and curling skies were filled with music which spilled from the decorated pots of folk dancers. Classical and folk traditions got assimilated each other, dissolving in a union which gave birth to the many styles and practices.
I dress up in kurtha, matching pants and slip ons. I will be there while they are long at tuning. Actually the musicians are tuning themselves and it gives a chance to the audience too. Let me reach.

Morning 10-2-07

2007-02-09T18:19:00.000-08:00

After I post the last B-log, the night. I sleep and get up. As usual. And I am back in the same place. It is dawn. The sky brightens up. I mount my 2000 Yashica 7*300, adjust the shutter speed, focus this majestic coconut palmand shoot atintervals. Yesterday evening, in between the writing, I am sorry, I was doing the same thing with the new D 40, a Nikon which I had shunned for a large branding 'Y'. Then it left the market of Digital SLRs, crowded with seven giant producers. but the way it works! Wonderful. All Wonderful. It is morning. Tonight is whole night music, Raag...Rangi...Raat, the first of its kind in Kerala. Ramesh does it. He is a Malayalee, the only one of that sort who can claim a credible Guru. Pt. Jasraj himself introduced him as his worhty disciple. The Great Guru came down to Kerala, that too, to its distant south, the great pitha of Kerala's Music, Trivandrum. An avt of charity. That is the difference. You will tell it is business acumen. Ramesh Narayanan is introduced by the Doyan of Music in front of a choice audience who had sat there many years ago. When the venerated His Highness Swathi Thirunal, the Musician King of Travncore, sang bhajans to them. Ramesh, really a Guru on his own merits now, is collecting them. Lent a ear and pay some money. That is business. But sir, Music is not that. Oh! God how can I think that Krishna's sweet Meera sang from village to village for money? Oh! no. I do not write like that. though it is true that Krishna Sweets conducted the first of a few mega programmes of music in this bubbling city. Jesudas sang Carnatic Music and of course a few film songs as well. That was also the first major programme of the new, renovated TDM Hall. Our own sweet, ever young singer jesudas who had, like a dream, like a love, a whiff of melting nostalgia, who had shaped our sensibilities, was indeed the apt person to do it. And the series of mega programmes culminated in Zakir Hussain playing in the lawns of a palace built by the Dutch and used by the British. then Gundecha brothers, as a family sang without any gimmick lighting or sounding and noe\w Rameshji is organising a whole night music. I am waiting impatiently. But a whole day is there before that. Second Saturday. It is seven in the morning now. I am going gardening. Lat weekend was the MAX thing. Both Saturday and Sunday full. My Lord Manage my time, for all times are thine. Amen.

This Evening

2007-02-09T07:58:00.000-08:00

I sit watching an unlimited sky in the east. With a couple of vacant compounds for neighbours, the view is rustic. Wild caladiums, thick perennials and abundant grass cover the ground. Plantain trees, coconut palms and a shy young badam cover the mid view. Greying little wiffs of relaxing clouds reveal the receding blue behind.
A slow flying crow appears, flutters up, turns to the south and disappears. Far in front the bamboos shoot up downing an aging coconut tree. There is an enormous kandal, mangrove of this region. And above them all the sky, deep and saturated. The thin veils of clouds have vanished revealing its vastness which conceals all knowledge. A magpie couple and a moorhen talk among themselves on coconut bosoms. The magpies ar upto something which others do not like. I can hear the drongos shouting something ill of them. They are always bossy.
It is a quarter past six. Sunset is at 6.32.p m. It happens in the east. I am facing east. The sky, slowly, brightens up. All the greeneries have turned darker. A large cow pheasant crosses my view. It is calm. It is again an evening.

Blogging : By-lane communication!

2007-02-08T11:34:00.000-08:00

'digit' this month has blogging in Fast Track. Blogging has turned out to an accepted form of by-lane communication. Behind the main street, the galis had a life throughout history. In that Grand Republic of Rome, where the senetors themselves sacrificed their revered and glorified leader to save the republic, had the by-lanes, the galis where plots were hatched and people were excited. Excited about the power the gali talks, the by-lane communications, which made conspiracies hatch new governments and dynasties. Gali gali ka shor hei, Departed Leader amar hei kind of shor (means mere sound) reverberated the capitals after each death or murder. And Ceaser amar raha. Means Ceaser remained deathless. His name began to mean an emperor or another like the Tsars and Keisers. Those were the days of absolute monarchy. Then there came the democracies - one party two party and multiparty. Each had its backing in the by-lanes and the polity shaped there. That is the power of by-lane communication. So bloggers of all worlds unite. Sorry. I do not know for what. However Hail By-lane Communication.
[ Sorry if it is bad, this is my first post]