WALK THE LIFE
Do you think any of us would have calculated the amount of walking one would do during ones lifetime?If you are not born with a silver spoon in your mouth and
from your childhood days compelled to use your legs instead of a car or two wheeler for your locomotion,the distance you would have covered to go from one place to another would run into thousands and thousands of miles!
I am now in my early seventies and from the time I was 3 or 4 years and my recollection goes,I would have done many many marathon walks in my life.In my childhood days,my father,a foot soldier(in early 1940s) was posted in Jhallander and then in Delhi when I was about 5 years and my elder sister around 8 years,we used to walk the city streets with a bucket in our hands to collect cow dung,which mixed with broken coal pcs would be our prime raw material for burning the choolah in our houses.Though from middle class background,we had no qualms or hesitancy in collecting these items from the streets in those days!!We took this as our duty to our household and enjoyed doing it.Thus our early childhood days were spent in North India during which another two siblings were born in our family.So walking the life in those days are etched indelibly in my mind and we had all a very enjoyable childhood.
Then my father was prematurely retired due to some eye problem, from the military,when I was around 9 yrs and my sister 12 yrs.We then had to shift to South India, to
Madras
we came and settled down in Villivakkam,a suburb,in those days.My father got himself a job in MGM and we could see some of those great Hollywood actors Gregory Peck,John Wayne,etc with the complimentary tickets we used to get due to my fathers’ connection with MGM. Hardly had we settled down in villivakkam,tragedy struck our household like a tornado,after a brief illness of 2 or 3 days my father died of cardiac arrest,the day I was celebrating my 10th birthday on June 15,1946. He was a chain smoker and I still remember him putting his fingers to his mouth as if smoking and I would light a cigarette and allow him to take a couple of puffs. I also remember feeding him some rasam rice on that day.My fathers’ distant cousins were in
Madras and my grand father came from Kerala for the funeral,and our life in Villivakkam was over for ever. I only remember of one family
as neighbours and they had also one elder sister by the n ame of Kuppammal and a younger brother Selvaraj who later on went to the
USA and settled down there. To this day I remember him but have no contacts with him. During all these hapapening my walking stint for day to day school going and other cores continued,but villivakkam being a small place,the distance covered is not
much. All through these trying times,I would recall my mother,a small statured woman,always frail in health,a paragon of all that is good in a woman,silently bearing the burden of bringing up her four children,silently suffering the pangs of separation from her husband,and
rising herself from the hell of misfortune,because she had a duty to bring up her four children single handedly,and till she breathed her last this year in February,at the ripe age of 93,she would always egg on my wife to take care of my needs before she attended to other cores in our day to day life.
Here I would record my deep admiration for parents like my mother,who regardless of their own problems spend their entire life bringing up their children and seeing them settle down in their life;and what we most sons and daughters do them in their old age is reflected in the prolifiration of old age homes with their silently suffering inmates longing for their reunion with their sons,daughters,grand children etc.and many of them leave this world,mourned by other such unfortunate inmates of the old age home.Pity on such sons and daughters,as one day,they would realize that history repeats itself,and it will be their turn to occupy the old age homes,as their siblings would do to them what they did to their parents. So I take time off,from my sojourn of WALK THE LIFE to salute my MOTHER and other parents like her,who have departed from this world,or occupying their allotted cots in a dingy room six by six in measurement,awaiting their deliverance from this wretched hell of a world of selfish sons and daughters.
Now continuing my story,after my father’s death,we finally settled down in our native place called Elapully,a small bramin village,in south Malabar about 8 kilomters from Palghat,Kerala, on the Palghat Pollachi road,and I joined the one and only AP Higher Secondary school and studied there from sixth standard to school final,for six years,and passed my final SSLC(secondary school leaving certificate) exam with average marks,as I was a very mediocre student,lacking in exceptional quality or ability!! But here also I did not give any respite to my legs,as the school was some four kilometers from my house and we had to walk the distance,return for lunch,again go back to school,and return in the evening,covering a distance of 16 kms in a day,and those days I had to walk bare feet,because I had no money for the luxury of a sandal or cheruppu.How I wished to wear a pair of full pants,full sleeve shirt,with a sandal in those days,but till I passed out of my school,my fervent wish remained unfulfilled.So apart from other miscellaneous walks such as going to various places in and around Elapully,to the temple,to the play ground,or roaming around the entire village street,to the touring talkies,and some times to nearby Palghat to see a picture in a theatre, the major chunk of my “Walk the Life’ consisted of my walking to school, say more than 200 days in an year,for six years,or 1200 days at 16 kilometers per day,I would have walked 19,200 kilometers to achieve my SSLC pass!!
WALK THE LIFE PART 2
The first part of “walk the life”,though ended with my school life,it would be appropriate here to look back on some of the nostalgic memories of that life.Even though ours was a co-ed school,we had separate sections and rows of seats for boys and girls,and those days,i.e. 1950s,having boy friends or girl friends was unheard of.After the classes girls went their way and boys did likewise and social meetings between the boys/girls students were very rare indeed,unless there were students of neighbours studying in the same class. I was a sort of playboy,but I had very little opportunity to display myself in that role during my school days.Still I do remember some of the girl students with whom I could establish some sort of comradery. But the quality of affording easy familiarity and sociability as seen in the present day students, was as rare as the kurinji malar which blossoms once in every 12 years in my school days.Of course I had no college life to talk about,as my precarious financial status compelled me to shift to Calcutta in search of a job and earn some moola to look after my family.
During school days I did take part in sports like foot ball,cricket,volley ball,swimming etc.My first attempt to become a good batsman in cricket met with a nightmarish end on my initial foray itself.Those days the school or students could not afford to buy cricketing gears like stumps,bails,thigh and abdomen pads and so on. Oblong round logs of wood served as stumps,and the bat was just a thick wooden plank shaped like a bat,and the minute you hit the ball the shock of the impact between the bat and ball would reverberate through your entire body via your hands holding the bat,and incapacitate you for few moments.In such a situation who could talk about “hand eye coordination” etc.Further I had a problem with my eye sight.So the first ball thrown(not bowled) by the bowler which I faced came at break-neck speed thudded bang into my unprotected abdomen(testicles) and I folded on the crease like a pack of cards with excruciating pain. Thus ended my agonizing,harrowing experience to become a cricket player. Of course in my later years while I was stationed in Bangalore, I became the Manager of a cricket team called RCCA (Rajajinagar Colts Cricket Association) and in one of the matches I had a century partnership for the last wicket,and would you believe, I did not face a single ball,all thru my innings,as
my partner would call for a single on the last ball of the over and I would scamper to the other end like a scared kitten !!Anyway,as the Manager and the senior most player in my team members profusely congratulated me for my century partnership.
In swimming also I had death staring at me on a couple of times.Once when I was 6 or 7 years old I almost drowned but for the presence of mind of my elder cousin sister. We usually take our bath in our village pond and visit the temple before we go to school. During one of the summer holidays,my cousin from Pattanam(Chennai) came to our village and I took him to the pond for a bath.Being a cityman,swimming was not his forte,and I advised him to restrict himself to the steps in the pond and not to venture beyond till I went for a swim and returned.While I was returning from my swim and was nearing my cousin he slipped on the last step and went into the deep and since I was near him,he just put both his hands round my neck,and our entangled bodies looked like two snakes making love in a bowl of noodles.and both of us went deeper and deeper in the pond.Here also the fairer sex came to my rescue.Usually in our village ponds,side by side,with a partition in between,men and women take their bath. Two of neighbourhood girls in their late teens,rushed to the scene of our entanglement,and rescued us without much fuss!!
Another pastime those days were movies.There was a touring talkies a few kilometers away from our village,called JAGADAMBIKAI TOURING TALKIES, and lot of tamil pictures used to be shown like PARASAKTI,DEVADAS,AAYIRAM THALAIVANGI APPOORVASINTAMANI, and the like to quote a few. Parasakti in which the great Sivaji Ganesan made his debut was my favourite in my school days.Those days I could verbatim repeat the dialogue of the court scene in Parasakti and the songs were also catchy. Devadas enacted by Nageswara rao and Parvati by Savitri was another favourite. Even today when I sing those evergreen songs your mind automatically goes back to your good old school days.But where was the few annas required for the tickets?? My uncle (Periyappa) being a prominent personality in the village,the touring talkies owner gave his family a permanent complimentary pass,so that his family members could see any number of movies at any time.Since I was the senior most child member of his household, I would stealthly take hold of this complimentary pass, see the movies and restore the pass to its original place. Thus I could see many a movies those days,and till I boarded a train to Calcutta in search of a job after my SSLC result,my poor uncle did not know that I was clandestinely using his free complimentary pass issued to him by the Theatre owner!!
Another personality indelibly etched in my nostalgic memories was our Class Teacher from 8
th to 10
th standard. A lady of high caliber,a malayalee lass in her mid twenties,a petite and slender figure,with very long flowing braided hair,immaculately dressed in sizzling georgette saries, and blouses,with a lilting head,sparkling eyes looking thru her glasses,and pouted red lips,she would enter the classes like a mermaid, like a breath of fresh air, and all the male class students could ill afford to take their admiring eyes off her. Her name was C.M.Sarojini,and we would call her CMS,(city Motor Service) in private.She was my favourite teacher, and I was her favourite student. She was an unforgettable character in my life.Another girl,a very close friend,was the eldest daughter of our village Doctor,Shri Harihara Iyer.His first bramin wife died early,and he married a beautiful malayalee lady.Their first daughter Vijayam was elder to me by one year, and she was my friend,philosopher and guide,all thru my school days. Other children of our doctor,Shekar of my age, Indira who was my class mate,and the last girl Ambica,used to be my great source of friendship.My dear friend Vijayam passed away due to cancer a few years ago,and I do sometime get in touch with others who are living in Delhi,Chennai,and in our native place.
So on to Calcutta. On 2
nd of October 1954(who can forget the birth day of our Father Of The Nation) at the age of 19, I boarded a train from Olavakode junction to Chennai,on my way to Calcutta.Those days there were no reserved compartments worth mentioning,and I literally spent the night traveling on sacks o\f rice occupying every nook and corner of the railway compartment.Being the first train journey of my life,I was a scared passenger, seeing danger in the eyes of every other co passenger,clinging on to my meager belongings, and always feeling the presence of few rupee notes and the ticket in my left shirt pocket,and not closing my eyes for a wink all thru the journey till I reached Chennai in the morning.My cousin(who would have met with a watery death with me but for the teen age girls) had promised to meet me at the Chennai Central Station.When the train was nearing the station,I looked anxiously every minute for the familiar face of my cousin,(ESViswa),and even after I got out of the train, I was on tenterhooks,until I sighted my cousin coming into the platform in search of me. A Sigh of Relief could be seen on my face,when I shook hand with my cousin’.
Who would have thought at that time that this cousin of mine and myself would become inseparable friends in the years to come,sharing our dresses,sharing the meager monthly earnings Of both of us,and marrying sisters (he younger one and myself the older one) setting up shop at Calcutta,living together like a joint family.We had no offsprings of our own,and my cousin and sister in law have four children,and all of them treat me and my wife as their own parents,as my cousin passed away in 1984.To this day we are living in Chennai like a closeknit family,the first two daughters are in Muscat,Oman with their children,and the third one a boy and the fourth one a girl,all married with children,living in Chennai.
Now a days our apple of the eye are my son”s 5 YEAR old daughter, ANAINA, and our last daughter's
4 YEAR old girl NISHITA.
