Lot of Hard Works

My cousin brother called up one evening and asked me,

“Bro, you are free tonight? I want to introduce someone to you whom you might have nearly forgotten”

“Well, who could be that?” I wondered. He assured me that it would be someone who is related to me.

I was puzzled. A relative, who is so important? But leaving all the worries aside, when I followed him to a flat in the city, I met this person, but I could not recognize him.

But, he at once identified me, and said,

“Ah I remember you, you used to go school every morning carrying your school bag and water bottle. But you were very timid and slow. I can see now that you have improved a lot.”

But I was clueless about this person who knows very personal things about my childhood.

When explained, I identified him. He was my second cousin sister’s husband. I was remembering him. He used to stand in the front portion of his house carrying his little daughter every morning watching us going to school. We never acquainted, and were not very close, but with his facial features, I could still remember him.

When I recognized him, I didn't hide my curiosity, “Oh brother I remember you. It’s nearly twenty years since we met last time.”

He was carrying out some entrepreneurship in the city. He was building a very big hospital coordinating some charitable organizations.

I asked him about his success. He was not very eloquent, but still he was successful in making me understand how he came that far.

He remembered the hardships he faced while trying to achieve something. He was an employee of a bank. 

During free times, he used to do small businesses. But one day his business was broken. He had to resign the job to save himself from his clients.

He ran away to a different place, where he tried to set up a small business, and tried to bring it up. He always had a vision, a dream, and that dream helped him to go forward even in the middle of adversities.

In between all these troubles, he used to visit his family, and by little by little he paid all his debts. Then only he could show his face among the people.

He earned the trust of the charitable organizations. He became successful in contract works. And when I met him he was in the construction works of the biggest hospital in South India.

I still feel that my brother’s success is a model for me. With courage, confidence and trust in the Almighty, he overcame all the difficulties and succeeded in life.

Kings for Hire

As the celebrated childhood days had been undergoing its inadvertent fadeout, I suddenly woke up and started writing a playful animal story in order to rescue the magnificence of the immature days from dying away. As I recollected in my previous post, writing animal stories was the favorite pastime of my childhood days.  So, if I stop writing such stories, that simply signifies that I lost my childhood. I didn't want to submerge such a beautiful phase of my life into a bottomless chaos made of destiny, nature and time. And so, as a final attempt, I tried to scribble something. The outcome was qualitatively better than my prior writings, but it possessed only the one third of innocence that my earlier stories had done. Here is the synopsis of my last animal story written several years ago. It was written in the format of a drama, and was divided into five or more acts.

In the first scene, all the animals were marching to the daily conference that happens in front of the Lion King’s home. This particular day, they all were shocked hearing a news from the Minister Fox, regarding their greatly loved and adored King. According to a Messenger Monkey who reached that forest from one of the neighboring forests representing its aged reigning Lioness, the Lion King had to resign from the present forest, and had to take over the charge of the neighboring forest. The eldest of all animals was Uncle Bear, who had some memories regarding the claim by reigning Lioness of the neighboring forest. The Lion King’s grandfather actually was from the neighboring forest.  He had some quarrels with his father, so he came to this forest, with his wife and son (the Lion King’s father). The old Uncle Bear was a toddler then, and since he and the Lion Kings father were of the same age, they became great friends. As Uncle Bear claimed, it was him who named the Lion King on his birth.  

The Lion King also was very sad just like his subjects to leave the forest. But, as per the order of the forest, the words by the elder ones had to be obeyed. The most desperate one was the Uncle Bear, who always wanted his surroundings to be in order. A King to rule the forest (preferable a lion), was what he always wanted. So, he decided to do something to make the Lion King stay in the forest. Along with his two disciplines, a Cheetah and a Cat, he left the forest in the coverings of the night.  

The next day morning, at the daily conference, the Messenger Monkey came back to the forest to take the Lion King to the neighboring forest. The Lion King was so sad, and so were his subjects. But, the Messenger Monkey was so obstinate (there is even a synonym in Malayalam for obstinacy that is connected to monkeys), and he stuck on his claim raised by the reigning Lioness of his forest. Just then, the Old Bear, Cheetah, and the Cat, entered the conference area. All the animals were surprised seeing the three with two lion cubs. Uncle Bear informed the Messenger Monkey that he could took one of those lion cubs to his forest, but the Lion King should remain in their forest. The Messenger Monkey was okay with this suggestion. But, the cubs were not okay. They both were so scared seeing other animals and the greatness of the Lion King. They said they wanted to be neither the king nor the minister. Just let them go, they pleaded.

The animals were so curious seeing the awkward behavior of the cubs. Uncle Bear, the Cheetah and the Cat explained the animals how they got these two cubs. They found these twin lions from the circus company set among the neighboring human settlement. They attacked the tent in the night and rescued the lions and other captive animals, who were all on their way to that forest.

The animals tried to make the cubs understand the benefits of being a king. The lion kids initially were afraid of even the rabbit, but when Uncle Bear boosted them with courage, they understood they were lions and were destined to be kings. So, they went to the platform along with Lion King and the Minister Fox. The Minister Fox was just curious, so he mocked them to test their courage, but when the cubs roared out of anger, the Minister Fox got scared. So, the lion kids were ready to be the King. But who will go to the neighboring forest to take charge.  Initially both the cubs insisted the other one to become the king, but later they both wanted to be the king. 

The Uncle Bear solved this problem too. While waiting for the Cheetah and the Cat to bring the cubs from the circus tent, Uncle Bear had met another monkey from a different forest. The monkey also was a messenger, whose country also needed a lion king. Though Uncle Bear was not sure about the availability of more kings, he had asked the monkey to visit the Conference area the next morning.

Just then, the second Messenger Monkey also reached there. Seeing the celebration mood of the animals, he got surprised. Everyone happily invited him to the conference area. The cubs were ready to go to two different forests, after the Lion King assured them that the three forests would remain in friendship forever.

Long Forgotten Stories

The first month of 2013 is at its closure, but still I haven’t written anything for the year. People are there who think this is not an issue, but it is certainly an issue for me. While scanning the cobwebbed corners of my memory box for some past experiences that I might have missed while chronicling my childhood memories through this blog, I suddenly thought about a dream that I saw when I was very young.

That was the time, when I used to scribble childish stories for self pleasure. The dream I saw was something related to that. After writing stories motivated by the popular children’s magazines, I had this curious tendency to believe that there were some unwritten stories remaining in some of the bags and bundles of my childhood trashes in the house and its premises where I had my upbringing. The characters of my stories usually were animals and birds who thought, behaved and walked like human beings. But unfortunately all of my animal characters had an unjustifiable disgust towards the human kind. The names of those characters were very funny and at the same time silly, I remember.

More and more stories featuring the characters molded in the same replica were written, but was not totally satisfying for me. You wouldn't know the degree of crappiness you write, but still you have this dumbfounding belief that whatever you produced was no lesser than the classics. (I still have that belief!) There was a tendency to repeat the plot and type of characters in the following stories also, after finding an intimacy with a self authored story. Written stories were read, over and over again, and sometimes I was bored with the same kind of stories and narratives. Secretly I wished that if some other stories were kept hidden in some depths of my trash bag, which were completely or nearly forgotten, even though they were written by myself.

In my dream, I found a very old notebook with full of stories composed by a very younger me in a thoroughly illegible handwriting. But, I remember, it had that cuteness, which is peculiar to childhood days. I found it in a very awkward, very unlikely place. The season was the beginning of monsoon. Very small and moderately bigger springs used to sprout at some corners of our farmlands. The water was crystal clear, and the sight of its smooth flow with burbling sound was incidentally inciting thirst.  I found my forgotten childhood writing from within one of those springs which used to have their recurring appearance during rainy season, every year. When the rain was slightly down, I walked to a nearby rocky area, and found this old book lying open projecting some of those silly animal names to the world through the transparent water, as if its intention was to belittle my craziness in front of the whole world. 

After writing 100 plus blog posts, I feel that there are still many blog posts which are not completely by-hearted by me. You know, I have this curious tendency of reading my own blog posts time and time again till I find reading them one last time as a completely boring job.

Elementary Lessons in Politics

I had my first lessons in Politics at some point in the highly-prone-to-learning days of my (probably everyone’s) life. It happened when I was living the life of a primary school kid – a little bigger than a toddler – who used to undertake that universal journey from home to school and back every day, wearing knickers and backpacks, and carrying a water bottle, in search of knowledge and experiences, though unwillingly, but in some days enthusiastically, and in some other days being pushed, pulled, pinched and dragged by his furious, yet responsible elder sister.

This is the story of my third standard. I guess learning was not happening as fast as the same is being happened among the present, highly sophisticated young generation. Politics was never heard of. But we were outgrown enough to learn longer rhymes, bigger stories, more complex alphabets, and more complicated Maths, though were far inferior than today’s kids who learn the language of C and C++ even from the kindergarten level.  

The school was going very smooth. Our class was made of both girls and boys, and in the conservative way, both these crucial segments of humanity were made sit in two different seating rows. That gave each one of us greater freedom to mingle within our own respective segment. Boys became more friends. Similarly girls. I invite your attention to the boys section. Probably I can better tell the stories happened among boys, right? I happened to notice schisms in the tight pack of our friendship. Though was not influential to our daily activities in any way, the boys became parts of two different groups headed by two boys, L and S (the names are kept hidden in order to prevent them from gaining free fame). 

I still don’t understand the reason for this fragmentation. Perhaps the instinctive behavior, which is more transparent among the kids than the matured ones, might have prompted us to show more affinity to the one who looked friendlier from the individual point of view. I was comparatively inactive, as far as this mock politics was concerned, so I happened to live the life of a NAM country (Non Aligned Movement), like India in the international politics during the WWII. Some other boys also were there who lived a groupless life like mine, but we didn’t have a common policy; there we differed from the international policy of the NAM countries.

When I gradually happened to understand the stronger bonds created between the members of each group, I also realized the importance of becoming a part of a group. I knew that I was missing the adventures that the strong members of each group were passing through. I was also not considered for the special gifts and food items each of the group members used to share within the group. I didn’t need a second thought of joining the class politics. My immediate affinity was towards the group headed by L. L and his friends welcomed me to their group happily. 

But after becoming a member of L group also, I was inactive in terms of class politics. I used to keep a healthy relationship with the other group members also. Always L group was stronger in terms of headcount and talent. When my group members noticed my free-mindedness, they decided to keep me as a reserve member. I was not taken seriously in the joint interactions within the group.

Most often the S group remained a one member gang, only sometimes accompanied by one or more accomplices. Quitting a group and joining the other one was very common. I also had a single experience of quitting L group and joining S. It was when L denied a favour to which I asked him, and I immediately joined S group, proving my capability to create changes in politics. Following me, more dissatisfied members from the L group also jumped to the S side, giving hard blows to L group and its leadership. That was the only time, when S group surpassed the L group in terms of headcount. But my alignment with S group remained only for two days, and the third day I rejoined L group. After that L was keen on taking me also seriously, and I also decided to be an active member of L group.

You need to keep in mind that there was not any fight between the groups. No wars, only cold war; that was the situation. By the end of the academic year, S also became a part of L group, and the groups were dismissed afterwards. 

The lessons I learned from the class politics:

• Everywhere in humanity, there are groups; two of them are most likely to be prominent.
• Right or Left, you always will have to be part of a group. Having no sides will not take you anywhere.
• Quit a group and join the other, if you feel that you are being sidelined. That will help you to get acceptance in your home group.

I think these rules are applicable everywhere in Politics.

A Place not for Grown Ups

(Dedicating this post to Vanity Moments, which completed 5 years on 24th July 2012)

Contest Entry for Indian Bloggers League
Genre: Fantasy Fiction
Topic: A City That Vanishes
Result: Third Prize
I habitually compel myself to stop looking back at my olden days, and concentrate on the present instead. But, I can’t deny the fact that the memories about my past had given me flashes of inspiration for writing. Childhood days are sweet and the memories are awe inspiring; but we couldn't be so sure that if we were enjoying childhood to the fullest when we were children. Only when we surpass the childhood days, with numbness in hearts, we come to think about the beauty that we missed so cruelly, by becoming grownups. 

During my childhood, I hardly found kids of my age in my neighborhood, and even if there were a few, my conquering shyness hadn’t permitted me to mingle with them freely. Being senior to me by many years, my elder sister found herself more comfortable in the company of the elderly kind than the kiddos. Her neglectfulness left my younger sister and me alone as the mutual resort to build friendship. I don’t know to what extent the zodiac signs say truth; however, possibly due to the incompatible zodiac signs we had, my younger sister and myself remained foes more time than we stayed friends. 

Often imaginary friends are created when you are alone and lonely. Guess I was an aberration for I had siblings, still our infantile imaginations went fertile and we both had imaginary friends. My sister found her accomplice in a male character with traits assimilated from the people whom she found around us.  She had named him- ‘He’.  And finally the day had arrived when I discovered ‘He’.

She, ‘Him’ and I became friends. We played, quarreled, and even climbed the tree together. And then I brought my “special” friend too. So we were a lousy gang of four. From four, we became fourteen and more. This is the story of our virtual world, where we would often escape in sans computers sans artificial Intelligence. Just like my sister and me, our characters also followed a similar friendship tradition and they assisted us often in our childhood adventures. Though most often remained truthful, there were instances during our games when these characters went into hiding and got themselves involved in some mischievous activities. We both embarked on journeys through foreign countries, jungles, oceans and even through alien lands, in search of our characters and found them at last. They apologized for their mistakes and became virtuous again.

Kids, who involve in such dramatic games, naturally require more characters. So, that was how our next characters took birth. Some were very robust people, who could have fought with elephants. Others were really able to make themselves bigger by just the intake of fresh air. Our next characters included elderly people and little kids. Some parents needed someone to look after their kids because of their routine jobs. Though we were the creators of all these people, we decided to nurse those little kids, giving due respect to their parenthood.

Our place was turning into an enormous metropolitan. We were flabbergasted seeing our imagination setting up a large city with lots of queer looking buildings, sightseeing places, rivers and rivulets, mountains and hill sides, along with lot of harmless wild animals who were able to communicate in human language. Regardless of our position as the rulers, we both decided to undertake a regular job. Policing was most preferred through which, we could have fought against the criminals in our place. We set our police station below the mango tree in our homestead. Sitting on top of our rock made seats, we both attended telephone calls from our spies. As soon as we received secret information about ongoing criminal activities, we prepared our police force, and attacked those lurking enemies in ambush, and killed many of them through hours’ long gunfight and bombing. . 

I can present a picture in words, if you require a layout of the city. Occupied by buildings, houses, streets, parks, offices, bridges, and all such things that could contribute to its autonomy, the city was dispersed over a huge valley surrounded by deep-blue mountains. In the suburbs, a small community of hapless people lived called ‘The Poor’. These poor people always were under the threat of the ‘Burglars’, who lived in the hiding of the mountains. ‘The Poor’ always needed our help to save themselves from the Burglars. Apart from punishing the burglars, we helped ‘The Poors’ financially also, as our city was brimming with riches. 

In the middle of everything, there situated our house. A protection house in actuality, properly named ‘The Fire House’. An outsider could see the house all the time surrounded by fire. We designed our house for the thieves to always view it as burning in fire, at the same time, the affable see a normal house. I still do not know the science behind such an innovative concept. 

That was how we lived. Visiting the elderly in the city, attending the classes conducted by teachers invented by us with funny names, and sometimes fighting the ‘Burglars’. As we grew older, new characters originated in our city and new buildings were constructed. 

But, we were becoming really busy with our real life affairs. When we were matured enough, we both went out of that world, finding new friends of our kind. When the sparks of memories regarding our secret friends and the city flashed in my thoughts, I used to murmur to my sister those funny names of our characters with a smile. If we were sitting amidst the elder ones in our family, we exchanged glances with a hidden smile communicating that “don’t-tell-it” message in sign language.

Days, weeks, months, and years long separation from the secret place and our secret friends made us forget them almost. Initially when thoughts about them occurred in my mind, I used to smile at my nonage stupidity. But later, when I felt the growing maturity and the characteristics of adulthood as a curse, I seriously began to miss those places and characters. 

“Ah, I am not remembering even the names of some of my characters,” painfully, I thought.

Fearing the loss of our old city, one day I confessed to my sister.

“We let slip memory of our place. Our friends will be missing us. Don’t you want to go back there and see how do those little kids now look like? What if the ‘Burglars’ are still torturing those poor people? The granny who stays alone in her two storied building would scold us!”

She agreed. So, we both visited our old city once again after a long gap. But everything was in a diminishing state. In our imagination, the buildings appeared as if they were in the edge of wipeout. Still we wandered through the streets, chatting with everyone whom we met on the streets, visiting old people, and making friends with ‘Burglars’ and ‘The Poor’ alike. We visited our old classrooms where we once made fun of our teachers, supported by the liberty of our ruler ship. Our first characters rejoiced on our return, though they were disappointed with our absence. Moreover, we were not able to visualize them as vividly as we had done during the former days. And the most painful part was that we couldn’t find that place as funny as we had envisioned them before. 

“We need to revamp the city”, I told her.

“Yes”, she admitted.

We agreed upon the decision to be frequent there from the next day onwards. 

“We have to rebuild the place, brother”, she asserted, “with more beautiful buildings”.  She said and continued, “We need to plant forests in the middle of it, so that animals can walk through it freely and don’t you think we need to set up more swings in the park for the kids?,” She said before leaving the place. But, we knew that we wouldn’t be returning back to our old hangout as we both had worldly ambitions, and dreams. 

We never returned to that place. Today, whenever I go back to my home, I wish to imagine the old places again, though with a secret smile. I crave for talking to those old characters in that casual manner, and chase away one more time the Burglars and fantasy creatures from attacking the city. But, being a matured one, all those nonage plays are a taboo now. My helplessness is aggravating but there is no way around to the land where my distant memories reside.

"This post has been published by me as a part of IBL; the Battle of Blogs, sponsored by WriteupCafe.com. Join us at our official website and Facebook page.www.indianbloggersleague.com, www.facebook.com/IndianBloggersLeague“

Cat Story

(I am very much embarrassed to write on such an insignificant topic. But as of now, I have no other topics currently running in my mind)

Let me start with those usual lamentations about my nearly forgotten days from the past. But hopefully, nowadays I think I don’t need to invoke the attention of muses of my olden days to get written a chapter of my life. Unlike my old day posts, majority of which dealt with memories of past years, my recent posts have started brimming with exciting and remarkable memories of my present day life. 

For instance, today what I have in mind to offer you is some memorable moments that I spent with a cat, and the story does not end there simply, but it gets built up only when you come to know that those moments are the ones neatly stolen from my office time. Office and cat? Doesn’t sound like a nice combination, does it? But, I had already told you about a detective story in which a mouse played the role of the main protagonist. That too happened at my office. So, a story in which cat plays the bigger part can also be considered for the plot of another story, especially since cats are the favorite pets of humans.

When my colleague informed us about a cat that was caught trapped alone on a parapet of the second story of our four storied office building, we first mocked her by citing the well known saying about cats. As per the proverb in Malayalam, a cat would always land on its four legs, irrespective of the way it falls. Cat’s this innate ability to orient itself while falling is known among the zoologists by the term Cat Righting Reflex. But the next day also when she reported the pathetic plight of the cat with no one to rescue, we felt also sympathy. Science and Proverbs could make mistakes at times, we thought.

“I put some biscuits on the parapet to feed it. Or the poor thing will starve to death. No idea about how it got trapped on there!”, she said.

We decided to have a look at it. “If I can stand on my feet on the parapet, I will make a try to rescue it,” Saying so I headed to the balcony of the second floor to have a peep. We saw the cat on the parapet eating the biscuits. There was a small room close to balcony. I entered into the room and there was a window through which one could have climbed down to land safely on the parapet.

I thought about my childhood days. My elder sister used to criticize me for behaving cruelly to our domestic cat. Though I don’t remember exactly those incidents, as she had tried to recollect me, I used to throw our cat whenever I felt angry at her, because it was she who brought the cat from our ancestral home. 

Seeing the trapped cat on the parapet, I thought about rescuing it, if it could give me salvation from the sins that I might have committed to our pet cat. With the support of my colleagues I climbed down through the window and finally landed on the parapet safely. 

Terrified by seeing me, the cat tried to move away. There were two condensers on the corner of the parapet. The cat tried to hide itself behind those condensers. But when I tried to catch it, it tried to jump from there. I planned to play nice to the cat. Picking up two biscuits from the ground, and sitting down, I tried to attract the attention of the cat imitating the sound of the common house hold lizard by twisting my tongue and letting air pass out through mouth.

When I patted on its head, it tried to attack me by raising its hind leg. My colleagues and some more people who followed them were watching the entire activity by standing on the balcony. They tried to prevent me from getting cat scratches. So, I stopped my attempt to rescue it and climbed up back through the window. We also reported about the trapped cat to the supervisor and hoped that he would do something for the rescue of the cat.

After lunch, the supervisor came to our section and told us that the cat was not trapped there. It had given birth to some kitten and was living with them peacefully under the condenser till they find a better place to stay.

The Way Kids See Things

My father had an old transistor radio (In fact he uses his radio even today, though TV, cell phones, computers, etc have already replaced the olden things). When I was a little one, I wondered hearing the melodious voice of Yesudas through the radio that, ‘how does the human voice come from a radio? How such big human beings can enter into such a small thing?’

It was my elder sister who had answer to every question cleared my doubts, “Actually there is a tiny human being inside the radio. It is him who opens his mouth whenever our father switches on the radio,”

I was surprised and asked hesitantly, “Is that so? Are you sure that you are not telling lies? Is there a human being within the radio who is employed to sing such beautiful songs every time our father switches on it?”

My sister said in an assured manner, “Yes there is! Actually not one, but there are two human beings. I saw both of them when father opened the radio last time to repair it. They are sitting on the top portion of it.”

'My sister tells what she saw with her eyes. So I don’t need to disbelieve her', I thought. 

Next time, when my father opened the radio to repair, I scrutinized it with my eyes standing close to him. I ran to my sister and told her as if I had discovered something new, “You were wrong when you said there were two human beings inside our radio. In fact, there are many such tiny human beings. And they all are sitting next to next inside it,” I had actually mistaken the small transistors with different colours for tiny human beings.

A few years later, one moon-lit evening, my younger sister came running and asked me in a single breath, “Do you know where the moon is actually coming from?”

“Which moon? The one we see in the sky?” Taking her question simply, I asked.

“Yes, the same”, my sister said, “Our text books are wrong about the occurrence of the Moon. You know that old well of the next homestead? The Moon is actually hiding itself within that well during day time. And in the evening it comes up slowly to make itself visible to everyone,” she was so sure about it, I guessed it from her tone.

She continued taking another breath, “And now our elder sister showed me the Moon and told this fact. It is so big now and so close to us; so anyone can understand this fact from its size and nearness that it is actually coming up from that well,”

“Elder sister told you this fact, right?” mockingly I asked, and it was a good reason for me to mock my sister for a long time whenever I wanted a reason to do that.

After a few more years, one day my little cousin brother came home. This time the chance was mine to explain things to him in an imaginative way. His doubt was about the Sun. “How the Sun appears there in the morning and here in the evening?,” musingly he asked.

“It is curious,” opening the sack of my imaginations I opened up my theory. “the Sun actually walks from this side to that side through the sky,” I said. Pointing to the setting Sun, I continued, “and it goes beyond that mountain by climbing down the trees. Then it walks along the path underneath where we are sitting. It is actually straight below us in the night, and in the next morning it climbs up holding the tree trunks of the mountain at the eastern side.”

My brother liked the theory. He deeply reflected upon it for a few more minutes. Actually my theory was not very much wrong. What I presented to him was a Sun that rotates around the earth, when in truth, it is the other way round. 

The Forgotten Playmate

Nineteen Nineties. The place, as I envisioned, is where one can be in the ambiance of the suburban pastoral beauty, while having the nearest town just a call away. There you see kids in uniforms walk in a sympathetic haste through muddy roads, and you hear the giant bell of the nearby church toll intermittently.

Our protagonist is a small girl of the house, who had been celebrating her tender age under the care of her parents and the love of grandparents. The elderly people at her neighborhood were also not stingy in showering unfathomable affection upon her. Though she never felt lonely in the nearness of her dear ones, what she loved most was the occasional visits by the little kids from a distant place at her favorite neighbor.

Those kids used to be there on visits at their grandma, especially during vacations. She made good friendship with them, and it became a habit for her to wait for their visit during the long holidays. Once they came home, they used to involve in several games, like, hide n’ seek. Imagining the shades of the big mango tree at her patio as the kitchen, and treating mud as rice and coconut shells as pots, they had mock cookery practices. When the grandma of that house went to the feast of the church with her visiting grandchildren, clinging on the wrinkled palms of that elderly woman, she also had accompanied them.

Years passed by. Our little girl grew up. The changes happened to her during the passage of time, made her aware of her womanhood. Just like any other girl from Kerala, she also had to censor her movements, behavior and interaction with the opposite sex. When finished her college, she went to India’s Garden city, Bangalore, for higher studies. 

Bangalore, as always, was a dream. There in that big city, she found the meaning of freedom. For the first time after those long forgotten magical childhood days, she felt that she was liberated. Finding herself walking even in the late hours through the pavements of the city, she enjoyed that kind of freedom, reserved till then to the male category only. But alas, soon maturity overtook her sense of freedom.

She returned to her native place after the studies, and later found a job in a company in Cochin. It was the same company, where this Blogger also joined later. One day, as part of new appointments, she happened to interview a young guy. Despite of his timid nature, she found him capable of doing the tasks; but his candidature was rejected by some other means. A few months later, he was interviewed for another profile by some different people of the same company, and he was selected.

Several days after his joining, one day, he showed up at her desk, and asked,

“Do you remember me?”

She said, “Well, you were there for the interview!”

He said, “Apart from that, don’t you think we had met before?”

Though she had found some familiarity in the hesitant nature of the boy, she couldn’t recollect in what way he was familiar to her. She admitted her failure.

He breathed slightly, and after a pause, said in melancholic tone, “We used to play, during vacations, when we were children, on my visit with my sisters at my grandma’s house. We used to play hide n seek, under that giant mango tree, beneath which, we had cooked rice of mud in coconut shells; we used to go to church festivals, with my grandma…”, he searched for words.

She stood still electrified, while taking time to identify the youngest one of the neighboring grandma’s grandchildren.

One day, desperately thinking about the topic for the next post of Vanity Moments, this Blogger met her. During the normal conversation, he asked her to contribute a topic. When she reminded him of the story of her Ouija board experiment, which she told him a few months before, he encouraged her to tell another story, since he had already written enough number of horror stories.

And, then she started to tell him the story of her forgotten playmate from the beginning.

Not So Innocent Children

One second please…Let me just introspect. I am in an attempt to recollect something. I can get easily disturbed from my thoughts if you people keep on talking and chattering like this. I am trying to write some of my past experiences in order to make my blog alive. Yes, I remember, it was in my childhood days, more exactly, during my school days, and to be precise, I was then a fourth standard kid wearing knickers and backpack, which was full of text books, and additional story books, usually borrowed from classmates, and with a water bottle in hand. 

Water bottle! Yes! Water bottle is my today’s subject. I hope you also are well familiar with water bottles. My water bottle was a light green coloured one with a dumbest shape. Dumbest is the word immediately came to my mind when I attempt to describe it, because I don’t exactly remember its shape. 

One usual day with repetitive lessons, teacher’s punishment stick, orations, writing exercises, and yawns. The time is some more minutes to 4 PM. We are all set to respond to the final bell, to pick up bags, umbrellas, and water bottles.  I have already done with packing my text books in my bag. And the water bottle? Yes, it is there next to my right hand, so that I can pick it up easily in the process of running outside with enthusiasm. 

Someone sitting in my row suddenly complained, “teacher, I am not seeing my water bottle. It was here till a few minutes ago.”

Everybody’s attention turned to our side.  Teacher came and asked him to search everywhere, “You might have misplaced it somewhere accidentally,” she said.

“No teacher, I just have put it here itself. I remember it very much”, with a pathetic expression, he said.

His friend, M, suddenly poked his nose into the water bottle affair. “Let’s have a search through everybody’s bags. What if someone has stolen it? Let us start it with my own bag,” saying so, he undid his neatly packed bag, and showed us all that there is nothing suspicious.

He then checked the bag of the one who lost his water bottle, “Perhaps, you might have put it in the bag and then forgot,” he said, “but here either is not your bottle”. He finished checking that bag also.

“A water bottle? Where could it have gone? It must be somewhere beneath the seats”, I thought. Suddenly, M turned to me and said smiling mysteriously, “Now, let us check your bag. Show it me!”

I objected. ‘Why? I haven’t taken anyone’s bottle. Why Should I? I have my own one”. As one of the academically highly performing ones in the class, I cannot even be suspected for such a theft case, or that is my ego. But, M compellingly grabbed my bag, undid its straps carefully, and dramatically pulled out a colourful water bottle, the same one which was reported to be missing a few minutes before. 

I opened my mouth while shockingly staring at the water bottle. “Strange!” I thought. “How could have that water bottle came into my bag?” It was true that I had noticed an unusual bulge in my bag while waiting for the final bell. 

“You have stolen it,” M blamed me. Scared, I looked at the teacher seeking help. Here goes the dignity of the teacher’s pet. “Teacher, it was not me who put it there in my bag,” I was about to break into tears.

The teacher, who was a catholic nun, said with a smile. “God will reveal the truth one day”. She then left our row.

Years after, I heard about my friend M, that he was arrested by police, for trying to harm a small kid. When that little boy, knocked his door step seeking some water, M served him with a glassful of kerosene. Hearing that news, I suddenly thought about the old water bottle affair, and though with no proof, made some speculations on how that bottle came into my bag without my knowledge.

The Injection Enigma

About twenty years back, when our protagonist guy was just a small boy on shorts, a team of nursing students visited the school as part of social health check-up. The kids were asked to go to the staff room one by one to receive injection to get saved from any sort of fateful diseases that might have caught them. While standing in the queue at the door of the staff room, waiting for his turn, he heard his friend who had just gone inside, screaming out of pain while the injection needle piercing the vein. Already he had seen many of his friends coming outside of the room weeping forcefully and wiping their tears.

It was his turn the next. As soon as he stepped inside the room he faced the sisters who were filling up the syringe. In a proud manner with boosted up chest he declared,

“I won’t cry!”

Curiously the sisters looked him, and one of them asked him with affection,

“Ah, that’s good, but why don’t you cry dear?”

He had no answer to that complicated question. However there was a soliloquy, (I am Tomz! Tomz doesn’t cry!!)

He was telling the truth. He didn’t cry that day.

******   ****** ******   *****  ******  *******  ***

After twenty years, our protagonist grew up. He came to the capital city of his State and became a Blogger! One fine morning, he started to sneeze and cough. He felt that he too was caught by viral fever, and so decided to visit the hospital.

At hospital, he peeped at the doctor’s diary while he was writing the prescription. He got worried seeing the doctor writing for an injection to be administered to his young client. As soon as he stepped out of the doctor’s room, he immediately ran to the pharmacy. Meanwhile, the young nurse who was guided to give injection to our protagonist got worried without seeing him. She chased him and finally found him at the pharmacy in a hurrying mood.

She asked him,

“Don’t you want the injection the doctor prescribed?”

“Oh, was there an injection? I didn’t notice. Was that so much important?” he asked creating an innocent expression.

“Yes, the doctor marked that it was highly important. Please come!” 

He had no other choice except to follow her unwillingly. At the injection room, he cried and screamed, whenever the nurse made a move to inject him with medicated syringe. 

“Oh...God...Jesus...help me...help me...!” he cried when the needle pierced his vein on his hip.

The nurse mocked him, “heee heee, this Tomz brother is too afraid of injections!”

So, one can’t go on with his pretensions for long is the moral of the story.

The Little Plagiarist

With my photographic memory, which I am really boastful of, I still remember the days I went to the elementary classes, so many years ago, with fresh spirit and juvenile enthusiasm. It was my fourth grade, where I was really enjoying the status of one of the smart students in terms of academic performance. I remember that the experience of writing my first story happened there.

That particular day, as I entered the class room, my main competitor (well...friend of course) received me with a surprising information. Showing me a folded single lined paper torn from the notebook, he revealed that he had written a story. A story? I wondered! When asked, he opened the paper and said me to read. 

Here my memory defeats me; I don’t remember much of his narrative. However, the story was about a boy of our age, written following the same style of the popular children’s books. The boy, as per the story went, received some good punishment as a result of disobedience. If my memory is correct, my friend had given a title like, ‘Arrogance is Unwise’ to beautify his story.

I remember the excitement I showed off on reaching my home that day. As soon as reached home, I announced that I was going to write a story. Without even changing the dress, I started writing on a piece of paper. Giving a special care in following the same narrative pattern of my friend, I attempted to write down his exact story. On completion, after giving his same title, ‘Arrogance is Unwise’, despite of some minor changes in the word order and usage, the story was exactly a copy of the one written by my friend.

I now remember, how intelligent I was, for I carefully concealed from my parents the source of my inspiration. My parents read the story carefully, and my first story received with a huge amount of criticism from its first readers. Starting from its unsuitable title, my poor handwriting and my unnecessary usage of certain words also became subject of controversy. According to mother, the suitable title to the story was ‘Disobedience’.

Though my first attempt in story writing went fruitless, after one or two years, I started to scribble on my old notebooks some children’s stories. Since I had a certain kind of hatred towards human beings, my stories had animals as its characters. Sometimes the subject line was how the animals overcame the atrocities of humans. It is to be mentioned that none was meant for publishing, but was written just for the writing pleasure. 

During this period, I understood that, the abovementioned first story writing experience was an instance of plagiarism. Probably, I could be the youngest plagiarist.

I don’t exactly remember at what period of my growth, I stopped writing animal stories, which was a mode of creative pleasure. However, when I noticed my lost interest in writing such stories, I shockingly realised that I was no more a child. 

Catching a Copybook Crook

The celebrated sixth standard again. This time it was the English class. And the thick moustached English teacher with his punishment stick in hand was very much obstinate about our regular submission of neatly written copy books on his table before he reaches the class on the second period of all working days. Since he was a fear factor of the students, everyone was keen on not disobeying his demands and if someone fails to bring the updated copybook, even the next classes would go silent hearing the fearful swishing sounds of his flexible stick immediately followed by the moaning sounds of our fellow mates.

This was just like another day. After the first period, the English teacher came to our class and after asking some questions from the last day lessons, he took a new chapter. He first gave us an outline of the story and after telling us to read the entire lesson silently, he started to check the copybooks one by one.

After checking all the available books, he said, “Has everybody submitted the copybooks today?”

A unanimous uproar from the students denoting affirmation was the reply. But the teacher felt that not all the present students had submitted the copybooks. He asked again to confirm the reply. But, what he got was the same answer.

Without trusting the students he asked the class monitor to count the copybooks on his table. He found that there was a difference of five between the number of the copybooks and the number of the present students.

The English teacher became furious. He asked us angrily raising his voice to stand up those who had not brought their copybooks. First, there rose a head, a back bencher, and then three more students followed him in the confession process. He asked all the four to come forward and stand at the corner of the class.

He asked again, “who is the fifth one, come...come...don’t try to fool me!”

But, no one moved.

The teacher did not give up. He asked the monitor to read out loudly the name on each copybook. “When the monitor calls your name, come forward and join with those who are at the corner of the class,” he said to the class.

That verification process was on. The class monitor began to call the names of the students reading the name-slip on each copybook. Students one by one began to walk to the front side of the class to join the corner. The number of students sitting on the benches was shrinking and the number of the students standing at the corner was growing accordingly.

Finally there remained only less than ten students on the benches and it became nine...eight...seven...etc so soon.

When the monitor called out the spectacled one’s name, there were remaining only four more students on the benches and I was one.

When the monitor read the next name, I decided to surrender as there were no means of escape remaining.

I picked up my bag and pretended as searching it. And I said, “What a surprise, I think I have not brought my copybook!”

“Tom! You!” that was actually a scream from the monitor.

Everybody in the class shared the broken pieces of the monitor’s scream.

The English teacher wondered, “I never guessed it would have ended like this”

He picked up the stick and asked me to extend my palm, I obeyed. Usually, the punishment for these sorts of ‘crimes’ was one beating. I got two.

Not for not submitting the copybook and not for the teacher had some grudge for me, but for not becoming truthful.

Did you guess the suspense?

Pretty Littima’s Profession

There lived a prostitute in front of our school, where I studied from fifth to tenth standards. Her name was Littima, and she was referred to by the people as ‘Pretty Littima’, (well, of course the name given here is false in order to protect the concerned person’s privacy). I don’t know exactly, whether she was a prostitute, except the fact that her name itself was enough to create a funny vulgar sense among the students. Perhaps, as I think, she could be a prostitute in her earlier days, and perhaps she might have left that profession due to the compulsion from the religious people around.

Pretty Littima had cows and we used to see her taking the cows for grazing during our class times. She lived in a small house in a perished condition with her children. Well, about her children! She had at least three children, of which the younger one was a boy, who was one year elder to me, with whom all the boys including us were in good friendship. Elder to him was a girl, a pretty fair one with a beauty spot (a mole) on the right part of her jaw (or left?), where it adjoins with the cheek. I remember, once or twice, this girl attended the Sunday Schools (religious classes for Christian children held on every Sunday) in my class, (though she was elder to me by many years) perhaps motivated by the compulsion from the church authorities and religious people around. On such occasions, she used to sit in the class silent without talking to anyone and even looking at anyone. One day, our teacher asked her a question from the text book and she was not able to answer it. I don’t need to mention that these children were also studying in our school for their regular classes and were getting proper education.

I already have said that I was not sure about Pretty Littima’s profession. One day at my house, I happened to hear my mother mentioning her name in an offensive tone.  It was something regarding Pretty Littima’s attempt to assume the leadership of some local problem. I could not suppress my curiosity regarding Littima’s profession and I asked my mother, “mother, what is Pretty Littima’s profession?”

Mother neglected my question without giving me a proper answer. With a hilarious tone, she replied with another question, “who knows?’

When I was in my seventh standard, we have got a new class mate. He was a brilliant and smart one, let us call him X. Since I was his best friend, he asked me one day, “I happened to hear about the woman residing close to our school. Do you know anything about the profession of Pretty Littima?”

Acting smart, I shared my knowledge with him, “I think she is a prostitute!”

“Is that so?” he became more curious.

One day during lunch time, after doing usual naughty as well as smart things, X went to the front side of Pretty Littima’s house. Standing at the door step, he asked loudly,

“Pretty Littima…what about fixing a deal? Can I do ‘it’ with you?” A question from a seventh standard student!

I was not present there at that time. Someone informed me (yeah, the one who appeared in the end portion of ‘Problems of Having a Fictional name’) about the mischief played by X and that how an infuriated Pretty Littima treated him by calling all the names she knew and by chasing him with a broom stick in her hand. After that, Littima’s son came to our class to find X. We said him that we didn’t know where X was. He searched everywhere, but X was not to be seen anywhere for that day.

Hearing my account of Pretty Littima, what do you think was her profession?

(Mrs. Warren’s Profession is a drama written by George Bernard Pshaw, in which the protagonist is a prostitute. The similarity between both titles is purely a coincidental one – Tomz)

Problems of having a Fictional Name

Inspired by everybody’s favorite Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie stories, I too plan to write some mystery tales, but not this time. Now, I think, to mark my presence in the Blogger world, I have to go back to my school days to recollect some funny incidents. I don’t know, whether the incident that I am going to narrate was of a funny nature. To tell the truth, it had made me smile pretentiously, and obviously had turned my class mates into uncontrollable laughter.

It happened when I was in the sixth grade, and ‘fortunately’ the class was formed only of boys. We had our Malayalam teacher, who had some disabilities in speaking – was not able to deliver words properly due to some lisping problems.

That day, she was taking us a story titled ‘Reunion’. It was the story of two princes, the sons of a king. Due to the Fate's mischievous play; one was separated in his birth and was brought up amidst the jungle by some uncivilized people there. Orson – by the name he was called – grew up as the most terrible and uncultured fellow of the country. Meanwhile, the other one, named Tom was brought up in the palace as a gentle and handsome boy. He was gifted with all good qualities such as bravery, kindness, knowledge, etc which were commonly found in the heroes of all classics.

When matured, Tom happened to hear about the terror in his country, named Orson. He decided to go in pursuit of Orson and to punish him at any cost. The brothers met and they fought each other till they found that none of them could claim victory over the other. In the end, from some identification marks, they found that they were brothers. The story ends with the reconciliation of the brothers.

The readers might have noted that my name and one of the princes’ names (Tom) is the same. As the teacher narrated the lesson, I was attending the class with full pride as if she was reading out my own story to the class. When she explained what a valorous and adventurous fellow was Tom, I looked at everybody in such a kinglike pride.

In the end of the lesson, the teacher asked me to read out the entire lesson to the class. Usually, the teachers preferred me to read out the lessons to the class as they had confidence in my loud voice. An overjoyed me, after stepping to the front, began to read the entire story loudly facing the students. The teacher was watching me keenly standing behind me.

When I read, ‘Tom was a handsome and brave boy’, the teacher announced to the class pointing me, ‘compared to the Tom in the story, this Tom is a good for nothing guy’. The class went silent for a moment.

‘What this teacher is saying?’ I wondered and continued reading, ‘Tom was gifted with all good qualities, he was muscular, charming and gentle.’ The teacher accompanied, ‘compared to him, our Tom is a stupid ignorant boy’. A roaring laughter from the class was the reply. I looked at the students and joined with their laughter.

‘Tom was well liked by the courtiers and he was a favorite of the people of his country,’ with a diminished confidence and voice, I read again. But the students again started laughing even before the teacher saying a comment. I heard the teacher saying, ‘who cares for this foolish boy, he will be overturned if a wind strikes him’. I embarrassed again and a monkey smile was the reply from me.

I thought, ‘why the class is laughing, they have to support me, because the teacher is doing wrong, I have committed no mistakes’, but the students’ laugh was increasing in terms of pitch and time span.

I read the next quality of Tom hesitantly. ‘He was brave enough and was so sharp that he could have shot an arrow exactly at the eyes of a flying bird.’ The students started to roll their heads on the desk laughing. Looking at everyone, the teacher said after tapping at my head with a hilarious smile, ‘Do I need to tell about this Tom’s quality?’

I understood that I could no longer continue my awkward pretentious smile as it had been causing muscular pain at my mouth. I stopped laughing and went on with reading the passage. The teacher continued her irksome comments accompanied by the uproarious laughter from the class. I glanced at my close friend who was sitting in the front row and saw that he was struggling for the breath amidst laughing.

After the class, during the interval, my close friend approached me and mocked me for the pathetic incident. Though at first I kept a laughing mouth, I could not conceal my bad feelings. He asked, ‘how could you have suffered such a humiliation? If it was me, surely I would have boycotted her class!’

Enigma of Familial Relations

From the last post onwards, I started a campaign to create short, yet all-inclusive posts. I hope that this post would also end up as a short one. But here the problem is that the event I am going to narrate deals with relationships and the customary ways to address respected elders in families, which normally demands lot of space. Thus, I feel that the best way to describe the relationships is drawing a chart. To describe this post, I have to add the names of two prominent hospitals of my locality, viz, Marygiri and Marian.

(Click on the image to see the bigger size of the family tree)

One day my father tells me, “Your Ammachi (the traditional way to address grandmother) is in Marygiri, go and pay a visit to her”. I obey and go to catch a bus. On the way I meet my second cousin (called Chechi, means elder sister). I say her, “Ammachi is in Marygiri. I am going to visit her”. She corrects me saying, “Ammachi is not in Marygiri, but in Marian” Thinking that my father might have made a mistake, I go to Marian.

On reaching Marian, I embarrass seeing there my second cousin’s grandmother, who is the ‘wife to my Grandfather’s Brother,’ whom I address with a term meaning ‘younger grand mother’. But using my pretension skills, I successfully impress her by claiming that I actually come to visit her. She does not need to suspect me as it is one’s duty to visit relatives in hospitals. She is very happy for my visit. I think that my father might have mistakenly said ‘Grandmother is in Marygiri”, instead, he should have said that ‘Younger Grandmother is in Marian”.

But suddenly my younger grand mother says, “I heard that your Ammachi is also in hospital, she is in Marygiri”. Suddenly, I understand that my father is also right. Again I use my pretension skills, saying with no change in expression, “err…yes…I am going to meet her also”, so, that fixes it.

I go to Marygiri, meet my grandmother (Ammachi) and laugh with everyone there narrating the funny incident. When I reach home, hearing my account of the day’s incidents, my father asks, “Did not you embarrass seeing ‘younger grand mother’ instead of ‘grand mother’?” I answer with pride, “no, I simply used my histrionic tactics to cover my embarrassment.”

So, the only trouble was the one when I met my cousin sister (chechi) on the way to hospital. When I said ‘Ammachi in Marygiri’, referring to my grand mother, she said ‘Ammachi in Marian’, mentioning her grand mother. Admitting both the Ammachis in hospitals at the same time could only be coincidental.