Civil Station

My first memory of the place is of a sunny late afternoon. I was all of seven by then but strangely I don't remember travelling to the new place of my father's posting or how life started there. The white cottage was spacious and well ventilated- or maybe the place looked spacious because it was sparsely furnished. It was one among parallel rows of quarters. I liked the contemporary feel of the civil station; it was hugely different from the atmosphere of my ancestral home where dark fears lurked around everywhere. From the adjacent quarter a small boy baby talked to me. The ground in the backyard was covered with crushed, no longer edible black jamuns. During sundown loudspeakers from a temple five minutes away poured out devotional songs- the distance made the volume comfortable, even likable. One evening soon after coming to the new house I spotted a wild little girl in the quarter opposite us. She was younger to me but I discovered she had two elder sisters, the middle one being my age and classmate. She wasn't there when I reached, but came back from her ancestral home summer holidays when school reopened. She was to be my classmate and friend, it so turned out.

The Three Boys

I wonder how I forgot to write about these earlier. I had my first year of formal schooling in the hill town where my father was posted. The entire terrain was marked by hillocks. The house we stayed was atop one such hillock, and we could see bigger ones in the distance. The sun rose up from behind these every morning- it was very much like children's paintings. The houses were separated by rocky stretches of flat land. On the slope of the hillock going to the main road was another house where my father's colleague and family lived. I don't recall when we befriended them, but I remember the boys coming to my house sometimes and me going to theirs. The eldest was three years older to me, the second son was a year senior in school and the youngest must have been some two years younger to me. We all went to the same school. They were boys as boys are usually seen- active, boisterous and naughty. Though they fought with each other, they were always good to me; they must have felt some little-boyish sense of chivalry to the only girl in the vicinity. It was easy to be good to me too; I had a sweet countenance and was friendly, talkative and easily scared. The topography gave us a sense of adventure exploring the place. Whenever my mother allowed-she was overprotective of me whereas the boys' mother was more liberal, perhaps resigned to the ways of boys- we spent our time outdoors. We plucked low hanging fruit from cashew trees and brought home the nut to be collected and roasted later. We played hide and seek behind the rocks and even made new friends of a newly arrived neighbor family all on our own. I believe it was the dad of the little girl in the picture that clicked us all together. I lost touch with them all long long back maybe within a year or two when my father was posted elsewhere. I wonder where they are now.

Chickenpox

In the summer of school closing I got chickenpox. The annual exams were going on but back in those days missing an exam didn't matter much. Besides I was deemed a bright one. I was confined to the corner room on the first floor- I don't remember if anyone gave me company during the night. I'm sure someone must have been there, but they largely kept a distance. A year before that I had measles but it was in another house at my father's workplace. The time of measles was far more pleasant. The air was cool and the sunlight wasn't too bright. I was given liberal helpings of beaten rice soaked in milk though the fever had ruined my sense of taste. Above all uncle M kept me company most of the time and soothed me with his stories. This time round none of it was there except the poha and milk. Here at the ancestral house everyone was busy with something or the other. My mother had too much of responsibilities in my father's absence too. The room was smaller and too directly struck by sunlight. I felt tense and anxious and clung to anyone that came to the room. Father came home for the weekend soon after I took the customary bath after a week. It was still considered risky being too close as I could still pass on the germs. I insisted on sleeping near him. I always slept in his room when he came home, for the stories he told me. Everyone tried to dissuade me. However father took me in without any remark. The next week he came back, and he had contracted chicken pox. It must have been far more painful for him to have it at his age. I was too young to feel guilty, but I knew he had got it from me. Nobody chided me though.

Claustrophobia

Same time as I was in the village school, my father was serving as Administrator in the most famous Krishna temple in Kerala. He didn't expect the posting to last, this is why he left mother and me at our ancestral home. He didn't want to avail the palatial residential quarters the administrator was eligible for; instead he stayed at a two-room suite in a semi-private guest house very close to the temple. Being a man of spiritual inclination he enjoyed the proximity to the temple and his tenure there. The temple town was just about an hour and a half from our hometown. Father would come home every weekend; on others mother and I went to stay with him. I too enjoyed the time in the temple. My father had already narrated Krishna stories to me. More than a religious center, the temple and its deity were a major influence in the folklore and culture of the region. Tales of the deity appearing in person to devotees who lived a couple of centuries back abounded. Some of these devotees were poets, scholars and artists of renown while others were simple women from different walks of life. The stories radiated love and compassion of a god who cherished a simple song from the heart above a scholarly work from an arrogant man; of the same god playing pranks on a stern sanyasi and a childless woman in the guise of a small boy; of accepting love from an untouchable woman and more. It must be the stories, for I too felt his presence all over the place. Thus Krishna became my invisible childhood friend. Another added attraction was the Krishnanattam performances. The epic stories narrating Krishna's stories were arranged into eight pieces of dance drama set to a Sanskrit work and performed in a manner very close to Kathakali.. I already had a fascination for dance and here was a chance to witness the story re-enacted. A child's mind cannot fully discriminate between fact and fiction; thus every time the story was performed, it was being in the time and place of Krishna, or maybe Krishna was in my world. This was the happy part of the visit to the temple. On the other hand I was scared of the bus rides there and back. Buses were few and far between and crowded. The heat, dust and urine stench of the bus stand nauseated me. Worse was my tiny frame being trapped in the crowded bus. We didn't always get seats. On one occasion I remember vividly, we got the seats, but the crowd even squeezed into the space between the seats. There I was, sitting on my mother's lap, with very little space to move; the nightmare of it was that even the view to the window was blocked. I had a sensation of very little air left to breathe. I struggled to catch a glimpse of the space and air outside- I felt I would die otherwise. It was animal fear I couldn't articulate as everyone else around me including my mother looked so calm and unperturbed.And here I was, choking! When I look back I can recount many such instances, not so severe but when I felt queasy, trapped in small spaces. When I picture myself, I always see me against the backdrop of vast spaces- open vast rocky plains, rivers and mountains and the sea and big houses and hallways.

A Piece of Umbrella

Once upon a time a boy in my high school class asked for a piece of my umbrella. I was walking in the rain... he was close behind. I didn't give him the umbrella.I wouldn't have minded though...but in that place and time it wasn't a done thing for girls. I gave him much more later, notebooks, storybooks, cassettes. We walked a long distance together.We grew up. We went our separate ways. We didn't go our separate ways because we grew up. We would've grown anyway, together or separate.

Seven Days with Him

Every summer, the temple near my home held Bhagavata Saptahas. Those seven days were devoted to reading out the Bhagavata and interpreting the story to a rapt audience that mostly consisted of children and old women- more children during my childhood and mostly only old women in more recent times. The Saptaha masters- sanskrit scholars or monks- came in duos. The guy who interpreted the story assumed a leading position, maybe because it needed greater skills-oratory, the ability to capture the essense and imbue emotion. By the time Saptaha started the summer season of goddess festivals were mostly over- the fields were dry and vacant, houses smelt of ripe mangoes and yellow laburnum blossoms showed up everywhere. Those seven days took an entire generation of children around the temple, as yet unaccustomed to television, on a trip to distant lands and ages- populated by great kings,mighty demons who dared challenge even the Supreme One, and children too. Above all, the stories spoke of love for the One. The master sang and wept and called out Govinda Govinda and the audience couldn't help but be moved to tears. Right from my childhood till now I attended Saptahas whenever I could. My understanding changed with time; every time I came back with something new to mull on. The attraction never ceased.

The School by the Pond

Unlike the primary school where I started formal schooling, the school near my ancestral home had friendlier people. I was shifted here for the second year of schooling. Teachers were kinder and the kids were more friendly. There were vast stretches of sand between the makeshift classroom structures. Some class or the other were out playing, running about in the sand all the time. On the southern side the vast temple tank bordered the school. Vines carrying faintly fragrant pink and white flowers hung on the eastern wall. The gate was on the western side of the school and it opened to the street that went to the mainroad. School children went home in throngs happily chatting during afternoon breaks and school closings in the evening. Unlike the high school that was two kilometers away, this school never had much of a reputation for academics. Nevertheless the teachers somehow commanded a sense of awe. Children ran about freely; sun or rain, the school shed a gentle, autumnlike golden glow that held me safe. In summer the school held an annual fest after so many years. I participated in many contests and won some prizes too. Sweetest of all memories was the practice for the action song-the pink satin dress and the makeup smelling of candy. The performances lasted late into night. After my performance and collection of all the prizes I walked home with mother, aunt and uncle under the moonlit skies.