Happy Holidays

Back in school, on the last working day of a term after the exam for the day the corridors of the school will reverberate with the chants of “Happy Holidays” . For the rest of world “Good morning teacher” evokes a lot of nostalgia but ask anyone who has walked the hallowed grounds of Loyola school Thiruvananthapuram would definitely recollect this scene vividly. At times it may often happen that a few classes would finish their last exams in the forenoon session of the last day itself. They would immediately break into the chants and while some of us would be trying to focus on revising for the upcoming  exams in the afternoon session. The feeling of enuii that we feel at that moment is incomparable to anything else in the world. The crescendo reaches its peak when the buses filled in with excited students are shouting at their top of their voices the anthem for the day. It is the final scene where the school is bidding farewell to its wards and going to miss them for the next few days. Quite often when you are going through the grind of preparing for the exams the imagery of throwing your bag on the last day of school to mark your first day of eternal bliss is played in a loop. This helps you to hang on to the roller coaster of exams that lays ahead of you.

Over the years even after school and college the holiday season is much anticipated. I recollect my first Christmas vividly in Bombay. I was not granted leaves and I had steeled myself for spending the Christmas holidays and New year away from home. At the last moment a couple of my colleagues cancelled their leaves. I saw a window of opportunity and  drew first blood. But alas since it was too late, the trains were fully overbooked. I was in a dilemma since I had lobbied hard for the holidays and didn’t want to spend them alone. The journey from Bombay to Trivandrum covering a distance of 1600 odd kms via train took somewhere around 28-30 hours journey in normal circumstances. There was indeed light at the end of the tunnel and I decided to break the journey into two. One from Mumbai to Mangalore(900 kms) and another from Mangalore to Trivandrum(700). The former was to be undertaken in a bus while the latter in a train. This meant that I had to spend an additional 15 hours that the normal because you had to account for a lag associated with each journey lest you miss your connecting train. Spending 4 days just for the to and fro journey severely cut short your time that you could spend at your home but nonetheless it was totally worth it.

Another memorable holiday season would be the winter of 2013 where we made our maiden road trip from Mumbai to Trivandrum in our very own Swift . It was an eventful journey with a number of detours including one to visit my maternal aunt and her family in Bangalore another one to Madurai for my best friend’s wedding and finally to a pilgrimage to Velankanni. It was quite a wonderful feeling when you started from your flat in Mumbai and rolled into your house in Trivandrum on the 7th day. This also coincided with the decade celebrations (10 years of passing out from school) comprising of the run up to the event the formal function at school and the afterparty thereafter. 

In 2020 amidst a pandemic I was grateful to have made it to the end of the year in one piece. This was the year when your personal and professional lives merged because of the fact that we had been in ‘work from home’ mode from the middle of March. So when it was time for the year end holidays it was a sense of enuii at play and nothing else. “The world doesn’t end with a bang but with a whimper’. But no, there was more to it Mindcurv, the organisation that I have been working for a good part of the last year and a half surprised us with a gift hamper delivered to our homes. There was no better sight than kiddo swooping down on it and with great aplomb unpacking each of the gifts while having a whale of a time. The grand finale couldn’t have been bigger than this I mean he deserved every bit of it. Looking through the eyes of a 3 year old how do you rationalise the fact that most of the time my father and mother are shut in a room without me for 5 days a week. After seeing the Christmas crib assembled Ethan asks me where are the laptops of the parents of the son of God kept and pensively adds that baby Jesus is very lucky he has the company of the animals when his dadda and mamma work from the manger. I feel sad on so many levels when I hear this because the pandemic also meant that he didn’t get to explore the joys of mingling with kids of his age. Come to think of it He would have atleast started play group/kindergarten if not for the times we live in.

That is curtains down to 2020.

Happy holidays!!  

Picture courtesy: Mindcurv

Home is where the heart is, part 2

As a 6 year old 

If you had met the the 11 year old me and posed me the question as to what you wanted to be in life without a blink of an eye I would have said an I.P.S officer*. In my teenage years when everyone around me was obsessing over Medical and Engineering I was finalising my optional for the UPSC civil services exam. Understandably I had no clue of medical/engineering. At that point of time I was too naïve to even think that once you cleared the entrance exam you are already a doctor or an engineer. But if you woke me up in the middle of the night I could explain to you in detail the 3 stages of one of the toughest competitive exams of the country the pattern, your strategy, your optionals and what not. That was the kind of single minded focus that I had on something that was really close to my heart. 

I.P.S-Indian Police Service

For those of you who have been reading my blog posts regularly would notice that I have extensively written about every stage of my life be it my childhood in Gwalior, my school/Engineering college days in Trivandrum and even about my work life to a certain extent. But there is one part of my life I have never even briefly touched upon and that would be my stint in Delhi. My housemates in Delhi quite often have asked me as to why I don’t write about my time with them. The prime reason being it was too emotional to even recollect the said time period. My point being I had invested a lot physically mentally as well as emotionally and at the end of it I couldn't deliver results.

For starters I was called “Benno” back  then, it was my father’s pet name which I had adopted for only that period of my life. Many summers ago I moved from the humidity of Chennai to the sauna of Delhi. Right at the onset I was ecstatic to be back to the northern part of the country after more than a decade.My first stop was at Dr Mukherjee nagar not very far from the Delhi University North campus. This place thrived from the income of the IAS aspirants from the length and breadth of the country who thronged the coaching centers in that area . I was put up in a house for a month which I ditched because of not so great housemates and an equally crappy landlady. As an answer to my prayers Eric makes an entry to the scene and we together start to look for a place to live. 

We finally zeroed down on a quaint little 2 BHK house where me and Eric shared a room on the first floor of a house. There was a hall and also a kitchen which was shared. We slowly set up the house with basic things, primarily a table and chair. We just brought 2 mattresses and would sleep on the floor with a mat thrown in. The days were very hectic because I had classes for both our optionals Geography and Public administration. My day started early in the morning at 6 AM with a jog at a nearby park.

Dr Mukherjee Nagar flanked by with Sid and Rohan

with Mathai and Eric

This was also when we ran into “The Mathai'' who would subsequently be our future house mate. Rohan from Bombay was another housemate who lived in the adjacent wing of the same floor. Quite often in the nights we would all congregate in the gali(bylane) in front of the house because the weather was pregnant with heat .

On sundays early in the morning I used to make my way through Nirankari* colony to attend the Sunday service. A walk of about 30 minutes right through where they would be having their own congregation . After the service we used to hang around the church premises and chit chat with a bunch of friends which included Benita from Delhi and Marymol from Thrissur . This was one of the most anticipated passages of time of the week that even Mathai and Eric also started to come to church for this rendezvous. After about 4 months it was time to bid adieu to Dr Mukherjee nagar. During the last week we planned for a farewell sort of a event at the Blues joint in Connaught Place. It was a good place with a live band For the record this was the first social event for all of us in the entire 4 month stint in Delhi. 

*The Sant Nirankari Mission (also known as a mission of Universal Brotherhood) is a spiritual organisation based out of Delhi, India(source: wikipedia).

 Blues Connaught place

The whole gang 

Our next stop was Karol Bagh the reason being a good number of us had to join the iconic Vajiram and Ravi* for our General studies classes. The new house was a 3 bhk, located at Rajendra Place at a walking distance from the coaching institute. Sambhu and Elvin classmates of Mathai in National Institute of Technology, Calicut were my housemates along with Eric. Now this period of time was much more eventful than the former period at Dr Mukherjee nagar. Since it had been a while since 3 of us were together there was a bonding and mutual understanding between Mathai, Eric and myself. Sambhu and Elvin also assimilated easily because of their familiarity with Mathai. Staying together was quite a unique experience, the reason being all five of us were as different as chalk and cheese. For instance I am a guy who is early to bed and early to rise. Moreover I had classes at Vajiram at 8 am in the morning. On the other hand the rest of the group were nocturnal beings who would be up late into the night sometimes even up till dawn and would sleep well into the next day.  Around midnight I was awakened by a commotion in the hall when I rushed out. To my discomfiture I found out that it was only the blokes having an animated discussion on the flawed reservation system of our country in the backdrop of the Gujjar agitation in Rajasthan. After telling them to tone it down a bit I went back to sleep. 

*Vajiram and Ravi-One of the most popular IAS coaching centers in the country

One fine day it so happened that everyone except me had to appear for the CAT* exam. The previous night as usual everyone was up until late .Before leaving for church I had to literally kick everyone out from their deep slumber swearing at everyone so that they don’t miss the exam. Thankfully everyone had left by the time I was back and no one missed the exam what is even more, everyone scored a 97+ percentile in the exam. It still beats me as to how they did it.  

CAT-Common Admission Test the entrance test in India to get into the top MBA colleges of the country

All smiles

Sambhu and Elvin were a bit hungover from their previous lives of working professionals and were taking a bit more time to settle down. Quite often after the classes they would come along with a group of friends back to our place and would be gossiping for sometime into the night. The decibel levels would be on the higher side because of a couple of girls in the group. This was severely hampering the others who were trying to focus on their studies. That is when me and Mathai the de facto patriarch and matriarch of the house took control and brought out a rule that this will not be allowed in the house after 8 PM. If you wanted to extend your sessions please feel free use to the bylanes in front of the house. Grudgingly both of them were sporting enough to accept our diktat.

The Christmas in the winter of 2008  would be forever etched in my memory. For starters I was on a 25 day fast from Dec 1 which effectively meant that I was a vegetarian during that time period. During this period the juvenile Eric used to taunt me with cuss words to test my resolve but I was steadfast throughout. On Christmas eve all of us went for the midnight mass even though the weather was chilling cold.

Christmas 2008,let the celebration begin

But the real fun started when we were back home. Mathai had procured a bottle of wine only for me so that I could also take part in the revelry(I had given up drinking at that time because of the notion that alcohol affected my memory). The moment I was back while biting into my kebabs to break the fast I directed a barrage of expletives to Eric to kickstart the proceedings. The night was still young and we had a problem at our hands because we didn’t know how to uncork the wine we tried every trick in the book, even watched youtube videos but to no avail. Finally we managed to knock the cork into the bottle. We spent the entire night drinking until dawn, for the record that was my first night out. The next day I missed my Economics classes again another first. I was deeply touched by the gesture of Mathai who got me wine. 

down but not out, the smile says it all

This was also the time when the girlfriends were getting married. One person in the group would get wind of it and inform the entire group, in the evening we would celebrate like crazy. In midst of the pandemonium when no one is watching the guest of honour would dab his eyes with a tissue and that was the end of it, you live to fight another day. As our preliminary exams were approaching everyone was getting stressed and to break the monotony we used to play cricket inside the house with a sponge ball. It was also during that time I screwed up my neck because of spending too much time hunched over a book. The pain was so bad that I had to wear a cervical collar for sometime to get over it. One night when I was writhing in pain in my bed I will never forget Eric coming to my rescue by applying a hot towel on my neck to ease my pain. If there is one thing that I have learned from my Delhi sojourn is that quite often we only focus on the destination but ignore the journey which is equally important. Though I failed in achieving my dream I will cherish these memories for the rest of my lifetime.

                                                                                                          (to be continued)

Click here for Part 1

Home is where your heart is, part 1

This was the theme of the latest online playback theater performance by the talented artist of First drop* which I had the pleasure of attending this sunday. The first question that was posed to the audience was how many of us were still living in our place of birth. A lion’s share of us responded in the negative. A few from the audience volunteered and shared their feelings on the topic subsequent to which the actors enacted them for us. My friend Srijith was on fire during the show. In response to a story of a childhood spent in mango trees, out of nowhere he came up with a branch of a mango tree to the screen. Similarly Thulasi came up with a mortar and pestle in response to another instance. Being a doubting Thomas I thought that  this was scripted but my friend clarified that it was indeed impromptu which made it all the more impressive. I had no reason to doubt him any further because this in a way explained as to why the leaves were wet when he was holding them as a prop since it was raining at that time in Kochi. The show made me reminiscent of the homes that I have lived in my lifetime and pangs of nostalgia hit me hard that I decided to pen down one by one the houses that I have lived in.

*First drop

Photo credits: First drop theatre

Photo credits: First Drop theatre

My first memory of a house is that of the SP*’s bungalow in Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh. The huge house comprised of a Garden with a variety of flowers, fields adjacent to the house were used to grow wheat and vegetables for our personal use, the sentry outpost at the entrance was always manned by armed policemen, the workers quarters at the back side, everything is a vague memory now. I learnt to cycle in my quaint little red Hero Hansa on the tarred roads that ran through the length and breadth of the property. It so happened that there was a concrete tank in which we stored water for the crops. Once I had gotten inside it to splash around since there was only water till my knees but alas I lost my footing and fell down. I hadn’t factored the moss that had accumulated at its bottom. Post that episode I remember getting berated for my recklessness by my father. Because of the vegetation around it was also a haunt for a variety of snakes. The moment a snake is spotted in the vicinity the shake charmer is summoned who would play his instrument and attract it to his basket. Another sight I will never forget is the dance of the peacock bang in the middle of the garden. The memories are quite vivid because I spent a considerable amount of time over there.

*SP-Superintendent of Police

My grandmother's palatial house named after her in a sleepy little coastal hamlet in Trivandrum was another place where I spent the rest of my childhood until my adolescence. For starters it was a mighty two storey house with huge ceilings with a kind of red sandstone used for its flooring. If you go to the terrace or the first floor you could see the sea a bit ahead of you. As a matter of fact, of all the houses that I have lived, this is the only place which has a dedicated prayer room, I mean a proper room reserved only for prayer. There was also a clock inside it which used to chime in different tunes for every quarter of an hour. The outdoors were equally majestic, there was a gooseberry tree and a  guava tree where you could climb up to pluck the fruit and consume to your heart’s delight. But for me the fond memory would be our game of cricket which we played among our cousins with great intensity for hours at end. Right in the front of the house you had ample space to play the gentleman's game. If you could not keep your shots down the ball would land at either the neighbour’s house or on the road outside which has got its set of travails when it comes to fetching the ball.

Then comes our very own house named after my father where I spent my teenage and early adult years right in the heart of the city of Trivandrum. We didn’t have much place to play so we ended up playing cricket on the terrace. This was too much of a hassle since quite often the ball would end up at the neighbour’s house. Ambrose jumping to the adjacent compound to fetch the ball started  becoming a routine affair and we used to get into a lot of trouble for it. Gradually we stopped playing cricket at our house altogether and it was played only when we visited our grandmother’s house during the summer holidays. I guess this was also the time that marked the end of my outdoor life. Slowly I started spending more time inside the house primarily because my father’s book collection was now unveiled. It was no longer stored in some iron trunk but was out in the open. That was the time when the world of reading opened itself to me with limitless possibility.Boy I was a prolific reader back then(another post:Reading). This was also roughly the time when I picked up writing as well. I used to write on full scap paper sheets and file it.Recently I came across the file with layers of dust accumulated over it with the passage of time. Guess what now when I read it I am deeply embarrassed by what I had written then. Come to think of it this was where I had my first crush this was where I had my first heartbreak. This was where I topped on my tenth boards, this was where I popped a sprite bottle in place of a champagne to announce that I had cleared my Engineering(we had a tough time cleaning the stains in the ceiling my brother’s 6 feet 4 inch frame came quite handy at that time). I hope you noticed how subtly I had mentioned about my fall from grace from being a topper in school to a first class holder in my Engineering college. Damn there are too many memories in that house. This was the place where I spent the most years of my life, Period.

The single room adjacent to the terrace at Adayar was the first place I lived after I left home. The effervescent Srijith, the very same guy I mentioned in the first paragraph, was my roommate then. The room just had a double bed and an attached bathroom. You did not require an aftershave and could save the money because your face would automatically sanitise when you sprinkle some tap water which incidentally was very salty. Srijith who cared very much for his vanity would go down to the hand pump in the road and carry a bucket of water 3 storeys up to wash his hair. I was too lazy to even do that and the results are there for you to see. Srijith still sports a full crown of hair while my head looks like a 5th day pitch of a test match in India. Irrespective of the frugal surroundings the company of each other made it all the more special. Come to think of it I poured Srijith his first ever drink in that very room. We celebrated wildly when our first ever salary was credited. For us it was nothing short of a penthouse. The single room that I mentioned was only our living room. The terrace was multipurpose it was there Srijith Ponnappan staged his one man shows back then, it is there I did my push ups, it is there Srijith did his Yoga, it is where we did our laundry minus the washing machine, it is there both of us used to hang out after a hard day's work and discuss our respective crushes under the stars, it is there that we used chill in case any of our friends visited. 

 

                                           (to be continued……….)

Click here for Part 2

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