Life in the Forties continues
On the day of departure , we, children, were excited of the thought of travelling by car,by bus and by train and seeing new places ...The car came to our house at about seven in the morning and was parked in the road on the eastern side of the paddy fields and we all went walking through the fields carrying something or other to the car as we were were permanently shifting.. Laxmi was weeping inconsolably as the car was getting started and mother told her repeatedly that we would take her to Thrissur one day, if God willing...The people in the village were emotional and showed their love without any inhibitions and we also wept as the car started.finally bidding good bye to all the people gathered there to see us off..
We reached a place called Perinthalmanna where the car had to be released to the owner as agreed and we took a bus(mayilvahana bus service, I think)run on coal steam,. unlike the present day petrol/diesel driven buses'.When we reached Pattambi we were all damn tired and hungry, hungry because we could not find a brahmin hotel on the way , as restrictions imposed on eating in non-brahmin hotels were strictly followed by father though we children wanted to eat from any hotel..
I do not fully recollect the places where we went from Pattambi, but surely we had visited father's ancestral house situated in a remote village surrounded by hillocks and forests .A small temple and a beautiful tank in front of it reflecting the trees around and the green paddy fields reaching the foot of the forests were the only things I remember now of that place.
From Pattambi we started for Thrissur and reached Thrissur in the evening.It was almost dark when the train reached the station and the man sent to receive us was finding it difficult to locate us. .He ,therefore, shouted on top of his voice while running in the platform along side of the train 'Are there anybody to go to -tharavad of village A ---.Then father immediately shouted back" yes,yes we are here" and then he could locate us .His name was kocchappu, a Christian by religion engaged by our tharavad to do all miscellaneous works like, woodcutting for fuel purpose, bringing grocery items from Thrissur market etc....Since there was no electricity those days in Thrissur ,I remember the railway station was poorly lit and was quite dark when we reached..Kocchappu had arranged a bullockcart(or was it a horse cart?) for us to go from the railway station to our village which was about 4kms.away.
All the members of our tharavad, grand mother, mother's three sisters, their husbands, their children and mother's three younger brothers were present to receive us at the poomukham(front side of the tharavad).After the dinner,we children were to sleep in the padippura(gate house), a building comprising two bed rooms in the ground floor and two in the first floor.There were 4 or 5 bed rooms alloted for mother and her sisters in the main building of the tharavad..The uncles slept in the ground floor of the padippura and the children occupied the rooms in the first floor of that building.
Life in the tharavad was happy for the children with the cousins( brothers and sisters) ever ready for playing, elder cousin sisters ready to tell exotic stories like Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, Sinbad the Sailor etc everyday in the night..
. Then the great partition of the family came and I was too young to understand the circumstances that lead to the partition of the joint family. Probably the tharavad could not accommodate all the daughters , their husbands, their children. Everybody accepted the fact of partition but grand ma was devastated and was in a state of depression till death.. Mother's two sisters went to a village called P for settling there permanently and we came to a village called O while the youngest sister and brothers were given the tharavad for staying. We moved to a house in O village constructed already by my father out of his savings...
.I was admitted to class 4 1/2 in a local church school as I had finished my class 4 in Malabar. If I had continued in Malabar I could have been promoted to class5 as there was no class41/2 there, so we pleaded but the school authorities insisted that I should be admitted only in 4 I/2 class and not in class 5 according to the rules .
My performance in the class was probably poor as there was lot of difference in the standard of teaching, ..The class teacher who was a nun used to cane me whenever I gave a wrong answer and I could not understand then why I was specifically targeted. for caning.
.The students sitting in our class could see through the windows the dead bodies being brought to the church cemetery for burial, every now and then bringing a depressing mood to the children in the class...The nun teacher subsequently became seriously ill and myself and my close friend decided to go to convent to see her one day,.We saw her lying in bed in a dimly lit room of the convent.She tried to speak to us something but we could not follow her as she was very weak and hardly any sound came from her mouth..However , she raised her hand and blessed me before we took leave of her and then the thought flashed in my mind that she was punishing me all along only to help me better my performance in the class..She slept in the lord for ever after a few days and we were very sad..Apart from this incident the days in that school were uneventful.and nothing worth mentioning happened.
When I passed the annual exam,. I sought to get admission in a Govt. school in Thrissur(Model Boys School) but the idea was rejected outright as it was thought walking nearly 5 kilometers up and down daily would be difficult for my age..I wanted to go to a school far away from any cemetery as I did not want to see dead bodies and hear the sad music of the funeral procession every now and then., I pleaded .Finally it was decided that I should join in the 5th class of the Middle School run by the same church in the same locality.
We reached a place called Perinthalmanna where the car had to be released to the owner as agreed and we took a bus(mayilvahana bus service, I think)run on coal steam,. unlike the present day petrol/diesel driven buses'.When we reached Pattambi we were all damn tired and hungry, hungry because we could not find a brahmin hotel on the way , as restrictions imposed on eating in non-brahmin hotels were strictly followed by father though we children wanted to eat from any hotel..
I do not fully recollect the places where we went from Pattambi, but surely we had visited father's ancestral house situated in a remote village surrounded by hillocks and forests .A small temple and a beautiful tank in front of it reflecting the trees around and the green paddy fields reaching the foot of the forests were the only things I remember now of that place.
From Pattambi we started for Thrissur and reached Thrissur in the evening.It was almost dark when the train reached the station and the man sent to receive us was finding it difficult to locate us. .He ,therefore, shouted on top of his voice while running in the platform along side of the train 'Are there anybody to go to -tharavad of village A ---.Then father immediately shouted back" yes,yes we are here" and then he could locate us .His name was kocchappu, a Christian by religion engaged by our tharavad to do all miscellaneous works like, woodcutting for fuel purpose, bringing grocery items from Thrissur market etc....Since there was no electricity those days in Thrissur ,I remember the railway station was poorly lit and was quite dark when we reached..Kocchappu had arranged a bullockcart(or was it a horse cart?) for us to go from the railway station to our village which was about 4kms.away.
All the members of our tharavad, grand mother, mother's three sisters, their husbands, their children and mother's three younger brothers were present to receive us at the poomukham(front side of the tharavad).After the dinner,we children were to sleep in the padippura(gate house), a building comprising two bed rooms in the ground floor and two in the first floor.There were 4 or 5 bed rooms alloted for mother and her sisters in the main building of the tharavad..The uncles slept in the ground floor of the padippura and the children occupied the rooms in the first floor of that building.
Life in the tharavad was happy for the children with the cousins( brothers and sisters) ever ready for playing, elder cousin sisters ready to tell exotic stories like Alibaba and the Forty Thieves, Sinbad the Sailor etc everyday in the night..
. Then the great partition of the family came and I was too young to understand the circumstances that lead to the partition of the joint family. Probably the tharavad could not accommodate all the daughters , their husbands, their children. Everybody accepted the fact of partition but grand ma was devastated and was in a state of depression till death.. Mother's two sisters went to a village called P for settling there permanently and we came to a village called O while the youngest sister and brothers were given the tharavad for staying. We moved to a house in O village constructed already by my father out of his savings...
.I was admitted to class 4 1/2 in a local church school as I had finished my class 4 in Malabar. If I had continued in Malabar I could have been promoted to class5 as there was no class41/2 there, so we pleaded but the school authorities insisted that I should be admitted only in 4 I/2 class and not in class 5 according to the rules .
My performance in the class was probably poor as there was lot of difference in the standard of teaching, ..The class teacher who was a nun used to cane me whenever I gave a wrong answer and I could not understand then why I was specifically targeted. for caning.
.The students sitting in our class could see through the windows the dead bodies being brought to the church cemetery for burial, every now and then bringing a depressing mood to the children in the class...The nun teacher subsequently became seriously ill and myself and my close friend decided to go to convent to see her one day,.We saw her lying in bed in a dimly lit room of the convent.She tried to speak to us something but we could not follow her as she was very weak and hardly any sound came from her mouth..However , she raised her hand and blessed me before we took leave of her and then the thought flashed in my mind that she was punishing me all along only to help me better my performance in the class..She slept in the lord for ever after a few days and we were very sad..Apart from this incident the days in that school were uneventful.and nothing worth mentioning happened.
When I passed the annual exam,. I sought to get admission in a Govt. school in Thrissur(Model Boys School) but the idea was rejected outright as it was thought walking nearly 5 kilometers up and down daily would be difficult for my age..I wanted to go to a school far away from any cemetery as I did not want to see dead bodies and hear the sad music of the funeral procession every now and then., I pleaded .Finally it was decided that I should join in the 5th class of the Middle School run by the same church in the same locality.
posted by Bharat at 6:51 AM
2 Comments:
Papa this is awesome and very vivid . What is O village
Waiting eagerly for the next part... Pappa as a teenager... exciting... this is so revealing pappa... how come you guys had to move to village O?, why did two sisters move to village P?.. any specific reason?.. why were ammumma and other two sisters not given any share in village A? it is so interesting, i was transported to back in time... wonderful!!!
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