I have heard a lot of stories from my father about his life here. They are all sad stories and most are about the hardships he faced as a child. Some of them describe his days as a child when he sold supari to earn money. (My mother later told me how he stole the supari from the neighboring fields at night.) Other stories are about how he walked 8 kilometers bare feet every day to school with nothing but a chapatti and a piece of onion for lunch. I always made him repeat the more cheerful stories. My personal favourite was the one about how he and his friend, Padmu, used to catch chameleons in the afternoons.
When I think of my father now, I regret my failure of not being able to understand the significance of these stories. I was not mature enough then. All his words seemed trivial to me. They were just like all the other stories to me, straight out of a children’s book.
It was the last days of the Monsoons when I reached Tellicherry. The rains weren’t as severe as they are during the Monsoons. Only someone from Kerala knows the force and the intensity with which the Monsoon rains beat the earth. Anyhow, it was raining lightly when I got off the hired jeep to walk the rest of the distance. There aren’t many roads in Tellicherry.
My father always told me that he owed his life to his elder brother, Kunhambu. He told me several times about how his brother toiled day and night to earn money so that he could go to school. As I mentioned earlier, I was too young or too stupid to understand this. Well, Kunhambu is the reason I am here now. He died last month. My father couldn’t make this trip due to his own ill health.
It was an uneventful trip until now. I took the Poorna Express to Cannanore and then hired a jeep to get me to the outskirts of Tellicherry. All the development in the world couldn’t make me avoid this final stretch into the village on foot.
It is difficult to walk in the woods during the monsoons. The stones are especially treacherous to tread upon.
Kerala, in a word, is breathtaking. It is green and beautiful. It truly belongs in the expensive glossy travel magazines. The smell of the leaves is intoxicating. I enjoyed all of this as I walked toward ‘Nalleri Valappil’, the name of my father’s home. I even tried not to blink so that I wouldn’t miss a sight. There are streams running all over the village. They end up in the fields in the valley that my father once must have worked on. I saw very few people during my walk. The few that I did see had a look of distrust. I was a stranger. I dint belong here and was naturally here to create trouble. I continued down the trodden path. I was surprised at myself for not getting lost although it had been the first time I came to Tellicherry on my own.
The house hadn’t changed much as far as I could remember. As always, there were some people sitting in the verandah of the house. A couple of children played near the well to the right. I smiled as I remembered dropping my mothers’ umbrella into the same well on my first visit when I was 7 years old. I could barely see my grandfathers’ grave to the left of the house between the trees and the brush. Some vegetable plants had been planted along the path leading to the house. I could see that the plants wouldn’t survive much longer. The rains must have beaten the life out of them. The feeling of placidity that I experienced as I stood there was unsettling. I saw my 14-year-old father walk down the path from the house with his bag of supari. His shoulder brushed against my arm as he walked past. He turned to look at me as he walked on. I noticed the smile on his face. A smile. He was happy. It made sense.
I brushed the thought from my head and walked towards the house slowly. I wasn’t sure whom to talk to. The people in the verandah turned to look at me as I approached. The woman who sat at the steps of the verandah asked me who it was I wanted to see. I am the second son of Kunhikrishnan I told her. She then smiled in recognition and stood up. It was incredible that she could recognize me after all these years. I looked at her face. She was about a hundred years old I told myself. She took my hand and led me into the house. She introduced me to everyone around.
“That’s Sulu”, she said. “And the fools you see playing around are her sons. They are Sangeeta, Padmanabhan, and Unni, and I am Veliamma.” That would make her my father’s sister. I smiled at them one by one. This is Kunhikrishnan Nair’s son, she announced. She held my elbow and forced me to turn toward the grave of my grandfather. Your grandmother rests next to him now, she said. That’s how she wanted it. We couldn’t deny her last wishes could we, she said as if trying to justify her actions. From the verandah I could clearly make out the two graves in the thicket. I just smiled back at her.
I was then given podi-chai and parampori. Parampori is a popular dish in Kerala. It is made of banana and rice powder. I spent time talking to everyone present. The children would look at me with curiosity. When they came towards me they were shunned into the house.
An old woman with a bucket of clothes on her head came from the pathway and walked towards the house looking at me. I learned that she was Kunhambu’s wife. She sat beside me in silence as veliamma told her who I was. Her tears came then. I wasn’t sure how to react. I took her hand in mine and held it in understanding. She continued to cry as I held her hand and looks at the fields beyond the path. I saw my fathers figure come out of the house with his bag and stand at the door. He glanced at me, started to walk down the path and disappeared. He still had a pleasant smile on his face. I felt Kunhamma’s eyes upon me as I thought of my father. I looked at her and smiled. She had stopped crying.
It was time for me to leave. I bid farewell to all and collected my things to start on my way back to the jeep. Kunhamma called out to me as I walked away. She was already beside me when I turned. I will accompany you till the stream. I nodded and started to walk again beside her. Neither of us spoke until we reached the stream. Once there, I crossed over the makeshift bridge and turned around.
You will come back, she inquired in a soft voice barely audible above the streams rush. I nodded. I don’t have anyone else now, she said. You will come back, she asked again. I saw that she was crying now. She held the towel that she had tied at her waist over her saree to her face and cried into it. She looked at me one last time and walked away. I looked at her receding figure for as long as I could see. I continued to look even after she had disappeared. The boy that was my father appeared from where Kunhamma had left and took my hand. I followed him up the path. Only once did he look at me. He smiled at me.
It has been 28 years since that day next to the stream. Sometimes when I think about that day, I feel ashamed about not returning to Tellicherry. I often sit on the bench by the creek behind my house and think about that evening. So many questions loom in a cloud. I wonder if there will be a day when I return. I would like to return. The boy and I have decided that when we die, we shall be buried in Tellicherry. Yes, the boy visits me sometimes. He always smiles.
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