The hunchback of Ernakulum

I again start with that old quote about greatness “Some people are born great, some people become great, some people have greatness thrust upon them” Similarly some people are born hunch backs like the Quasimodo of ‘Hunchback of Notre dame’. Others through their exertions, taking greater and greater loads on their back, instead of achieving greatness, end up with broken backs. Still others get this backs broken for no fault of theirs. The hunchback in my story belongs to the third kind.

Before we get to the hunchback, let’s go to where it all begins. I mean my story. Not the life the universe and everything. For that read the Old Testament book of genesis that describes how God went about creating the world for 6 days and then took the day off on Sunday. Or if you are more scientifically inclined, maybe Stephen Hawking’s brief history of time may have the answer you’re looking for. On the other hand if you’re somebody who likes to think out of the box, you might like to try the explanations of Terry Pratchett who believes the entire world is in the shape of a disc supported on the backs of 4 elephants that are standing on the back of a giant turtle swimming in the huge ocean that is the universe. There could be many more explanations. But the point here is that I am not getting into that. I am only concerned about where my story began. And that was when we landed in God’s own country, ‘Kerala’.

I have always loved the Enid Blyton farm stories where city children land up at the home of their countryside relatives and on the fist morning woken up by sounds of cows, hens, sheep and other farm animals. I had a similar experience on my first morning for the owner of the house had managed to squeeze in a little animal farm in his house. We were rented the quarters on the first floor while the owner occupied the ground floor where he maintained 6 cows, 8-9 hens, a rooster, 10-12 ducks and a dog. Just next to the house was a pond. The balcony of our house looked right into the pond. The owner himself was a very simple man having come up in life from a humble background as a construction worker. His only weakness was his affinity for arrack. Some nights he used to return home drunk and make himself a nuisance to his wife and 3 daughters. But luckily he had a strong and steady son to handle him on such occasions. The youngest daughter Bindu was around my age and soon became my playmate. In case the term playmate brings certain dubious associations in people’s minds, let me remind you I was still only 8 years at that time.

At that time Rajiv Gandhi, the prime minister of the time was coming to address a rally. In ancient times in countries like Japan and China, people used to believe that kings and queens are the representatives of God on earth. I seemed to have held a similar opinion about prime ministers at that time. So I was really excited about the prospect of seeing him in flesh and blood. Luckily for me, Bindu and her family were going to the rally and were willing to take me along. But I had forgotten an important factor – my mother. She ofcourse had other ideas. She believed my time would be better spent at home studying for my exams coming up the following week. I tried my skills of persuasion on her. But persuasion skills have never been my forte then or now. No wonder I could not get into the marketing field. But then marketing is not the only field. If you can’t get into marketing, ‘operations’ is always there. So I decided to put my ‘operations’ skills to use.

I got my operation together the moment my mother went in to clean the dishes. But then mothers have noses as keen as that of dogs in catching scent of any mischief on the part of their wards. And before my hand got to the bolt of the front door, there she was. She immediately seized me and dragged me to the balcony of the house, put me there with my books and shut the door on me. That was definitely a tough situation. The less stout of heart may sense some finality in the course of events. But then it is in such situations that the true fighter spirit is put to test.

I stopped to consider my situation. Here I was on the balcony. The door behind me was shut, but I needed to move on. That left just one direction: right on ahead. Right below the balcony was the sunshade. Climbing down to the sunshade was not a Herculean feat even for an eight year old. From the sunshine, it was going to be a difficult task to ease myself down and swing off on to the compound wall. Here I would need to adjust my swinging speed for if I swung too fast I would land in the pond. On the other hand if I swung too slow I would land on the washing stone just below the compound wall. Once I got to the compound wall, then the washing stone would act as the next stepping stone and then freedom at last. But then I never got to test my speed regulation skills for my feet slipped from the sunshade and I found myself dropping rapidly towards the washing stone. It was only moments before my head would hit the washing stone. At that speed, chances of survival were remote and even if I survived, how would I remain sane after such a blow on my head. That the former did not happen the reader can be sure for dead men tell not tales. But of the later I guess opinions would be divided. At least I for one chose to believe I am perfectly sane. If someone believes otherwise, we can have a healthy debate on this sometime.

I never got to see what happened for I lost by consciousness before my head hit the stone. I do not know how much time had passed. But I sensed my head resting on something soft and could hear some people talking. Initially I did not make any sense of the conversation. But slowly I could make out my name being mentioned. I wondered what had happened. I at last took courage and opened my eyes. I found myself on the ground floor on my mother’s lap. It seemed like I had survived the fall except for a painful sensation in my arm, which later turned out to be a minor fracture. How had this miracle occurred? Well, there can only be one possible answer, isn’t it? Have we been missing someone important? Yes, of course the hunchback. Doesn’t she after all play the titular role? So who was this and when did she intervene?

At the time of my fall, Bindu’s elder sister Gracy had been washing clothes. She had suddenly felt something heavy drop on her back from the skies above. At first she had thought it was a coconut. But then it had been too heavy to be a coconut. You can guess what had fallen on her back and rolled off unhurt. Thus it came about that she ended up a hunch back and I ended up alive. I left the place within next few months. I really hope her back eventually recovered and she is no longer a hunchback.

The Idi Amin of Malleshwaram

Yesterday I was seeing an Indian movie made over half a century ago ‘Musafir’. It was the times when technology had not progressed and obscene amount of wealth was not being poured into films. But the movie turned out to be much better than any of the current day movies. The movie had a nice simple theme and executed in a sensitive manner. Even the songs made sense. It is the story of 3 families who come to stay at a rented house one after the other and their lives, their joys and sorrows, their triumphs and tribulations. The term ‘Musafir’ means traveler in Hindi, Urdu and Arabic. Here the tenants are called travelers as they travel from one rented apartment to another. The theme was kind of nostalgic one for me for I have been one such ‘Musafir’ or traveler. I have stayed in 11 different rented houses, three student hostel accommodations, one hotel room accommodation and my father’s home. That’s 15 different places in a span of 30 years. My mind went on a time travel reminiscing my life and times at each place.

My memories of my existence starts at a little house in an area called Malleshwaram in Bangalore. The house had a small verandah, a smaller bedroom and a still smaller kitchen and of course a bathroom and a toilet. It was way back in the early 1980s and the concept of combined toilet and bathroom was yet to become popular. The owner of the house was a genius who had managed to squeeze in 6 houses within his tiny strip of land, two on each floor. Four of the houses, the two on the ground and first floor and ground floor were rented out while the owner retained the two penthouse apartments, if you can call them that. We stayed on the one of the first floor houses. The other one was occupied by my dad’s childhood friend, who had a son called Gowtham who was around my age. He was the first friend I have ever had. The two houses on the ground floor were occupied by two couples, one of them newly married and the other with a baby. Anyway I don’t have too many memories of them except for one small incident with the baby and her mom, which I shall be narrating soon.

When light is scattered from an atom or molecule, most photons are elastically scattered (Rayleigh scattering). The scattered photons have the same energy (frequency) and wavelength as the incident photons. However, a small fraction of the scattered light (approximately 1 in 10 million photons) is scattered by an excitation, with the scattered photons having a frequency different from, and usually lower than, the frequency of the incident photons. Now where did this come from? Have no clue what I am talking about? Actually nor do I. No. I am not going nuts. This is a portion lifted from Wikipedia description of Raman Effect discovered by C V Raman, the famous Indian scientist and Nobel Prize winner. However, this is not the Raman Effect I am going to talk about here. The one I am going to mention is going to be a Raman effect of a different kind for the owner of our house was also called C V Raman and was no less an exceptional man in his own way. There is this old movie of Rajnikanth called 'Munru Mukam' where the villain says babies will stop crying if the mother mentions his name. Rajnikanth responds by saying that when mothers say his name, the child will not only shut its own mouth with one hand, but shut the mouth of the mother with the other hand. Such was the effect Mr. Raman had on his tenants. He was a dictator who ruled over his family and tenants with an iron hand, an Idi Amin in his own right.

Where there are dictators, there is usually a rebel faction. The rebellion against Mr. Raman was lead by able rebel general Gowtham and his faithful lieutenant yours truly. We used to hatch conspiracy after conspiracy to overthrow his evil regime. But our plans and courage lasted only till he was out of sight. The minute he was in sight, General Gowtham would immediately salute him smartly and wish him good morning. I would still hold out a defiant posse and receive a couple of taunts from Mr. Raman. Gowtham later explained to me that we were operating undercover and must not let him get scent of the rebellion till the time was tipe. Other than hatching conspiracies, we also indulged in scientific exploration, adventure, travel and commerce. We used to create controls of rockets on the walls with chalk piece and launch reconnaissance missions to outer space. We used to explore dark caves that used to be the lair of monsters in quest for hidden treasures– the area below the staircase was dark and used to be the abode of cockroaches and one may find a chalk piece or an old bottle or old bus tickets there. We used to go on long bike trips on the corridors outside our house on our tricycles. We used to collect old lottery tickets, shining stones; I don’t mean diamonds, more in the lines of pieces broken from marble slabs in construction sites, chalk pieces and ‘tick tuck’ , the name we gave to tablet covers for the sound they made. We used to run a thriving business in these commodities.

My parents were becoming gravely concerned about the influence Gowtham was beginning to have on me. He had become my friend, philosopher and guide. I often used to quote him as an authoritative source to support my arguments during verbal duels with my parents. My parents tried to counter this by trying to develop ’independent’ thinking in me by getting me books such as Knowledge Bank books published by Pustak Mahal. But reading general knowledge books is not a five year old kid’s idea of fun. Needleless to say, the books retain their brand new look to date, which cannot be said of many an other unfortunate book that fell into my clutches over the years. But the following incident confirmed my parents worst fears.

Every tribe has this coming of age ceremony, where young men have to prove their mettle by a feat of daring. So Gowtham devised one such task for us. Mrs. Usha, the tenant on the ground floor was standing with her baby in hand and talking to someone. So the task was this. We had to take aim and spit such that our spit landed exactly on the baby’s head. Gowtham, as the leader lead the way. He accomplished the task successfully and ducked before Ms. Usha could see who was responsible for the mucous fluid globule on her poor baby’s head. Next it was my turn. I prepared myself, waited for my mouth to fill and carefully took aim. The time of trial had come. I could not let down my leader at this crucial juncture. The rebellion against Raman needed staunch hearted men and I had to prove myself worthy of the cause. I managed to hit the bull’s eye but could not evade being seen for mama had become alert after the first attack on her beloved one. The impudence of attacking her poor little one a second time totally enraged her and she was at our door in no time.

My mom was rudely awakened from her sleep and had to listen to 15 minutes of the virago’s ravings. Anger is so infectious. By the time the lady left having blown the steam off, the devil had taken possession of my mom. She seized me and dragged me to the kitchen and lit the gas stove. And then she proceeded to heat a steel spoon and with that she proceeded to brand me on my forearm. And that is how I first got my first lesson on branding. I wonder how many people know the marketing term 'branding' originated from the practice of branding livestock and slaves with a hot iron. In Dutch ‘branden’ means to burn. From that day I was known as the ‘Spitting warrior of the steel spoon clan’. They say some people are born great, some people become great through their efforts while other have greatness thrust upon them. I would say some people are born with a silver spoon while others achieve a steel spoon through their feats of bravery.

But then all good things come to an end and same was the case with our adventures. By the time I was nearing my eighth bithday, Gowtham’s dad had decided to move to the defense quarters and my dad had got transferred to Kerala. But the memories of the house were etched deep in my mind and it was with a heavy heart that I took leave of the domain of Raman the tyrant. As the dialogue in the movie Musafir goes, you have to eventually leave every rented house and when you leave each one you will carry your unique memories with it.

If you liked this post, you can check out my next one in this series here and all other humorous posts written by me here.