The Beautiful Childhood

We had no practice of wearing shirts while going out to spend our leisure time. The only thing we had in abundance those days was time. The main assembly point for spending our time was the temple premises. Everyone assembles there after the school time. Everything else can wait, even the home work. What follow is varieties of games. From ‘Kuttiyum Kolum’ to ‘Kallanum Polisum’ to Kabddi we play as the day’s mood demands.

Though we had so many favourite games, Bhagavan and a few other guys had some other preferences too. They prefer to play with cashew nuts. In our area this game was called ‘andi kali’. There was a particular kind of a game in which a few cashew nuts and coins are thrown to a small hole. Then each nut or a coin is hit with a small stone standing at a distance. Whoever manages to hit the target owns it. Bhagavan had an awesome aim. He could hit the nuts and even coins several times in the game. Since he was from a poor back ground, it was a mean of earning a few cashew nuts and coins for him. In my belief, the reason for his sharpness might be his poor background. A burning belly makes people do anything.  The nick name bhagavan stuck to Sasikumar because of this enviable capability. The losers in the game were jealous and started calling him Bhagavan.

Sasikumar and family suddenly left Olavaipe one day. His parents sold off whatever they had in our village and went to a remote place. Since then we never met Bhagavan. Where ever he is, may the Almighty keep him happy.  I don’t know if I can recognize him if I come across this man at the corner of a street.

Sasikumar’s house premises had a big ‘ambazham’ tree. (sorry I do not know the English word for ambazham). During the season, it used to give a lot of ambazhanga. I am not sure if we can call Ambazhanga a fruit. But it is extremely sour while it is raw. This fruit in raw state, if kept in salt mixed water for a long time, turns into a tasty thing. A chutney of this ambazhanga with coconut is really a very delicious dish. Did you ever try it out?

Bhagavan’s family earns a few bucks from these fruits every year. My grandma too buys raw ambazhanga  from them and soaks them in salt water in an earthen pot. These earthen pots are famously called bharani. Bharani has of late become a showcase item in the modern days rather than a common utensil in the grandma’s kitchen.

Now in Olavaipe, it is hard to spot ambazham tree. Recently, when I came back from India to Syria, I brought pickle made of salted mango. Tasting this, one of my colleagues here opined that it was salted ambzhanga. Though it was not the truth, I did not deny this. Anyway, I thanked him silently for bringing the memories of my beloved friend Sasikumar.  

So, the question of wearing shirt does never arise. No shirts, no footwares and no restrictions from the elders. We were above all control. How can anyone freely involve in games like hide and seek, “kallanm Polisum” or kabaddi with shirts and footwares on? These extra fittings suit only the modern day kids who fiddle with jockeys and key boards all the time while gulping Complan and crunching Lays.

Above all we had a very crucial mission on our shoulders. Making our Victory Sports Club the Rial Madrid of Olavaipe. It could have been impossible for the ‘sports boys’ to achieve this if we turned up on the field in these paraphernalia. Bare feet and bare chests were the best gears to create the  edge of the seat experience while playing the game with the ball.

But here too Babuchettan intervenes, here too! He wants us to wear shirt while going out. We never liked this diktat. We initially fought it tooth and nail. We dodged him several times. Still, as in the case of any of his diktats, we had to ultimately surrender and we did. We were exceptions in the group. I don’t remember if any of our friends wore shirt while spending the leisure time. Of late, the practice of wearing shirt even while sitting at home has become quiet normal. Look at the serial actors. They wear the costliest saris, churidars, pants and shirts even if the scene is kitchen. The highly urbanized behaviour has caught up with even the remotest villages now.

One of the adverse fall outs of wandering around without slippers was itchy feet at the end of the day. Boils all over the feet and toes gave miserable nights. This, in our Malayalam is called “valam kadi”. It was a horrible experience. I don’t think anyone of us wound have escaped from going through such a harrowing experience at least once in your childhood. Itching will be at its peak while we set for the sleep. It is impossible to lie down calmly and it is impossible to manage the disturbance with two hands alone. We used to take help from the elders in the family. Our eldest sister lent her hands many a time. We had to spend even sleepless nights with this monsoon misery. Gradually itching graduates into boils paralyzing the mobility. Interestingly, even in this agony, we two brothers were together. Valamkadi’s season was the monsoon.

The boils in the feet had a treatment too, administered by the elders in the family.  It was a simple treatment but was never as simple as it sounds. We had to only dip our feet into water boiled with neem leaves. In one of the Monsoon seasons, it was the turn of our father to treat us. Father washed our feet inside the hot water. The pain we underwent during this simple treatment was unimaginable. The shouts by my brother during this operation are still reverberating in the premises of our home in Olavaipe. He screams, I shall cut off the mango trees , I shall cut off the coconut trees and so on. Warnings of colossal damage to moveable and immoveable properties! After the wash, a blue coloured solution is applied to the wounds. The feet become blue after this. Looking back at those incidents, we can not but have a good laugh now.

In the present day Olavaipe, I can not spot a single kid without foot wares on his/her feet. Even if a kid wants to go out bare footed, parents may never allow this. They want the kid’s feet to remain as smooth as a petal of a lotus. The lotus feet that shall tread the path of roses laid by the ready for anything parents. The kid has to just walk, and ascend to the ergonomically designed chair of a software engineer or a money minting doctor. Even I can never walk from my home to our temple bare footed whenever I go to Olavaipe  

During one of the Monsoons, a scary incident took place in our life. As usual, we were attacked by the ‘valam kadi’. The situation turned grim and there needed medical assistance. Those days we were usually taken to hospitals in Kuthiyathode. It is a small town on the other side of the backwaters. We have to cross the backwaters to reach Kuthiyathode. Ferry service was on small wooden boats. The backwater that divides Olavaipe and Kuthiyathode has a width of at least one kilometer. Banks of the backwater is far off. It is too frightening to travel on small boats during high tides as there will be waves. Though Poochakkal was a town connected by road, we had preferred Kuthiathode those days

After the consultation with the doctor, the same boatman took us back. By that time it was slowly getting dark. The boatman, no doubt was an experienced hand. The boat started sailing slowly. Suddenly, as is the characteristic of monsoon rains, huge clouds started gathering and it suddenly started pouring down. The heavy downpour was not alone. Monsoon rains never forget to bring along with them heavy winds and deadly lightning. The boat had suddenly caught in a turmoil. It started swinging as if it was a swing. Scared we could do nothing but pray to our Gods. Our grandpa was unmoved. The rocking boat could never rock his confidence.  He knew his “olavaipil thevar’ will never let us down. He had an unshakable faith in the presiding deity of our village. I am still wondering how the boat never gave in to the fury of nature in that night. As I believe, my Almighty can never harm us. The boatman almost lost control of the boat, but still he managed to row the boat. Somehow, he could steer the floating thing to the safety of the bank. We reached the bank where the church of our village located. We took shelter in the Church.

Many years later, I found myself in a similar situation, but this time it was not on a rocking wooden boat. The scene was a reputed hospital in Ernakulam where I had just become a father. As we were celebrating the arrival of our little vampire, Manju was treading an extremely dangerous path to the edge of life inside the intensive care unit of the hospital. The condition of the patient was somehow not informed to us till it turned serious.  The attending doctor tersely told us before taking her to a second operation that everything is unpredictable. Just like the boat in this story, my life suddenly found itself in the midst of a  turmoil. The giant waves started rocking the boat and threatened to drown it. Darkness started engulfing everything. But this time too, luck was on our side.

Manju was lucky, but thousands of unlucky women are sacrificing their lives for the sake of sustaining the human race. Knowing well that their own life is at risk, every woman is willing to take that risk. They possess a kind of courage that no ordinary men possess. Casting an evil eye or an evil thought on her is akin to disgracing the womb that carried us all.