You laugh at my concerned glances

And hide your worries in your smile

But you forget you grew out of me,

Who hears the rhythm of your heart,

Even when you are not playing it loud.

Hanuman Pandaram

Monsters seem real in childhood. They exist in the dark and in nightmares. What if they come alive in front of our eyes? What if we can really hear their menacing hullabaloo?

Well, there was one such live monster in my childhood who made me shiver and close my eyes even when I didn’t want to for when it was past nine at night and I was still awake, my mother would say, “Sleep quickly! I can hear the shriek of the Hanuman Pandaram!” I would close my eyes tightly and pretend to be asleep.

Hanuman Pandaram used to visit our house at least once in a month, with a big sack on his back. I was told that it contained many children whom he had captured and was taking home to eat. He made a deafening sound beating the thick copper plate he held up in his hand. I can still feel a tremble in my heart, when I try to recollect his bright and ferocious face. I learnt afterwards that he put that mask on just before stepping into the courtyard of each house.

In his loud voice he would deliver his regular cry beating the copper plate with a hammer kind of thing after each line. It went like this:

Is there any child who does not brush teeth…?

Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding

Is there any child who does not obey….??

Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding

Is there any child who wets the bed...????

Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding

Is there any child who does not go to school…?????

Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding

The masquerade along with the cry and the sound of the copper plate was appalling to a naive child like me. 

After this performance, he would remove his mask; quietly accept a measure of rice or some money from my mother or grandmother and leave. I would then emerge from my hiding place with shaking legs.

When I knew he was there in the courtyard, I would run and hide under the cot. For this reason, I have never properly seen his face, which I regret now. All I remember is a riot of red, white, black and green and two bulging eyes. Hanuman is the monkey god, a very loyal disciple of the lord. Hanuman is to be revered and not to be terrified of but ‘pandaram’ in our childhood lexicon was synonymous with fiend. So, the Hanuman pandaram, to all children, was a beast who comes to eat them.

One day when I was three or four years old, my father forced me to go out to meet him. I saw a lean man with a sack on his back. He was wearing a loose shirt and a lungi. When he saw me coming, he took out his huge mask from the sack. Before he wore it I was inside the house, hiding.

Slowly with age, I understood that my Pandaram was a poor gentleman who made a living wearing the huge mask, helping kind parents to keep their wayward little children under their control. I remember hearing that his father was also a Pandaram. He must have inherited the mask from his father. He stopped coming after sometime and later someone told that he died.

There are no pandarams now.

Even if there was one now, will parents have time to listen to a Pandaram’s cry? Will he be able to scare the new generation kids who see more fiendish beings in the cyber world?

Now when I go home, I see my mother run behind my two year old nephew when his parents are away at work. Perhaps, a Hanuman Pandaram’s visit can fetch her some respite from the toddler’s mischievous activities. If not scared, the child would at least be amused.

Children now are spared the fear and trepidation of a Pandaram’s visit but I feel they are also deprived of such wonderful specimens of fictional and factual lore. 

Tashang Mo

Every time I take out the small silver Dorji pendant studded with tiny turquoise stones, I smile, thinking of the person who gifted it to me.

When we had to go to Paro in Bhutan for a sojourn of two years, people who had been there before told me that I was heading for an extremely lonely life. I was told that I would not be able to find work there and would have to spend my days inboredom.

Solitude was nothing new for me. I am very comfortable in silent and peaceful abodes. Moreover, the rebel in me always wakes up when I am told that something cannot be or should not be done. For those who tried to dishearten me, I reassured them that if I could not find any other occupation, I would resort to writing poetry.

Certain instances in life have led me to accept that the best way to make a wish come true is to believe that it is going to happen. I put that theory of mine to task there too. I did find a job in Bhutan and worked for a year. I also made some good friends; most of whom I could stay connected with, thanks to social networking sites. Among them, Tashang Mo stands out as a smooth and shiny blue turquoise.

The market in Paro consists of shops on either side of a road about a hundred metres long. On some days, when I used to be low on my spirits, I used to call for the vehicle and go to the Paro market. I would walk by the side of the road that was mostly occupied by street dogs, playing children and the elderly who sat and chewed their doma (pan) to idle away the time. They would smile with their doma stained teeth as if they were born only to sit and smile. It was a laidback scene; soothing and revitalizing.

Occasionally, I would peep into a shop or two and buy something insignificant just to strike a conversation with the shop owner. Indians, known for their persuasive haggling skills, are not well entertained by most of the shopkeepers.

One day while I stood outside gazing at the different colourful masks hung on the wall of a handicraft shop, a very pleasing lady from inside called me in. The wares of the shop ranged from wooden painted artifacts, paintings and wall hangings, statues in Yak bone and jewelry in silver and semi precious stones from Nepal and Tibet. She was as interested to talk to me as I was to know about her. I did not buy anything from her that day but after that, every time I went to the market, I would go to her shop to say hello to her and pick up something from there that stirred my curiosity that day. It pleased her that I remembered her name, Tashang Mo, for she felt that it was not an easy name for a foreigner to remember.

Tales of woe could be read behind Tashang Mo’s smiling face, which she occasionally let me comprehend. Many women whom I have come across in different stages of my life have taught me to stop ranting over small issues and accept things as they are which would help us to stay peaceful and composed. It is not easy and can be learnt only by enduring difficult situations in life. Tashang Mo shines to this day in my heart like the soft glow of moonlight; gentle and chaste.

Before leaving Paro, I visited her again with a small gift. In return, she pressed a pouch on to my hand with a silver pendant inside, one which I used to admire in her shop. It was an expensive one and I would not have accepted it had I not seen her tearful eyes. She disarmed me with her love and innocence. I could not get in touch with her after that. When my husband visited the place a year ago I asked him to find her but he could not locate her shop. I do not know where she is or how she is now but I keep sending my love and good wishes to her.

I treasure that pendant which she gave me, as the memoir of a friendship that has left a tender mark of noble love in my mind.

Dark and Beautiful

“Would you like to try the new face wash from Nature’s?” The question was from a very fair, young girl. I was entertaining myself window shopping inside the store. Not very pleased at the interruption, I gave her a ‘will you please keep quiet’ smile of mine.

She was unrelenting. “Ma’am this is a very good face wash for dark skin like yours….”

She stopped abruptly because my eyes hit her suddenly as I withdrew them from gazing on the shelf and fixed my glance on her face. “Eh…er...” she stammered and stumbled. “Your skin type can get many pimples ...this face wash is good...” First she called me dark and then she was saying my skin was having pimples. I was amused.

My paternal side of the family is all fair and lovely. My maternal side is fifty percent fair and lovely and fifty percent Vicco Turmeric as my maternal grandmother is very fair and maternal grandfather dark, from whom I seem to have inherited my skin.

There was a tall, fair and imposing distant relative, a granduncle, who was the President of the local community association. Whenever he passed our house, if he spotted me playing in the courtyard, he would enter through the kottiyambalam and call me near. He would hold both my arms together, peer into my face and say, “Oho…you are Puthen Veedu Vijayan’s daughter, isn’t it?”

I would mumble a yes and then he would continue feigning a puzzled expression, “Vijayan is fair, his mom Retnamma Chechi is very fair…all of them there are fair…how come YOU are dark?”

I would go darker with anger. All I wanted to do would be to roll my fist, gather my strength and punch him on the nose. Instead, I would just look away as he laughed aloud showing shiny dentures, his fair form enhanced by his silver hair and white attire.

Once I assembled my will and replied, “I am not from Puthen Veedu. I belong to Kalpavilakom.” Kalpavilakom is my maternal house.

The giant laughed hilariously at that and said, “Is it? So you are Kalpavilakom Thankom’s granddaughter? But Thankom is very fair!” Thankom is my maternal grandmother. She is very fair and still lovely at the age of eighty six.

I vividly remember the giant granduncle’s loud laugh. After that day, if I get a whiff of his arrival, I would dart inside the house and would not come out until he left. Later when I was older, I found out that his wife was a dark lady. He had no children.

Dark, dusky or earthy, I love my skin because that is the only guise I have.

Once a good friend told me, “People say deep and bright colours don’t suit dark skin. I see you wearing all those colours and they suit you very well.”

My dark skin has never prevented me from wearing the colour I like. I can wear any colour I like and match it with my attitude!

When Death stops for someone

When I read this facebook post saying that immediately after you die, your identity would become a ‘body’ and no one would call you by your name, I was reminded of a long distance call that woke me up from my short afternoon nap one day.

The familiar voice from beyond asked, “Were you sleeping?”

“No,” I said, “What’s new?”

“I saw yesterday’s evening news….Advocate Krishnan Nair died.”

I didn’t ask who Krishnan Nair was. Whoever he was, he must have been important enough to make into the local channel news after death.

“He had blood cancer,” I listened silently.

“You know, they showed his body being taken for funeral. He had all his hair on his head and moustache too…” I then got an insinuation regarding the struggled description of Advocate Krishnan Nair’s death.

“I too want my hair and moustache intact when they take me out.”

After a pause, I said. “Sure. You will have all your hair on your head and the moustache too. We will ask for the treatment without any side effects.”

My reply seemingly doused the immediate anxiety regarding the treatment and the subsequent hair loss.

“Okay”, came the passive response and the line went out.

There is a saying in Malayalam, ‘Chathu kidannalum chamanju kidakkanam’ which means, even when you are lying dead, you should look your best. When you spend a whole life caring and impressing others, why not do so in death too or at least wish to be so.

My grandmother told us all years before her demise that she had kept a passport size photo of hers in her wooden box and we needn't hunt the house for a photograph immediately after her death to publish it in the death column of the newspaper. The best one she could find, that brought out her in all her magnificence.

Recently, I came to know that an aunt of mine has expressed her wish to have a particular delicacy served on the seventh day feast that follows her boarding the Death’s Chariot.

Our physical form definitely loses its identity once the breath leaves. We will not smell the fragrance of the flowers on our hearse nor feel the comfort of the clothes put on us. We will not hear the heart rending wail of the mourners, may there be one or many. Despite knowing all this, we worry about the care and camaraderie our ‘body’ and memory later would get to enjoy.

After a certain age, people start talking that their ‘time’ would soon come, though heart of heart they would be wishing that it never arrived. Everyone would grab perpetual youth and immortality if they are offered on a platter. Prudence would not make people admit it and would make them speak wise words about old age and death.

No one wants to die. But, when death is inevitable, imagine that to be in all splendor, majestic.

“Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me
The Carriage held but just Ourselves
And Immortality.

We slowly drove -- He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility”

TWENTY MINUTES

Every day, the wait for the bus was longer than the time taken for the journey. Still after a long day, one didn't mind the wait at the small bus stop. The place swarmed with school children who intruded into the office compound nearby plucking gooseberries and rose apples from the trees there. The crowd would diminish slowly with every passing bus.

Her bus was usually late and when it came, there would be a scuttle with around twenty kids with their bags running to board the red and yellow colored battered Tata vehicle. Once inside, the other feat was to find a breathing space with a firm foothold for the next twenty minutes. The bus would reach a stop every three minutes and one had to bend and budge to allow the messy maneuvering little passengers get down the bus.

It was during one such journey that she caught a pair of eyes that remained fixed on her. He was on a window seat, comfortably sitting and staring at her. She could feel the rush of blood to her face while she turned her gaze to the passing greenery outside. The surging annoyance, which she gulped down, did not stop her from stealing a furtive glance at him before getting down from the steaming bus. He was there at the same place; his gaze still unaltered.

The next day, before boarding the bus her eyes scanned the windows. She found him again, at the same place. His eyes found her too as soon as she climbed on to the bus. This time she was more embarrassed than annoyed. She tried to hold her face away from his gaze to satisfy her wounded modesty. He seemed to be unaware of the trembling of her heart because his eyes remained fixed on her face as in a trance. She could turn herself around and deny him the sight he obviously longed for; she did not do it.

She discovered that a little bit of kohl on the eyes and a deep red bindi added to her beauty. Her hair was long and touched her waist. She rolled the small locks around her broad forehead with her fingers. She replaced the gold bangles on her hand with colourful glass bangles. Every time before boarding the bus she adjusted her beautifully plaited hair; which often drew admiring eyes.

The twenty minute-long silent affair continued every day except a few occasions when the red and yellow bus missed the date. His eyes held her as if in a spell. She held her most elegant poise that the moving and swaying bus permitted.

Days and weeks his eyes pursued her in the bus relentlessly. One day, while climbing on to the bus, she felt the warmth of trailing eyes missing. She noticed that he was there on the same seat but was not looking at her. His eyes were focused down at an open book in his hand. She wondered what there was in the book that had caught his persistent eye. She stood there glancing stealthily now and then at him to catch his glance. Twenty minutes and he never looked at her. The story was the same the following day. His impassive eyes seemed to be locked on to a page in the book in his hand.

Slowly, she realized that some other thing of beauty had seized the day dreamer’s eye. She smiled to herself. She felt liberated like a model released after the painter finished his portrait. She stepped down the bus with her open hair fluttering in the evening breeze. The smile lingered on her face as she was walking down her path home, oblivious to many other pairs of fascinated eyes staring at her.

MY SANDAL STORY ;)

 
I had pampered my feet wearing the comfy pair of sneakers.So I was having a tough time while wandering through the shops in the mall in sandals. 

We were there to wither away the two hours as our two sons watched ‘Iron Man 3’ in the multiplex on the fourth floor. I had put my hands up when I heard they wanted to watch that movie. I had no more patience left to sit and watch cartoons and science fiction movies wearing the 3 D glasses. Their father was even more vehement. So we decided to book the tickets only for the boys. While they watched the movie, we would ‘window’ shop in the mall below.

I had finished revolving my eyes around the entire length and breadth of the shops in the third floor resisting all temptations. There were three more floors left. The escalator was on the other corner of the floor. The lift was taking a long time to come. At that time, I spotted a staircase by the side and decided to climb down to the next floor. It

was a stairway which led to the parking lot on the second basement. My feet were aching so much that while I was on the second flight of stairs, I felt like stretching my right foot which I immediately did. I was holding the railing and standing at the right end of the stairway. That moment my sandal slipped out of my right foot. Before I could scream after a gasp, it plummeted down and reached the second basement with a thud.

I got a glare from my husband who was a couple of steps ahead of me. I gave him one of my usual stupid smiles as there was nothing else for me to do other than wait there and allow him to run down the five floors and retrieve my precious sandal. There were no other souls around. No one else bothered to take the fire escape stairway on a hot summer afternoon when there were enough escalators and lifts inside the building.

I limped down one flight of stairs in one sandal while my husband ran down the stairs. He yelled to me to keep an eye on the sandal lest someone should grab it before he reached the spot. I wondered why anyone would want to take a single sandal but kept it to myself as it would have been murderous to counter him at that point of time. Thanks to his regular exercising regime, he was back in no time, triumphant holding the sandal in hand.

For rest of the staircase, he made sure I walked by the side of the wall. Inside the mall, he insisted that I buy a pair of shoes and do an immediate switch from the sandals. Unfortunately (for me - but luckily for him), I could not find a comfortable pair in any of the shops. Rest of the time we spent in the mall, he diligently kept me away from the staircase and ensured we went up or down by escalators or elevators only!