RELATIONSHIPS

 

We were born in the 1950s.

We grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. They were decades of shortages. No one had anything except a few. The nation had just woken up into independence on August 15, 1947. The British had left after dividing India into two nations and a violent strife that killed  200000 to 2 million of the population of undivided India. The partition of the country  into India and Pakistan  had been accompanied  by mass violence and refugee crisis. The chaotic period had displaced an estimated 12 to 15 million people as they fled across the newly drawn borders.

In that era of unfulfilled desires, people had somehow survived. The members of the families had bonded together with love and affection. They slept on the floor on mats. The kitchen was always busy where all the women in the house had exerted themselves together. Men would go out to work in the fields. Since there had been no other option people lived in joint families. They were happy though they didn't have enough. It was basically an agrarian economy.

Gradually the scene shifted. Job opportunities at different locations in the state or country or even abroad broke up the joint families. People moved out to wherever they were employed. However the family ties were so strong that all of them had made it a point to come together on holidays or vacations at the family house. For a couple of weeks it would be just  like the good old days before they had left for greener pastures 

Tourism of those days were visits to the places where members of the family stayed in various localities due to their posting there. The children looked forward to such visits as they brought them closer. It made family ties stronger. People were more than willing to help each other in times of need. They welcomed visitors, be it relatives, friends or at times even total strangers wholeheartedly to their households. Sharing and caring were the essence of relationships. 

Then we awoke into the 1970s, 1980s.and 1990s.  It was the Gulf. US. Europe. Anywhere. Everywhere.  Emigration was on in a large scale. The economy became dependent on foreign inward remittances. Though unemployment was very high, there was improvement in job opportunities within the country.

It was the dawn of nuclear families. With that, joint families were disrupted. They are now almost extinct.   

Now no one welcome anyone. You are not expected to stay when you make visits. The first question that you invariably face is, "When did you arrive?" 

The next is quite interesting. "When are you leaving?"

Between these two questions, you get the silent message that you have no place there. At the best, you would be offered tea or coffee or soft drinks and a few biscuits. You are expected to leave soon after that. In case you mention that you don't take the drink placed before you and request for a glass of plain hot water, you can be certain that it would reach you after 45 minutes. The message is explicit. "You are not welcome."

Relationships have lost their place in human lives. You secure yourselves within the four walls. Except for your own nuclear family, you don't think of anyone else.

No one cares. No one shares.

MISSIONARY AT BANDIREVU BHADRACHALAM

There were two eminent personalities in an organisation, one senior and one junior.

Initially the senior went around telling everyone that the junior had  a very low pay. Then the junior left. Afterwards the senior went around telling everyone he had a very low pay. The senior too  left  later.

Now listen to the story of Sreekanth. He has been posted as a missionary at:

CSI Bhadrachalam Mission 

Mission compound, Bandirevu, Bandirevu. P. O Nellipakka, Bhadrachalam, Telangana

Pin. 533352

He is awaiting the results of the BD exam he wrote in April 2026.

He had been working in the mission field before he enrolled for  the BD course.

He may be ordained as a Pastor in about two months. The salary he expects is Rs.12000.00 per month

The mission he has joined is sponsored by the Women's Fellowship of the CSI South Kerala Diocese.

When he reported at the mission, the previous missionary had left on transfer for higher studies. The mission house is a two room kitchen, sheeted house. Adjacent to it, there is a sheeted church. 

The mission runs an approved English Medium UP School. It has students upto 6th standard.

The temperature at the place is 47 degree. 

Sreekanth has a co-worker from Vellarada who is new to the Mission field.

The mission has two cabs to bring children to the school. 

When Sreekanth reached there, the vehicles could not be started as the batteries were down. Further, one of the vehicles, eaten away by rust, is unserviceable.

There are teachers at the School. But they have to be compensated with a decent salary.

A compound wall enclosing the area is absolutely essential as the School is populated by children. Their safety is paramount.

They have a local market around 7kms away. Bhadrachalam at 40kms is the nearest place for major supplies.

The missionaries cook their food. There is no Fridge. It means the left overs  cannot be preserved for consumption later.

Sreenath has no complaints. He says God will take care. He expects his first salary after one month of reporting at the mission.

He has left his wife and two daughters at his house at Dhanuvachapuram. The wife is unemployed. She has a chronic back ache for which she gets admitted off and on for addressing the ailment. The girls have been enrolled at a primary school close to the residence. 

Sreekanth reached the mission on a Friday. He had a day to clean up the Church for worship. While cleaning up he encountered a black cobra that he had to dipose off.

The worship was conducted in Telugu, a language he is not proficient. But technology helped him traverse the issue.

There is a bore well that provides hard water. He buys drinking water.

River fish and meat are available along with vegetables in the local market.

A mason charges Rs.1300.00 per day and the assistant Rs.1000.00 per day for masonry work.

Sreekanth is cheerful.He is happy he had a stint in the mission field earlier. He says it had taken him to Kashmir, Kulu Manali and many other places.

Sreekanth is happy he has chosen to serve the Lord. 

He maintains God will lead him on, in his journey.

MASSIVE HEART ATTACK AND 100% BLOCK IN ALL ARTERIES

The wife, a very close relative, wrote:

"My huband is in a very bad situation. He had a massive heart attack and is hospitalized 100%block in all arteries. They put one stent on. They got a heartbeat for a while.

 I am in the hospital waiting room"

(The husband is an excellent gentleman)

Concerned, I wrote to her.

"When Papa had a Cardiac arrest, soon after Prostratectomy  in June 1980, the doctor said he'd be gone in half an hour at the most.

He was 62.

After CPR he was  on the Ventilator for 48 hours.

When the doctor said half an hour, it was around 10 pm that night.

I sat on the floor outside. 

Medical College Hospital, Trivandrum.

B-Theatre - no benches or seats there - and I began praying. 

I prayed just one sentence repeatedly staying awake the whole night.

"Daivame ente Papa ye ee rathri kondupokaruthe"

(Oh God, please don't take away my Papa, this night)

I could have been naive. But a thought, a crazy one, was in me. That God would let him be in this world if Papa had survived till 6 am  the next morning.

The supplication was relentless 

Morning around 8 AM next day, word was, he was alive. 

The doctor told me there was some improvement.

God gave him back

He lived on 28 years.

Miracle.

I understood one thing. 

God acts at the right time.

To this day, it has been true in my life, our life.

It will be in yours too."

A LEAF FROM LIFE

                  

                    A LEAF FROM LIFE

Papa had retired from KDHP CoLtd - it was James Finlay for a while - on 31January1975.

We left Munnar on 30 January 1975.

Papa's retirement had led the family into a turmoil. Unfortunately Mummy had passed away in 1978. As Papa was staying alone in our house at Thalavady, we had applied for a telephone connection at the house for accessing him through phone. Several years went by. The phone connection did not materialise. Exasperated we withdrew the application. It was BSNL or its predecessor.

Years later when Laji with his family was staying with Papa, they felt acutely the necessity of a telephone connection at home. An application for the connection was submitted again. In about two years the phone was allotted and it was installed at our house in no time.

The fun began there.

Those were the days when mobile phone was yet to make its entry in the country. But there was a solace. One could access anyone in the country through the STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) facility. It had made communication smooth and fast.

Earlier one had to book a call at the local telephone exchange. You would be placed in the waiting list. They would put your call through when you move up in the queue and reach the number one slot on the waiting list. It was a cumbersome procedure where you might have to wait for pretty long a time.

Naturally, when you make STD calls your telephone bill would leap frog.

The question is, when you obtain a telephone connection after a long wait, what would a sane person do. In the normal run, he would surprise his dear ones and friends with calls from the newly installed phone.

I just wonder, who gave the odd idea to Papa. 

He took out several Inland Letter forms and wrote out to everyone - son, daughter, relatives and friends - that he had been allotted a new telephone connection and that the phone had been installed at the house. He inscribed the phone number in the letter. Fortunately there was a letter box in front of our house and it meant he did not have to walk far to post  the Inland Letters.

Then he sat at  home.

He was happy, many of the people on receipt of the Inland letters had phoned him up.

At home, in Trivandrum, we had all been busy with our heavy schedules. We expected Papa to ring us up from Thalavady, expressing his happinsee on the obtention of the new telephone connection. Phones at home were a rarity at that time.

After a while, when there had not been any phone call from Papa we surmised he was not going to call us from his new phone.

We called him. He was full of rancour. He said he had advised many people that he had a telephone installed in his house and they were  provided  the number. He had a grouse that I was the only person who did not call him at once though I was his son. He was very angry.

I kept quiet. I didn't know what to make of it. As I looked at it, being his son, Papa ought to have called me on the phone the moment it was installed.

Those days telephones were a luxury. People were overjoyed when they were allotted a phone connection.

I told Papa when I met him later, instead of writing a letter inscribing the phone number,  how wonderful it would have been if he had surprised me with a call from the new phone.

Well, Papa kept an iconic inscrutable face and the issue ended there.

WAITING FOR A TABLE PATIENTLY AT HOTEL ARYANIVAS THAMPANOOR TRIVANDRUM

                                                     WAITING FOR A TABLE PATIENTLY  
                                                                               AT 
                                                                 HOTEL ARYANIVAS 
                                                                    THAMPANOOR

                                                                    TRIVANDRUM

                                                    They serve excellent vegetarian dishes 

                                                  You need to wait fifteen to twenty minutes 

                                                                       for a place 

KNOWLEDGE

 

Evana was getting ready to catch her school bus. It was 8am. As she was hurrying it up, I said, it would have been good if she didn't have to go to school. She could stay at home and do whatever she felt like doing.

She's eight. It is the second day of the new academic year. She's in the third standard, ICSE, St.Thomas Residential School, Mukkola, Trivandrum.

Evana replied, " No, I must go to the School."

I needled her, "Why do you go to the School?"

She quietly replied, "For knowledge."

It made me look at my years in the school and the college.

I don't know about others, but I never knew why I had been going to the school and the college. But I perceive many of my contemporaries - not everyone - had similar sentiments.

In fact I had hated to go to the school and the college.

I never knew I was being forced to proceed to the college and the school to acquire knowledge. No one ever told me that either.

It had been a journey sans focus.

Every year I had been promoted to the next level. It went on till I completed my degree.

Yes, the focus of education must be the acquisition of knowledge. 

And nothing else

I have to admit, it took 54 years and an 8 year old girl to teach me the true meaning of education.

VIJAYALAKSHMI OF THE KERALA UNIVERSITY OFFICE

 

VIJAYALAKSHMI OF THE KERALA UNIVERSITY OFFICE

Lila conveyed to me a very sad news when she came home from office one evening Ms.Vijayalakshmi had succumbed to grievous injuries she had sustained when the scooter she was riding was hit by a bus. The unfortunate accident had occured at the Kumaranasan Roundabout in front of the Kerala University Office at Palayam,  Thiruvananthapuram.

It had been a surprise to me when I observed Vijayalakshmi arriving at the Kerala University Office riding her Lampy Scooter in the early 1980s.She wore Kurti and pant as a saree clad woman could not ride that scooter. Of course, Sarees were the fashion for women across Kerala and Kurti and pant were considered alien and obscene  at that time. 

The Kinetic Honda revolution that launched the female population on to the roads of Trivandrum was yet to take off.  Vijayalakshmi was more or less the single woman on a two wheeler those days.

Vijayalakshmi was an employee of the Kerala University at its office. She was a spinster. She was pretty happy that way. She was conscientious. She never compromised on her work.

The Lunch recess was the time when the women employees got together in a hall. Vijayalakshmi was the livewire in that assembly. They would play carroms, cards or chit chat at that hour. 

Vijayalakshmi was certainly versatile. She played tennis.  She loved sports and games.  She had been there with a whistle at the annual sports meets of the University staff. She was into coaching as well. She used to accompany the teams when they travelled to any other place.. 

It was retirement for her  when she attained 55 years in age. But as she was single, she would reach the office at the lunch hour to meet her friends and participate in the games. It was contentment for her.

When she had been working at the Kerala University Office, the entire traffic at Palayam was routed straight to the LMS Junction. Later recurring traffic snarls had made the planners reroute the traffic from the VJT Hall to proceed past the University Library and take the Kumaranasan round about towards the fly over that skirted the Chandrasekhran Nair Stadium and reach the main thoroughfare in front of the Mascot Hotel. The arrangement had been brought about to relieve the pressure of traffic at the Palayam Junction.

Vijayalakshmi, perhaps, could have been unfamiliar with the revised traffic arrangement that had not been there while she had been working at the Kerala University Office. As everyone knows, human mind finds it extremely difficult  to absorb changes that occur out of the blue. Poor Vijayalakshmi was a victim of the traffic reforms that were instituted to benefit the public.

Vijayalakshmi had been a trend setter while she had been alive. Riding her scooter to reach her office, she had revolutionized the thinking of the women and the society. She showed that women could accomplish whatever men did. She had proved women were a force that could not be written off as weak and meek. While women  driving vehicles or riding scooters are not a novelty today, it had been unbelievable those days. No one believed that women could accomplish such a feat. What Vijayalakshmi had done was, she  had dismantled the traditional and restrictive age old gender barriers that had imprisoned the women of her time. She had successfully unlocked the potential of unfettered freedom for the women in this part of the world. 

A walk around the Kerala University Office, today would tell us through the neat rows of two wheelers and cars driven by the women employees, that it was Vijayalakshmi who had energised them to reach for the stars. 

It is Carte blanche for them today.