September 7, 2011
'Every leaf of every plant must be examined every day', the Young Farmer award recipient Britisha Alexander was quoted in the article on her in The Hindu newspaper couple of days ago.
"Simply planting stuff doesn't make you a gardener. There are caterpillars and worms on the long bean plants," Amma took a swipe at my morning laziness few days ago. Obeying both Britisha and Chandrika (Amma), I promptly reported for leafy inspection this morning. Each leaf of the young long bean, snake gourd and brinjal plants was overturned and inspected for worms, caterpillars and insect eggs. There were quite a few. This discovery makes my relationship with butterflies and moths amorphous like their wing patterns. They are beautiful and lovely but I'd rather have them stick their loveliness and beauty on the flowering plants.
Achan commented that we had planted the ginger on very wet soil. "It prefers a little dry land", he said, "there is just too much water for it here." On the over-water-fed ginger leaflets, I saw the faces of kids who are herded into Sunday morning "Brain development" coaching centers.
I was reading about Guruvayoor Padmanabhan in the elephant book. The 65-year old tusker is the super star among the elephants maintained by the Guruvayoor temple. He came to Guruvayoor couple of years before the death of the legendary Guruvayoor Keshavan, who many worship as a divine incarnate. A life-size statute of Keshavan stands outside the temple. He was considered the elephant perfect according to the "scientific" standards. The science refered to here is ancient Indian texts.
Ancient Indians had the habit of compiling standards for what constitutes "perfection". The perfect home, the perfect elephant, the perfect cow, the perfect women etc. Tonnes of literature on the physical perfection of women, but the rice bellied, betel chewing gentlemen who spat out these great works conveniently restricted male perfection to the mental realm!
The standard for elephant beauty is listed in Maathangasastra. The more important work on elephants from the Vedic times is Haasthayurveda (elephant-ayurveda) by sage Paalakapya. Legend has it that it took the sage 15,000 years (Indian 'wisdom' alert) to compile this encyclopedic work on elephant domestication, training, health and medication!
Guruvayoor Padmanabhan currently holds the record for maximum daily wage. Earning Rs 2,22,222 (~ $5000) for one evening's work of carrying the idol as part of temple procession, he verily is the Gisele Bundchen of the Kerala elephant sphere compared to the other elephants that earn only Rs 3000 (~ $75) a day! Though he has the "mad" season on April-May of every month, Padmanabhan has only one murder to his credit. So much better than the other big grosser, Salman Khan.
Met Ajayan uncle. The conversation drifted towards the diasporic and non-resident nature of our generation. "Your generation will never be able to care for your parents like we did for ours. I don't even know where my son is right now," His son works for the merchant navy and is aboard some merchant ship."Since you are here for a few months, we can get you married," he said. "My vacation will end when such talk becomes unbearable," I replied. He laughed. His laugh has a different shade of dignity with all the gray hair on him these days compared to his smiles in my memory.
We decided to check out the Megamart shirt showroom near by. They feature international brands like Lee, Cherokee and Arrow. It look Achan and me 10 minutes to select a shirt for Ajith. I picked myself a tshirt featuring 6 of the great Indian mustaches: Doodhwala (milkman) cut, talwar (sword) cut, neo-Dali cut, Jhadu (broom) cut, Jaipur cut and Peshwa cut. Recently I had read about new trend in t-shirts here carrying famous Malayalam movie dialogs instead of English tag-lines. (just for mallus, a classic example: "Meen aviyal enthayo entho?") I couldn't find any in this shop.
The sales folks were a bunch of lazy young men leaning on different walls and furniture as if they were too weak to support themselves this afternoon. It took us a whopping 30 minutes to check out. The man at the counter, who I suppose was the owner, typed with two fingers.
Billing was a brutal operation. We are never going back.
By 7pm, all of us i.e. Achan, Amma and I went to see the opening night of the official government Onam celebrations. Unlike the years we were last here, almost a decade ago, roads are no longer blocked for traffic. The footpaths are good enough to support pedestrians.
Small multicolored lights adorn the trees that adorn the roads of the city. The fountains gush. The crowd was fully in Onam spirit. Plenty of street vendors with their petromax lamps selling peanuts, Bengal grams and 'chaat' on their carts. The make-shift 'dosa' shops called 'thattukada' were doing brisk business, The Thiruvananthapuram corporation and water authority buildings were nicely lit. We didn't walk for more than a mile and a half down the main road. We will explore the reminder in the coming days.
More lights were set up, waiting to be turned on by tomorrow. Came across a fume-emitting ancient petrol generator that was powering some of the lights. Lot more amateur photo and videographers on the streets. Didn't see any foreigners.
I walked expecting a flood of memories to come back.
For the first half an hour, they didn't.
A decade of Onam memories were surely inside me.
I awaited my Proustian Madeline.
Right in front of Kanakakunnu (diamond-hill) Palace, the hub of celebrations, it came!
A bunch of balloons!
That did it for me. A moment when heart literally leaps and then floats in a flurry of memories. When you want to throw up your hands in excitement but weight of civilization bears down on your shoulders.
I saw a small girl do exactly that, wave her hands wildly in the air even though one of them was held by her dad leading her to the carnival ground.
My eyes went back 16-20 years ago. The roads were much narrow then so the illumination looked denser. The hustling of feet and rubber slippers have given way to car horns. The shorter me was closer to the ground. I think that is why I remember the sound of the feet of the revelers more.
20 years later, the crying babies are missing too. They must have all grown up, I suppose. And their babies now have parents wealthy enough to show them illumination through a car window.
I hoped the overhanging branches of the illuminated trees remember me. I strolled down the road, sharing peanuts with my parents on either side.
My parents, today much less worried about their child's safety in the crowd, could once again, admire the city lights just as they did before I was born.
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