A flurry of ringing at the door.
Nobody has been in such a hurry to feed me ever since I left home. It was Vishnu. A baldpate Vishnu. And I was ready to fist a rando. I didn’t know what to ask first: what’s gotten into your head? Or, what’s gotten into your head?
Vishnu
Hadron Collider and Burj Steelifa
I was staying in a large company’s backyard, mostly countrified. One of those rare remaining places in the world where bigness of heart is equated to the amount of food served. So my breakfast came in a Hadron Collider and dinner in Burj Steelifa, as I called them. Most of the time ferried by Vishnu, a pleasant, young kitchen staff. Who had a thick mop of hair till yesterday. I was in my workout gear which was mostly nothing.
Vishnu was always happy to see me – we chit-chat and sometimes I let him in on what I am working on. Especially photographs. He got quite excited about the aerial shot of the Guruvayur Temple I showed him. So, that’s where the god takes his daily stroll, he hmmed. The revered one was his namesake and he always felt a special connect to the place. To my request to ring the bell just once, he said it was a directive from the top – to make sure the guest was up. Apparently, some guests from big cities had gotten delayed for meetings as they expected to be woken up by the kitchen staff. The staff, on the other hand, nice and meek, would leave quietly.
What about those who wanted to sleep late? I asked. They should eat and then go back to bed. Prolonged sleeping too requires energy, was the sincere reply.
The last time I heard it was from my mother.
Facebook pokes
Even bucolic living isn’t immune to bickering. I have always imagined the countryside as a place where everyone smiled at each other, shared food and cooking ingredients, looked for each other’s missing chicken, loaned milk upon sudden influx of guests and neighbours fell in love and married each other. But after my stint in the rustics some of these turned out to be what they were originally – imagination. Sharing across the wall was largely gossip, not many had chicken and even when some went missing nobody bothered to look for them; it was immediately hung on the neck of the migrant labourer broadly referred to as ‘Bengali’. Tall or squat, black or brown, they were all Bengalis. And with inter-caste marriages being ascribed jihadist overtones, people thought twice before falling in love even.
One early morning a neighbour was spotted spraying a weed-killer on his front yard. Curious whether he wasn’t bothered about poisoning the ground water, I struck up a conversation. He assured me it was of an organic composition – so nothing to worry. Maybe he planned to grow a kitchen garden? No, he replied. It was the goats. All the goats in the area, he believed, congregated at his yard to snack on his grass. The goats, well, got his goat. And he was putting an end to any union in the offing. In Kerala, you covered these bases first. Among the affected ones was Facebook. Facebook was a snoopy lamb with a smudged brown coat and a permanent smile that would always come to the guesthouse halfway through the meeting. It would crane its neck around the doorjamb, peer at the silence and boldly trot inside. I would sit unmoving till it started nibbling on my lungi and then all hell would break loose.
Despite the pandemonium, Facebook never missed an opportunity to spy or take a peck at me.
Chatty chechis
On free day afternoons, I would keep the main door open for air and perversely, for Facebook – with every start it would gambol in an arc and I believe deliberately missed the front door for my bedroom. Afternoons also was when the cleaning chechis, sisterly matrons, would come. A gaggle. But fun. My source of all local and company tittle-tattle. But the only problem was that there was only so much interest directed at my person I could deflect with genuine chinwag curiosities. Was I married? Nothing egged them on like ambiguous replies; ‘in a relationship’ meant open to another. Most of them knew a ‘best fit’ for me.
Tall as you. Fair as you. Jolly as you. Educated as you. You’re educated, no?
More than distress over my itinerant life and a selfless eagerness to settle me down, it was the lure of handsome commission from a potential dowry as I came to know later. Marriage brokerage was a popular cottage industry in Kerala – the only investment was being gabby which came naturally to us.
The talking buffalo
Nothing lulls you back to sleep as the mic drop silence that follows a pre-dawn muezzin call. Exactly an hour afterwards, like a snooze alarm, a bare-torso man would walk by talking to his cow. They went to the field behind the guesthouse where the cow would be tethered to a coconut tree and given a long rope to gad about till late afternoon. I invariably woke up to their conversation as they walked by outside my window.
The talking buffalo
Don’t worry if it rains, I’ll come back early. Moo.
Be a good girl and don’t wander too far. Moo.
Eat as much as you want and rest well. Moo.
One morning they passed my window uncharacteristically quiet. I watched them go by till the man fastened the rope around the bole.
I am not talking to you as you have been very naughty. No moo.
’20’
Kitex – Where ’20’ began
Twenty20 Kizhakkambalam is a development initiative funded by the Anna Kitex Group and governed by corporate best practices. While the comprehensive development of Kizhakkambalam panchayat remains the central objective, the initiative made a recent foray into politics winning 17 of the 19 seats in the panchayat polls held in November, 2015. Thus by becoming a people’s movement, Twenty20 has ushered in the paradigm of democracy as espoused by Abraham Lincoln in his famous Gettysburg Address of ‘a government by the people and for the people.’ This is unprecedented both in the development history and the polity of India. The long term objective is to make Kizhakkambalam a model village by the year 2020 – a model of sustainable development, replicable anywhere in India and the world.
I wrote this for their brochure.
Twenty20 Kizhakkambalam everyday becomes ‘20’ which I learnt the hard way.
Filming a segment on Twenty20’s crop insurance, a beneficiary farmer spoke to me at length. But all the while kept referring to the initiative as ‘twenty’. I asked him if he wanted to say ‘Twenty20’ instead as that was how it was called.
Just add another 20 when you are editing, he said returning to work.
