Of shimmering green expanses and hearty conversations- Part 1

Day Zero

The plan was to tuck in early, by around 10 to get adequate rest. We would be departing at 5.30 sharp (or so my dad said) the next day to my grand mom’s house, Manarkadd, Kerala. This would be our first trip in 12 months as the pandemic had wrecked our lives, but enough has been said about the dreadful virus, so let me refrain from dwelling.
That evening, an impromptu plan was made by my friends to have a group call at 9. I agreed with a caveat that I would be wrapping it up in 1 hour tops, which was a hopeful lie at most. Through a Google meet of all our classmates, the eight of us had become friends after the ones who got bored of our passionate rants left. Deep into the night, someone pondered aloud what we should name ourselves and I blurted out “1am vibes” and immediately reconciled in cringe. Surprisingly the name stuck.
We cracked jokes on our teachers and how our notebooks were empty and uncared for. A few hours into the call, someone said “Hey, I think I’ll be leaving”, and in accordance to the air of impromptu, everyone agreed readily. I then proceeded to get my 4hrs of sleep, which would definitely not suffice.

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“Bro I forgot to take my pillow” “Haha lol” and my sister proceeded to flaunt her super comfortable neck pillow. Outside, it was already crowded in the dawn’s misty roads. Tea shops were open and people went about without masks. One would imagine that 9 months into the pandemic, personal hygiene norms would be a habit but it still wasn’t the case. It felt like people were trying to be disobedient.

But perhaps there is a limit to human toleration and everyone was just worn down. I was definitely fed up, and that’s why we decided to embark on the trip even while the numbers were scaling new highs. Maybe people just wanted to pretend that the torture was over and normal routine has seeped back in. But hey, I’m just speculating and I know very little about psychology to preach. Also, I am not attempting at justifying our irresponsible behaviour.

The trip usually takes 8hrs but this time we took over 10hrs. We took a different route as we heard it was smoother and had less traffic. I believe that this rumour was known to many who commensurately travelled via that route, rendering it untrue. On the other hand, my dad was driving without the usual zest. Sitting at home for three quarters of a year with minimum commute had spoilt us. We eventually reached at around 3pm, way past lunch time but we didn’t dine from outside for reasons that I needn’t stress on (the harder I try to not to mention Corona, the more I do). It was alright though; my grand mom loves serving family members delicious food and was delighted to know that we were starving. I like to think that my grand mom’s satisfaction and happiness of being a host can be gauged by how many meals she has served. The more, the merrier.
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Natives galore

When I was a kid, I was a different person. Not just generic facts like I was more innocent, bearable and loving but something more too. I was uptight of sorts; and paid less attention to the things outside my turf. I was inclined to the “cooler” things like speaking English, eating foreign delicacies and being urban. Legend has it that I would not eat wheat foodstuffs when I was young as my parents referred to them in their Malayalam name (godumbu). But I would munch happily if they called it just wheat in English. But lately I’ve changed and become more interested in my own culture and everything else that I once shunned away as “un-cool”.

So that night, at around 8.45 my grandmother was laying on the cot lackadaisically. I pulled up a chair and seated myself. “Ammamma”, I asked pensively, “how was your childhood like and where did you grow up?” “My childhood? Where I grew up?” she repeated. “Yeah Ammamma tell me how it was. Where is your native?”
“Oh I grew up in a place called Patambi you know. My house was near the Naranath Bhranthan Malla. Very close to that Hill. You know about him right-Naranath Bhranthan?”
“Hmm-mm”, I nodded, having no clue about what she was referring to (Later my mother told me the fascinating folklore of the “mad man of Narana” who was one of the twelve off springs of the Pariah women and the famous astrologer Vararuchi. His repertoire consisted of rolling a huge boulder up the hill, letting it roll down and tirelessly repeating it all day, laughing madly all the time. It reminds me of the Greek myth of Sisyphus who had to perform the very act only as punishment. The two myths are clones, and it’s interesting to know that such far away civilisations have identical stories).

“That was where I grew up. We had a huge house. Lots of people, a huge house, around 15 kids easily. To get anywhere, walking was the only way. And some of my cousins and relatives still stay there in Patambi.”
“Oh nice, what did my great grandfather do, your father?”
“ Hmm, we weren’t that close to my father. There were issues. I didn’t know him well, wasn’t close to him. I had gone to their house a few times but that’s all.” “Uh-huh”, I nod.
“After I got married I haven’t been there. Haven’t seen or spoken to ones I grew up with.”
“So do you wish you could go there maybe one day?”
“I don’t know, a lot of our relatives still stay there.”
I then changed the topic, “How was school like?”
“ I had to walk 6–8 km to get to school. I walked a long time you know. Back then, there were no cars or buses like today. Even after I grew up and came here, they were pretty uncommon. And the few that ran were carefully used. Your own uncle, he used to first walk till the temple (a km away) so that he could save 5 paise. Your mother has told you stories right? Today, money is used like it has no meaning. And umm I used to study in a different school till 4th. To there too I had to walk quite a lot. And to cross a river there was just a single coconut tree laid across as a bridge. It was onerous.”
“And how was it in school?”
“I studied till seventh standard. Every day I had to get up at 5 to reach by foot”.

“Ammamma I understood you walked a lot”, I said laughing, “but what did you do in school? Do you remember?”
“Not much, I can’t recall any of the lessons that were taught nor the teachers.”
“And what about your classmates and friends?”
“ Umm…don’t know them either. It’s been what-seventy years right”
“Yeah ammamma, but did you ever feel like meeting them afterwards?”
“Now there is no point, I’m very old and so are they. Perhaps some have even passed away”, she said sensibly, and I couldn’t make out if she had any regrets at all along the line. “Tell me, which is your favourite place?”
“My favourite place…must be this house and this town itself. It’s been over 40 years that I have stayed here.”
It was a truly wonderful conversation which sounded much better in its original form, Malayalam. Though to be fair, my grandmother is not a grand story teller and has never spoken to me in that tone before. Yet, it was amazing talking to her and she was smiling all the time. I was trying to picture her life and a bygone era. In my mind I kept seeing children walking in shoddy paths, carrying books and smiling from ear to ear. However, I could only picture this through a filter of old movies just between the phase of black and white cinema and modern films, called the Eastman colour. No matter how hard I tried, I could not imagine the scenes devoid of the filter. This just added to the warm fuzzy feeling of a dream. “Those days are long over”, she said, “we will never get it back”.
“Which times would you rather prefer?”
“Today, there are a lot of benefits. But back then there was the unity and people lived close by and spent more time together. Yes, I do like those times more”. We had spoken for over half an hour and my dad interrupted us saying it was my grandmother’s bedtime. “Let it be”, she said, “no one has talked to me about this topic. Nobody in his generation has the time right?”