Shivam Diaries

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  • Ammalu and my pre-marriage habits

    Ammalu and my pre – marriage habits.
    On the first night after our wedding, I told many things to Ammalu but neither I can tell you what all I told her nor you will be interested in hearing that. But, one thing I told, which was nothing but truth, I want to share with you:
    ‘Ammalu, before marriage, I used to tell one or two lies’
    ‘That is Ok! ,’ she replied, magnanimously.
    On the second night, I told her, ‘Ammalu, before marriage, I used to smoke one or two cigarettes, occasionally.
    ‘She was not very pleased but replied courtesy,
    ‘That is Ok’
    On the third night, I told her, ‘Ammalu, before marriage, I used to enjoy a peg of scotch whisky with my friends, once a while’
    Her face turned reddish, then black but managed to console me by saying, ‘it is Ok’
    On the forth night, I told her, ‘Ammalu, before marriage, I had one or two girl friends’
    I thought she would burst my head but said smilingly, ‘it is Ok’
    I was surprised and also pleased. ‘I can take this girl for granted,’ I thought and smiled back.
    She was watching my moments carefully for a week but said nothing. Emboldened by her silence, I told her, ‘Ammalu, I am sure that you have pardoned me for my pre- marriage bad habits’
    ‘Why don’t you get married?,’ she asked, smiling again.
    I was stunned. I stood up from the bed and asked her, ‘what! We are married, Ammalu!’
    She retorted, ‘who said? Your habits are continuing. I’m leaving for my mom’s home . Tell me when you are married, so that I can come and stay with you.
    I fell on her feet and promised, ‘no more cigarette, lies, wine or woman’
    ‘Ok, but I can stay only on one condition,’ she replied again magnanimously, ‘you should not say a word to me about your Pre- marriage days. I know what you were and what you are. I also know that a dog’s tail would never get straightened even after treating in a pipe for a hundred years’
    ‘Thousand or hundred, Ammalu?,’ I asked her quoting the Malayalam saying where it was mentioned thousand years.
    ‘A hundred for dog,’ she replied, ‘but a thousand for you!’

  • I should not mourn death, even my own.

    ‘Was she crying for a long time?’, the young mother asked me, when I noticed a baby, hardly a month or two old, weeping in the cradle in the adjacent room. The worry and anxiety that the infant would have cried for a long time, was obvious from her face and voice.
    I assured her that it was not so. The baby cried hardly for a minute.
    There is none in the world to equal a mother in compassion
    ‘If she can’t stand the cry of her baby for a few minutes, how will she withstand the pains, problems and worries, her child will be undergoing in the process of growing and afterwards?’ I mused.
    Then, I looked up, thanked God for taking away long ago, a mother closely related to me, whose son died recently.
    I should never mourn death, I decided, even my own !
    Sent from my iPad

  • 'You are my finger!,' said Ammalu

     
    How many fingers do you have ?
    I have ten. One of them, got cut, while performing a rare act of cutting vegetables.
    Just one finger, out of ten, partially and temporarily became less active. That hardly 10% disability played havoc and I had to depend on Ammalu for many of my routines, ever for transferring water from a bucket to the valley at my lower back for the purpose of cleaning.
    Ammalu is my heart beat, but it was not a pleasant idea to hear the beats within the walls of a place where privacy was of paramount necessity.
    Anyway, that experience taught me a big lesson and brought me closer to her ( her inevitable company in the wrong place in wrong time, not withstanding).
    This was what happened.
    In the climax of our closeness and romance, she told me, ‘you are my finger!’
    You don’t expect such a claim from your sweet heart.
    ‘You are my breath’ or ‘You are my life’ or ‘you are my everything’
    or she could have even said, ‘you are my ration card’ as that was a precious possession, those days. Instead, she said, ‘you are my finger!’
    I screamed at her, got out in anger and sat under the banyan tree in the village corner. Ammalu too went to meet her mother to discuss how to control my anger.
    Her mother, who had received several BMIL ( best mother in law) prizes, from her club, gave a simple advice.
    ‘When he cools down, request him politely, to cut vegetables’
    Lowering her chin and smiling, like a wife receiving her husband returning from Dubhai along with a trunk full of gifts he had accumulated from his toiling of three years, Ammalu came near me and pleaded, ‘could you kindly cut one lady finger for me?’
    ‘Why one, I will cut a hundred Ammalu’. I agreed forgetting that she was still on some finger!
    I did cut, not the lady finger but my own!
    While undergoing problems in holding pen, pencil, umbrella and other umpteen items, I mentioned, casually to my wife, ‘I never realized that finger, a single finger is so important that I had to depend on you, even for my minimum needs. Without finger, one can’t live a quality life’
    Ammalu’s face became like a tomato fruit, wax polished and stored in a freezer with a glass window in an American store.
    ‘That was why I told you that you are my finger’
    She said, gently, gracefully.

  • Then and now

    imageYou wanted to buy tons of things then, but had no money. Now you have tons of money, but need nothing!
    You wanted to sing, dance, laugh and play then, but had no time.
    Now, the time, plenty of it, is under your command but no inclination, no body support.
    You wanted to come home early then, take your wife for a movie, play carom with your children and kabbadi with your friends but always returned home late.
    Now, you stay throughout at home, but your wife is not interested in seeing movies and children and friends are not available to spend time with you.
    Your wife used to prepare and serve the best food you liked and waited for a word of appreciation from your mouth, but you didn’t even try to look at her face while enjoying every bit of the food she served you affectionately.
    Now you wanted to be lavish in praising her food but she has become deaf !
    You wanted to sleep, which was prepared to stay whole time with you hugging you close to her chest, but you had no time for her. You pushed her aside and rushed to your work.
    Now, you long for her lavish hug for long hours but where is she? She hardly spends a few hours with you.
    The deities in the shrines at your home and on the road sides towards your working place, then, were waiting for a glance from you, but your eyes never turned towards them.
    Now, you are looking for them in every corner and they are all still there, but you are not able to see them in their full glory and enjoy their magnificent forms, as your eye sight has dimmed.
    So, what to do ? Take a Kinnaram, pair of hand cymbals and sing,
    ‘Paramapada, Govinda, Madhava, Padmanabha, Janardhana,
    Dharanidhara, varaGaruda vaahana, deitya Balimadhabhanjana,nija-
    daasamaanasa ranjanaa!
    Saranu, Saranu, Harae!’
    If your people at home complain that you are creating nuisance, get up early morning, tie a cloth around your head, open the main gate without making noise and walk through the street singing and clashing the cymbals, if you are in India.
    If you are in America, like me, learn the security lock code and then only open the gate. Otherwise, the bell will shriek waking up the entire colony and within five minutes, cops will be before you in two, three jeeps.
    If, on receipt of a complaint from a neighbor that you are creating nuisance, the cops surround to catch you, drop the cymbals down and raise both your hands above your head. Stop singing and tell them your son’s name and door no. Don’t move.
    Life, though rugged and ravaged, is still valuable, for you, as it is your life! I can only provide you hand cymbals! Payment in cash in US dollars, please.
     
    Sent from my iPad

  • Pain is not a pain!

    imagePain is not a pain. It is a gain; it is a blessing. A diabetic who had to lose his toes for want of warning of the foot infection, will agree with me.
    A mother who has delivered her baby through natural process, will agree with me. And that is the best form of delivering a baby. And there can’t be a bigger pain than that.
    Wife is a blessing. Anyone who is lucky to have an accommodative woman as wife, will agree with me.
    And I’m not comparing wife with Pain! Wife is NOT a pain, she is a gain. She is your pulmonary veins that carry oxygen-rich blood from the lungs to the left side of the heart so it can be pumped to the body.
    Remember, ‘Vaamae Bhoomisudha—-‘ Sita Devi was on the left side of Sri Rama!
    To be frank, there was no necessity to bring the Devine couple here. You know that. I too.
    But,
    ‘Kheladi mama hridhaye, Sree RAmaha:’
    Sree Rama plays in my heart, yes. At times Rama, at times Krishna, at times, ‘Amba, meena lochana’ and at times, Ammalu !
    Why Amnalu? She was not my pain; she was my pulmonary veins carrying oxygen- rich blood.
    Enjoy sleep. Sleep is not a pain, it is a bliss. Like an affectionate mom, like a caring wife, like a loving daughter when you are on a sick bed, like death, who puts us to sleep, placing us on her laps, Sleep removes our worries and relaxes our muscles and rejuvenates us, making us fit for a better tomorrow.
    ‘Death rejuvenates us, making us fit for a better tomorrow?’
    Yes, I didn’t say that. My knowledgeable elders said.
    I remember my Devine Mother, Janma mrithyu jaraa taptha-
    jana, visraanthi daayini.’ What a wonderful description ! I can spent an hour musing on this and each and every epithet of both the Sahasranamas and enjoy their beauty !
    Have a better tomorrow. Tomorrow is ours, if today is going or gone.

  • I was never born!

    imageI’m a pensioner and unless I submit a notarized certificate to my office , before the end of this moth, my pension amount won’t be credited to my account.
    It is not because that I’m away from my office where I worked. Even if I go personally and stand before the concerned officer, who worked under me and tell her that I’m so and so, she won’t release my cheque.
    She will say, ‘yes Sir, I know you ( means, how can I forget your ill -treatment?), but I need your life certificate to release your pension.
    So, life is not important, a certificate to say that I’m alive is important. The person who certifies had never met me, belongs to a different country and only after his certification, I’m alive for my office, for all practical purposes!
    Ithu Eami thamaasa, thammudu? What joke is this, brother?
    Going by that analogy, I can say with near accuracy that I was not born at all, as I don’t have a certificate to say that I had born. For obtaining a Green Card for me, my children wanted my birth certificate and the SSLC document where some date has been mentioned, was not acceptable to the authorities here.
    I went to Palakkad Municipal office, paid the prescribed fees, waited, the clerks searched the past 80 years’ records( wonder how the rats and rodents have still left them untouched!) and no were there was a certificate copy of my birth. How will it be there, when it was never made? How will it be there when my birth was not intimated to the Municipal Office? Birth certificate was not a ‘prasnam'( issue )at all for my father and other parents too, in the olden days.
    Now comes the climax! As I was not born, I need not die, as someone, somewhere has said,
    “jatasya hi dhruvo mrityur
    dhruvam janma mrtasya ca
    tasmad apariharye ’rthe
    na tvam socitum arhasi
    “One who has taken his birth is sure to die, and after death one is sure to take birth again. Therefore, in the unavoidable discharge of your duty, you should not lament.”
    ‘It is not someone, somewhere, Thatha,’ corrects my grandson,’it was Lord Krishna, who said so, to Arjuna, in the Githa’
    Now, I’m all the more happy. Krishna, unlike me, never tells lies.
    And His words never go waste. I need not die at all!
    Krishna is a clever guy. You can dupe anyone in the world but not Him.
    He taps at my back, looks into my eyes and smiles, saying nothing.
    ‘What’s up, KRISH?’, I ask Him, raising my head.
    ‘You, Sathyam, Shivam! You have three dates of birth, not one, remember’
    I rub my eyes to grasp what He said, thinking it was a dream. It wasn’t. Krishna was standing before me! In His hands were my horoscope, SSLC book and a Pampu, snake Panchangam.
    Perinkulam jyotsyar Mukundan Unnikannan Tirumulpad, whom my father, authoritatively and affectionately addressed as , ‘Mookkunni'( meaning, a small bump on the nose – that was how beautiful names were shortened and tampered in the villages), on my father’s request had made a Janmapatrika, birth record. Amidst ample Samskritham and Malayalam words, he had indicated therein, the corresponding English date of my birth too, in a corner.
    But that was not the date recorded in my SSLC book!
    While admitting me in the first class ( no L or U Kgs then), my father would have told some date to Govindankutty master, without referring to Mookkunni Manifesto and the teacher would have written some date depending on his mood then. If it were a priest in the temple, ready for doing Archana in my name, Appa would have correctly said, ‘Hastha Nakshatram, Kanya rasi’ but school admission was not a ‘prasnam’ or issue at all those days.
    Then, there is a third date of birth for me and that was why Krishnaji had a brought with Him a Pampu Panchankam. To show me the English date, corresponding to my birth star, in Vrichika masam, the month of my birth.
    ‘So, with three dates of birth to your credit, how do you claim permanent residency in this world?,’ asked Krishna.
    ‘Don’t be childish, Krishna!’ I taunted Him. ‘How can anyone have three dates of birth? Even you can’t have that. You have 1000 and odd names, 16000 and odd wives but only one date of birth’
    ‘What is that date?’ He asked me, realizing that He was caught on the wrong foot.

  • Appunni Nair and his archaic grammar

    After many years, I met my old friend Appunni Nayar in a wedding party. Those were the days when terylene shirts were the fashion of the day. In the sweating Madras May wedding crowd, Nair was posing and flirting, wearing that uncomfortable shirt, which indeed was glistening.
    ‘Shirttu kasari, sundarakuttan! Evidunnu kittee?’ I admired his apparel, ‘lovely shirt, who gave you?’
    The second part of my compliment was close to nonsense. He had every right to get irritated, but he didn’t. He replied proudly,
    ‘Nammudae ammaayi Amma thannu’- our mother in law gifted!
    His instant reply shocked me. I shot from my seat like a missile. How can we have a common mother in law unless we had married her daughters. And my wife had no sisters!
    “Did my mother in law give birth to a girl, after I married her only daughter? I can’t believe,’ I expressed my doubt and surprise.
    “When was your marriage?” He threw an innocent question.
    “Some thirty years ago”
    “In thirty years- time, what all a woman can’t do, SP?, ” He laughed and expressed surprise at my deficiency in the knowledge of the world affairs,” poor guy!”
    I rushed home and asked Ammalu, “you knew your mother had gifted to this world another woman like you, after you left her home?”
    “I didn’t,” she replied with least seriousness and asked, ” so what?”
    “Ammalu, you ask me, ‘so what’ ?”
    “What is your problem?,” she asked me without raising her head, ‘what all a woman can’t do within thirty years?”
    Ammalu, late said that had she a sister, I would have somehow known about it. And then she explained how the confusion arose.
    In the olden days, the Karnors, family heads and even local kings used liberally ‘nom( we) instead of ‘Jnaan’ ( I or me), to show their importance. Anxious to maintain the tradition, Nair uses the archaic grammar. He is however, careful, while talking to his wife after she scolded him, ‘erappae!’, when he ordered, ‘nom varuunu, sayanam theyyarakku- ( we are coming, instead of ‘I’m coming’) make the bed!’.

  • 'He, the patient?

    ‘He, the patient?,’ asked the girl at the clinic counter, after examining my insurance papers handed over by Megh, daughter-in-law.
    ‘Me, the patient?,’ I asked myself. ‘Why does she call me a patient?’.
    In the next moment I mused again, ‘if I’m not a patient, why did I come here?. My problem according to me might be a minor one, but still I’m a patient’
    I could find a supporting example too. I’m called a traveler, whether I travel five miles or five hundred miles.
    ‘How do you compare a patient with a traveler?,’ asked another voice from within.
    But, there was no need for any argument. The doctor, after examination, confirmed that I was  a patient!
    It is better to know where you stand instead of remaining in a state of confusion.
    While coming out of the clinic, I had another doubt. ‘Is it the same me who went inside?’
    The reason for this doubt was, I had some friends who went inside hospitals in full ‘jor’ means, proudly, but came out, ( sorry not came out, it should read were brought out ), as a different person or no person!
    But that doubt too was soon cleared when I asked Megh to give back my iPad to click the picture of the flowerbeds at the gate!
    Nice to have an iPad!
    Oh, It is me, very much, sakshat, real, Perinkulam, the great ! But the real greatness will be known only when I visit the hospital next time. And the person deciding that would be my doctor.
    But, will I be entering the hospital again as patient and will the girl at the counter ask again, ‘he the patient?’

  • Pomegranate skin

     
    imageRemove the outer skin of Pomegranate, collect the seeds, but don’t discard the skin! Remember grand ma’s home remedy ? After sun- drying the skin, she used to preserve the outer shell in sealed bottles and when required, powder it, mix it with warm butter -milk and serve. I fact, even the pomegranate seeds and its juice are equally good or even better as loose -motion -remedies but preserved skin comes handy when the fruits are not readily available.The liberally watered butter milk helps preventing dehydration of body.
    During diarrhoea there is an increased loss of water and electrolytes (sodium, chloride, potassium, and bicarbonate) in the liquid stool. Water and electrolytes are also lost through vomit, sweat, urine and breathing. Dehydration occurs when these losses are not replaced adequately and a deficit of water and electrolytes develops.
    Nowadays, replacements for the dehydration losses are readily available in pharmacies and in acute cases, hospitalization is a must.
    Generally, the skin of all fruits contain equal or more nutrients but without realizing their importance some peel even apples and mangoes before eating.
    Except human skin almost all skins of animals and fruits are useful in one way or other. And thank God for making human skin worthless. Otherwise- I dread to imagine the consequence!
    Love,
    SP

  • One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory

    imageI forgot what this is about. Oh, it is about forgetfulness!
    ‘Forgetfulness is one of the ‘curses’ of old age’
    Do you agree? No, I don’t . It is in fact, a gift from the God. Many times, it is a boon to forget some past happenings in life, which otherwise will be tormenting us.
    The wounds on our body often heals but not the ones acquired by or inflicted on our heart. Imagine the agony of all those wounds, acquired throughout the past, remaing unhealed! It is a boon that we are able to dump such wounds, at least some of them into the depth of forgetfulness.
    At times, I wish, that my memory sleeps even on some recent unpleasant events.
    I don’t now say, ‘Che, maranthu potchu- sorry, I forgot!’
    Nothing to be sorry about it- ( in some cases at least)
    The fun is while young, we forget to eat in time, due to busy work, but in old age, we don’t forget to eat or sleep. Thank God for that. But we do forget many past events in our life, when the age advances. Thank God for that too.
    Here is a poem on The subject by BILLY COLLINS, copied from the web.
    ‘The name of the author is the first to go
    followed obediently by the title, the plot,
    the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
    which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
    never even heard of,
    as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
    decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
    to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
    Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
    and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
    and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
    something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
    the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
    Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
    it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
    not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
    It has floated away down a dark mythological river
    whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
    well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
    who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
    No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
    to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
    No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
    out of a love poem that you used to know by heart’
    Billy Collins