Amballore House

by Thekkumthala, Jose

  Even though I do not get to see Kerala daily, in my mind I see it often as a conglomeration of a million images. They are etched in my memory so vividly that time will not dare erase them. Kerala is heap of fond memories of my childhood; it is the sweet music of birds that fly over meadows and perch on jackfruit trees; it is the long winding roads that snake through the rural countryside; it is the placid waters of many a lagoon and backwater; it is the rolling hills dotting its landscape; it is the beautiful sunset over the Arabian sea; it is the majestic mountain range in the east; it is the cool, moonlit night descending upon the mango groves after a hot summer day; it is the interplay of light and shadow cast by thousands of plantain leaves in the ever-peaceful evenings.

  To me, Kerala consists of an unending array of refreshing mornings that bathe the meadows in a shroud of immaculate dewdrops; it consists of many a starlit night when jasmine spreads its otherworldly fragrance; it consists of thousands of moonlit nights when the paala tree blooms in the temple courtyard!

  Kerala is nothing but an emerald-green meadow extending all the way from the majestic mountains in the east down the middle flatlands to the glittering waters of the Arabian Sea. It is a green carpet between the blue sea and the Blue Mountains. The sea unleashes a cascade of waves that travel to the coast with a single-minded determination to perform an act of martyrdom if only to have a last embrace of the Kerala coast!

  I look forward to visiting Kerala because of the promise it holds out for me. The promise is to fortify my bondage to it and renew my heritage of its culture every time I visit. She reminds me how much I own very many aspects that constitute Kerala, not the least being its grand natural beauty. I have a blind faith in the promise she extends.

  Whenever I watch the pristine waters of the Arabian Sea reddened by a fiery sunset, reflecting on the unique heritage I have been bestowed, I know I inherit a slice of Kerala wherever I am in the world. I know I own that piece of land if only in spirit. I know I inherit a land of blinding beauty, a land sandwiched by the Western Ghats and the Arabian Sea with a canopy of sapphire-blue sky, a land lucky enough to have the Arabian Sea as its playmate from time immemorial. I know their friendship is renewed day by day, just as my bondage with Kerala is.

  I know that when I am in Kerala, I am standing on a land that Parasuraman retrieved from the sea. I then know that I belong to the mythical history of Mahabali, who dreamed and built a land of prosperity for which he sacrificed himself, and then I know that the sacrifice was worth the idea of Kerala.

  It is because of the memories I have of Kerala, its images in my mind, the feelings I have for it, and my conviction that Kerala’s incomparable beauty promises redemption and even salvation that I love to visit Kerala.

  ***

  My second Kerala visit from Canada was in the year 2013, thirty-eight years after I left for Canada. The palm-fringed coast of Kerala welcomed me back like a kind family would welcome an apologetic and prodigal son. I was offered green-carpet welcome by the verdant plains of tropical Kerala, consisting of lush paddy fields and coconut groves and rubber plantations.

  The Kerala I saw was different from Kerala which I used to know. I felt that I came to a different place entrapped in an unrecognizable time capsule.

  There were multiple reasons behind my visit—to attend my class reunion, the class of 1975; to attend a wedding I was invited to by my friend and former classmate in Kerala, Toms. On the heels of these two events came Onam, Kerala’s harvest festival, similar to Oktoberfest in Canada. The trip was eventful, and I enjoy talking to you of my experience. Bear with me, please; you will not regret it.

  ***

  The venue of these three events was Kerala’s famous houseboat. There were altogether five houseboats, each capable of holding some fifty people. The houseboats were moored at the Aleppey backwaters. The trip would take us to Kottayam and back, floating over the peaceful backwaters of Kerala, on multiple round trips, with occasional stops in between, which gave us the opportunity to visit a number of fishing villages and other attractions along coastal Kerala. The boats were rented for a whole week. The first event on the menu was our class reunion, lasting three days. Next up would be the wedding ceremony, taking up two days. Then last but not the least was Onam festival that included one day of Onam Eve and another day of Onam. The events were organized by Toms. A good number of our classmates were invited to these programs. They came all the way from Canada, the United States, and Europe. Tom’s daughter, Elsie would be getting married in the middle of the eventful week.

  The setting for these events could not have been more appropriate. The events were held, as you gathered, in Kerala, a place called God’s Own Country. The naming comes from its supernatural beauty. Just gliding over the tranquil backwaters surrounded by the splendor of verdant growth all around was paradise in itself.

  While floating over the pristine backwaters in the houseboat, I could not help thinking about Kerala of the old days, Kerala of 1975, when I left for Canada. Both Kerala and India were quite different in 1975 from what it is today. The cultural landscape has dramatically changed. The economic and political picture of India today is poles apart from what it was back then. India at that time was one of the poorest countries in the world, and Kerala was one of the poorest states in India. I remember the year 1974, when India exploded its first nuclear bomb. There was widespread protest throughout the world against this unexpected development. The swamis of world politics preached that India should address its poverty as the main national goal, instead of channeling its resources to making a nuclear bomb. Canada accused India of diverting the spent fuel from its Candu reactor to make the bomb. There was cartoon in the press showing a posh pub called “Nuclear Club” where five affluent members, The United States, Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China were comfortably seated in a sofa inside, when a beggar was knocking from outside at the door, to be let in, saying “I am also a member; open the door!” The beggar was India, and he wanted to be let in; he wanted to be taken seriously.

  Those were the bad old days when India was ridiculed by the world. When I arrived in Canada in 1975, people’s memories were still green with the picture of the nuclear bomb. The Indian community in Canada was despised, because of the feeling there that India violated the nuclear reactor agreement with Canada by misappropriating the spent fuel.

  Right now, the geopolitical situation has turned around from what it used to be. India is vying for one of the top positions in the world in economy, technological prowess, and military might. She is self-reliant in many sectors of industry and finance. As for Kerala, it is now a land of affluence, its economy having been fortified by the steady flow of Malayalees that flocked to the Middle East in search of fortune. Its tourism industry is bringing in foreign currency in hoards to its shores.

  ***

  The whole three events and an assortment of other parallel events would take place in what is called a boat train, so called because five houseboats were connected together to accommodate the large crowd of attendees, some 250 altogether. The interconnected assembly of boats was long enough to be called a water train. While floating, watching the water lilies and Chinese fishing nets by the side, I was transformed to a transfixed Alice stranded in a tropical wonderland.

  There were three generations present in the train. Our generation, our children’s generation, and their children’s generation who were mostly toddlers and adolescents, filled the houseboats. The generation of our parents was represented by only few people, who were mostly in their eighties. All in all, the boat train resembled a mini floating Kerala.

  Our children’s generation in Kerala belongs to high census in spite of the diminished number of our children—two to three children, compared to family size of ten or more siblings in our generation. This high number contributed to large population of our children’s generation. As for the generation of my parents, the sky was the limit for the family size, partly because they did not own TVs and partly because the
re were no midnight trains to wake up sleeping couples at night. I myself come from a family of ten children.

  Even though population growth rate has diminished, population growth by itself has not diminished. Maybe my great-grandchildren’s generation will have an altered census, possibly coming close to zero population growth. Still subsequent generations might encounter negative growth, a cause for alarm.

  I noticed the difference between the generations as soon as I was introduced to the crowd. The youngsters from our descendant’s generation were more sophisticated than us, with pleasant forbearance. They were intelligent looking and very superficial. A quick shake of hands accompanied by “how do you do,” and they were suddenly gone, before I could utter a single word. I looked at the introducing parents, and they shed sympathetic smiles at me, but then they were also gone in the wink of an eye, walking behind their children obediently like children would walk behind their parents. The girls looked prettier, with heavy makeup and in Western clothing. Some of them were blondes; not the original variety that I saw in Canada, but of the dyeing kind. I suddenly felt I was back in the Canadian soil. Almost all of them had cell phones; some had iPads. Most of them were alone, bewitched by their cell phones and probably chatting with friends all over the world. This was the Facebook generation, preferring to chat with invisible people than mingling with real humans. Social media has taken over. This was in sharp contrast to our generation, who did not know anything but tangible friends and tangible friendships. We did not know that there was something like virtual friendships, virtual realities, or virtual anything except abstract entities.

  I thought of my generation in a similar setting, maybe some forty years ago. Most of us would be wearing mundu with a cotton shirt, most probably not ironed. Some of us could have been walking in bare feet, in sharp contrast to the polished shoes of the current generation. We would be speaking grammatically correct Malayalm with violent shaking of our heads to give emphasis to what we were saying. We would be smiling profusely, we would be saying Namaste with closed palms, and we would be unimaginably polite. We would not have heard about technology named “information.” For us, technology meant something to do with instruments and physical objects, not an abstract thing like information. Most of our hands would be sore when we came to the wedding reception, because we would have helped the village’s main cook to prepare the wedding feast, to which everyone in the village would have been invited. The wedding used to be an affair where the entire village participated. It was a melting pot of everything to do with us as human beings.

  ***

  A renaissance in the practice of religion was evident. The futility of the affluence and its incapability to address the questions of life were noticeable. Once upon a time, just surviving poverty could have been the ultimate goal in life in Kerala. But today, poverty was largely gone, giving room to other priorities in life. But then a clearly defined target was badly missing in life, driving the common man to religion. There were many religious institutions where people flocked to get peace of mind. I was invited to one of the prayer meetings attended by some fifteen people, prior to my departure from Kerala. My classmate John invited me to the meeting held in one of his cousin’s homes.

  The meeting started with Bible reading. There were three elders who conducted the prayer. It was conducted at night. They turned off the lights and lit a number of candlesticks. People took turns to read Bible. All of us sat around a large table, making small talk. This slowly progressed into people describing their personal problems and how they were able to cope with them or not. The Bible scholar was able to quote page numbers that would contain appropriate reference suiting the experience under discussion. I was amazed by his memory that enabled him to quote the page number of appropriate reference. The important part of the meeting was not praying but analyzing personal issues. The Bible was used to lend support to the analysis offered by the pious men.

  Very soon, another aspect of the prayer emerged. It appeared that one holy man was able to go into trance, and predict the future of the people assembled, as well as describe their past. It was clear that a lot of what he said about the past was true. As for the predictions of the future, no one knew if those would materialize. I was quite intrigued by this aspect of the prayer. People could easily be hoodwinked by the man’s mannerism during the meeting, such as his propensity to talk in gibberish. I thought somehow he was able to read one’s mind. But how was beyond me. I made it a point to see a parapsychologist. I visited him prior to my departure.

  His opinion was the holy man in question had some abilities, such as being able to read minds, as I suspected. He told me that when people were holding hands as they were doing during prayer meetings, they were concentrating so hard that thoughts could be transmitted and received. This explained how the holy man was able to describe the past. As for the future, a combination of desires, hopes, hatred, and inimical feelings would create a pudding of the states of mind of the attendees, and that would be captured by the holy man. What the attendees desired to happen in the future is what was predicted as the future outcome.

  According to the parapsychologist, this interesting scenario creates a self-serving and perpetuating situation whereby the attendees always got the predictions they desired. The holy man projected what was in the customer’s mind—as simple as that. What was happening in these meetings was not totally voodoo, but a self-satisfying situation artfully crafted by the prayer men with the support of the Bible.

  ***

  We gave our children normal names like Thomas, Sukumaran, Sameer, Rani, and Elsie instead of Kibi, Jomi, Pidi, and Bogi. I found the latter set of names were ubiquitous among the current generation’s children. Our generation did not understand the logic behind creating names taking half of it from one’s father’s name and the other half from the mother’s name. These names sounded appropriate for robots. The naming scheme looked to us like an alphabet game with jumbled consonants and vowels incoherently mixed and unevenly delivered, beating a smooth pronunciation. To our generation, a name represented something; it had a meaning, it evoked feeling, and it was not an amateurish alphabet soup. Another intriguing thing about the new name convention is that one cannot discern if the person is a man or a woman. Bidi (the child of Biman and Diana) could marry Dibi (the child of Dismas and Bindi) and produce two children Bidi and Dibi—and none would know who the bride is and who the bridegroom; nor would anyone know which one of their children is a boy and which one the girl.

  I wondered aloud if the scheme was a prelude to even more dramatic changes in a newer generation’s naming scheme, such as giving numbers to people—maybe in a robotic generation! If I came back to Kerala, say in another thirty years, would I be invited to a wedding reception where Bridegroom 3478 was marrying Bride 1245? “Now the bridegroom, 4456 may kiss his bride, 1187,” so might the priest (of the name Pastor 1111) blessing the wedding ceremony announce.

  All along while I was mingling with the new generation and slowly comprehending the new way culture, customs, and lifestyles are changing, I felt like a fish out of water, because I was standing in the footsteps of my generation, unable to grasp that the page had turned to a new chapter. My predicament was partly because I was practically a foreigner there, having come back to Kerala after a long absence, but mostly because I could not cope with the generational recast. I was hit by a double whammy of cultural and generational transitions.

  11THE CLASS REUNION

  I got up from the upper-deck sofa and started to walk around, watching the crowd to see if I recognized some of the guests. I joined a group of my classmates who were sitting by themselves, abandoned by their children. I met the group that included Jose, another Jose, yet another Jose, a Varghese, a Lonappan, and so on. Old memories of Amballore University, our alma mater, started coming back, flooding my mind. We compared notes among ourselves, engrossingly conversing to know who became who later in life and where everyone was currently residing. Toms had made sure old Ma
layalam songs served as background music. Mingling among ourselves, sharing old memories, and listening to our childhood Malayalam songs made us nostalgic.

  One favorite topic of conversation was our professors. I came to know of the whereabouts of some of them, who used to teach in various disciplines. The English professor, Joseph, was no more kicking; he died just two years ago. I still remembered his dramatic presentation of Hamlet’s “To be or not to be.” During his class, he would descend from his elevated platform, join us—the students, the less fortunate souls, sitting in cheap chairs—and start shouting Hamlet’s words, waking up students in the back row. The presentation in his Barry White’s baritone voice was impressive enough to wake up Rip van Winkle from his years-long sleep.

  Professor Joseph was the most famous professor at Amballore University. His interest in English literature is a story in itself. He was science graduate, and he got job in a national lab researching neurosciences. One fine morning, he saw the light and got disillusioned with research. He got religion, became a changed man, and decided to go back to the university to get a degree in English literature. He did very well in his new discipline and got a job as an assistant professor as soon as he graduated. “Always believe in second chances,” he would tell his students. “Your first chances are products of your upbringing and luck. Your second chances are premeditated and planned, and therefore they are legitimate and will last long,” he told his class. He did not retire until he was seventy. He was the faculty chairman when he retired.