1962-1963 - Part 1

Pandit Nehru’s experiment with Panchshil had failed miserably. The rhetoric of Hindi-Chini bhai bhai had fallen through, when China one fine evening decided to invade the northern frontiers of India. A startled Krishna Menon, the defence minister had gone into limbo and India’s ill prepared army suffered a humiliating defeat. United Nations intervened and ceasefire had been declared. Thousands had lost their lives and a nation was heart broken. It would be years before the country would come out of the shadows of this one chapter in its history.

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Velladi appears like a village stuck on the outskirts of Trivandrum, the capital city of the erstwhile Kingdom of Travancore and now the state of Kerala. A double tracked railway runs from the Trivandrum central railway station and after about seven kilometers cuts the village into two. Mounds of volcanic gravel, reddish brown, laden with iron lay forlorn all along the tracks. Either side of the tracks have green paddy fields, broken by the ever present bunds and partitions that mark properties belonging to families for ages. Fringed by palm trees and occasionally by mango groves, the scene never changes, only occasionally broken by a hut or a house, depending on the income of the families staying in them. A lake with lavender dots lies in stately calm, minutely moved by the breeze carrying fragrance of mulla flowers that Parvati Amma grew in the vast backyard. Some years ago the railway track had cut across her land, land that belonged to her husband, all 100 acres of coconut, paddy, pepper and cashew.

The small house rose into sight as she walked along a small path made by years of use and not due to some great plan on her part. She suddenly remembered that she had forgotten to give instruction to her son in law and turning she shouted across causing a few grumbling crows to create a big racket. From where she stood she could see the Vikramalaya River flow pregnant from the rains of a few weeks ago. Parvati Amma bent to pick the small wicker tray she uses to carry flowers and incense sticks to the temple her husband built in honour of Vishnu, the resident deity of her family. Her frail frame betrayed the pain she feels in her fifty-two-year-old legs, a few fingers bent with arthritis and sore feet due to high blood sugar.

The temple is made of black stone and stands where the river bends before disappearing from the eyes into the dense foliage of jackfruit trees and coconut fronds. The early morning sun is barely able to trickle onto the ground and where it does there is a violent spill of gold and yellow amidst the verdant grass tended lovingly by Ravindran.

Ravindran has been brooding. Parvati Amma looked at him and smiled knowing very well that the boy, all of seventeen was anxious when she is around. He called her “amma” only for the sake of calling her so; his heart is not in it. When he was seven, his own mother has died delivering the third child in as many years. He was the second, younger to the tiny Ammini Kutty. She had been married off last year and as tradition went in Nair families she and her husband Raghavan had stayed on making the family bulge at its sides. His father had died unlamented two years ago, his marriage to Parvati Amma was for the excuse of bringing up the two children from the earlier marriage and when Rohini was born, he was thrilled. Rohini had changed the equation within the house, all things new and fine were for her first. It caused Ravindran to yearn for his own mother, which with the passing years the memory of her had faded to now be just an image which had neither face nor form.

Ravindran waited for Parvati Amma to walk down the steps, he always did. As she approached he bent forward and got some sandal paste applied to his forehead. She did not utter a word as she walked slowly down the gravel path to the coconut grove where under the tallest tree was lamp. A small brick shade kept the water out when it rained and every morning Parvati Amma ensured that oil was poured into the lamp, it had burnt since the day Radhakrisnan Nair, his father had died suddenly.

Ravindran walked two steps behind her and finally he asked her “Amma can I go to Bombay?”.

She stopped midway and turned and looked at him in the eyes and spoke calmly as she had done for the three months since one of the neighbours had returned from Bombay with stories of wonder. “Who will look after the crops? I am too old and Raghavan cannot be trusted. Leave such idle dreams and work at your school and make something out of this land”. She turned around and walked briskly wanting to avoid another confrontation.

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