bhaktiman

I committed to myself that I would write daily, as usual, in vain. With too much mood swings and the stupid ideas that keep popping up, holding on to the time and reality had been difficult all these days. Now, somehow my hands are on my keypads. Hopefully I would continue my commitment…

Vanakkam. En Peru Mowgli, enakku innoru peru irukku, bhakthimaan.

I am from a middle class family. My grandfather was a farmer. My father moved to city for job and then married a city girl and got settled there only. I am the first and last generation which had half village and half city background. This village and city dint matter when it came to god. We have at least 16 festivals in 12 months in our religion other than that we also celebrate other religion festivals for the biriyani and cake.

I was not grown like mowgli in a forest by some other parents. I was named after a god and I was destined to be a bhakthiman, follower of god. During my school days I would wake up with my grandfather at 4’o clock, bath in cold water and go to temple during all 30 days before pongal as it was the month of margzhi. In our village we had big speaker sets to announce small donations that people give. One uncle with salt paper voice would do the announcement in stage tamizh and I would give some murugan/amman song casettes, to hear my name on speaker.

My dad goes to minimum3 temples daily before he goes to work, this is excluding the prayer time he spends in home and company before the photos of god. My maternal grandfather also has a similar kind of routine. My uncle, aunty, enemy, friend, uncle’s father, auntie’s brother, anyone you name, all were having similar kind of routine, at the most the difference was in the time and who their favourite god was.

The daily routine would be something like this, man of the house, after bathing would come inside home with his towel around the waist, stand in front of god photos and does all the prayers before getting dressed and eat. Then on the way to work he would go to some temples, then after reaching work place pray in front of the god photos there with freshly bought flowers. Woman of the house, would begin with a kolam in front of the home, making tea, breakfast, bathe children, pack food for all, send them to school, then finish all other work, go for a bath, then come pray god and sit to watch serial or go talk to neighbors.

I grew up seeing all this. I am a good follower, like all Indians. I did all the same things like man of the house. Everyone was very happy that I am being so faithful to god. I never missed prayers and would recite so many small books that my dad would buy for me. I very strongly believed in god and trusted so much that if you believe him and only him everything will happen.

I was studying fourth standard. I had two best friends, Narayanan and Karthi.  We would all go together wherever we go and would crack jokes together. Only a small definition of best friendship was that I was sticking with them where ever they went, as they were one of the toppers like me and spoke nicely about many things.

For first time my grandfather had bought me a purse, wallet. I had a photo of god in it and little change. I got that purse after seeing Narayanan and Karthi having it.

On that wonderfully fateful day, my purse fell down. I was playing around the class. While running I stamped on the god’s photo that was there in my purse. It had fallen and opened up to show Shiva’s family photo. My shoes foot print was left on it. Narayanan and Karthi had seen it, as they were only chasing me.

I was very sorry for stamping god’s photo. I was praying and telling sorry to Shiva’s family. They both were telling I am going to be punished. No way to escape. Narayanan was from a Brahmin family, so asked him what I should do.

He told that god’s are angry on me. Showed the photo and told that the circle behind their head has turned red, now there is no way out, I will be punished severely. I asked how to cool them down. While going back home in bus he told me what to do. I stopped talking to all and was just closing eyes and praying. Those two were preventing others to talk from and explaining what had happened in detail.

I went home worried. Removed clothes and shoes, put them for washing, polished my shoe and kept, kept my tiffin box opened at washing place, washed face and changed dress, asked mom for a tumblr of milk and went into our bedroom cum prayer room. We were living in a 1 BHK home, so bedroom is where all our god photos were kept.

My sister was playing, I removed the god photo from my purse, kept in a small vessel, then with the milk that my mother gave for drinking, I was telling all the prayers and pouring it on the photo. I was literally shitting in my trousers; my mother thought that I have become too serious and since it is god she didn’t ask any question. My sister went out playing. I was there doing this for nearly half hour and another half hour saying prayers and waiting to see if the red hallo behind Shiva’s head goes off, but it was getting brighter I felt.

The whole evening I was just seeing the photo every 5 minutes, no use, the halo was red. I never stopped reciting prayers. Next day also this prayer continued, but my mom didn’t give more milk. Narayanan told I have to face my fate. I thought my world was coming to end.

After two days, weekend started, I went to my parental grandparent’s home in village. I hugged my grandmother and slept hearing my grandfather reading stories for us. After that I forgot about it.

Later in my life I started seeing all god’s photos and found a halo behind their head, so I soothed that how Narayanan had misguided me. It is been more than a decade since I went to a temple for praying, I go for the food or sometimes to see my girl or the architecture. Recently the architecture in the olden temples is interesting to me.  

Now I am fan of anbesivam…

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Look for more Dejavu’s….

banian jatti da

Vanakkam. En Peru Mowgli, enakku innoru peru irukku, banian jatti

I am from the place which produces it in excessive quantity for this world. That was not the reason for this name.

I lived in a big compound where nearly 6 families and two companies where there. My house was right behind a temple. That temple was very small like me, and it also grew along with me till the time I lived there. I never saw it growing after that. I always wondered how come temples keep growing. Anyways that is not the reason for my name.

First thing I do as soon as I reach home from school is remove shoes, put socks for washing and polish the shoe. Next remove the launch box, open it and keep it in washing basin. After this, I remove my school dress and put for washing. From that time till my mom scolds me or hits me for the day or I break something for the day or do a mistake of breaking someone’s head or leg, I would be roaming only with my inner garments, which is banian and jatti.

I loved to roam around like that. It was so comfortable. I would go wearing only that to buy things from nearby shop for home, to watch tv in nithi’s house or in kala akka’s house. The whole compound knows about this.

In one of the banian companies, there was balasamy anna, he was the owner of that company. He only gave me that name after seeing me roaming like that. Everyone in that compound also liked it and kept calling me with that name. This never was a trouble to me, but not for my mom, like all other mothers she was not okay to hear it, she wanted to hear praising names, not like this. So every time I go out like that, I would get either scolding or beating in steel or wooden ruler, though I loved steel rulers, which I borrowed from my class mates once or twice, I dint like the same ruler when I used to get beating out of it. It is a painful experience.

The beatings never stopped me from doing that. I think after seeing this attitude of mine my aunt gave me that tribal, aadhivaasi, makeup for my fancy dress competition. Other reason was that I was a muradan, tarzan , and had big lips because of sucking my thumb during my childhood, there is a legend that I have nearly spoiled all the sofas and bed and even my grandmothers toupee for that habit, people who have done that as kid knows the pleasure of it.

One fine evening after my usual school day, I went to kala akka’s home for watching tv. It was late for my study time. I was there with my usual costume, banian jatti. If my mom gets to know it, that day also I would get beatings. So after seeing time, I decided that I should run fast and sneek in to home without grabbing her attention, but as usual fate had its own plan.

 I started running home. kala akka’s home is on the left side of the temple. There is a pathway between their compound and temple’s compound, that is the way through which we used to go to my house if we are walking, it crosses nithi’s home and that first company, after that is the entrance to our compound with veetukkara aatha’s, owner, house in the middle with their two sons on either side, we were in the far left, straight behind the temple and opposite were two small portions with one having a bachelor and other having a poor family. On the far right was balasamy anna’s company.

I started running from kala akka’s home. Adjacent to their house they had a small bike mechanic shop, as soon as you cross that shop on the right is the pathway to my compound. Exactly at this point there is a big drainage, this drainage is always open, it runs along that main road till it reaches a river, which was once upon a time important source of water and now the biggest drainage for my city, something like koovam for Chennai, which was less than a kilometer from there. The main road and my compound’s passage are connected with two big black flat stones, karungal slab, to cross that drainage. Those slabs were always shaking so you have to be careful.

The scene that was created that evening by my fate got registered to me very strongly as those were my initial days when my mind was registering things. I ran from kala akka’s house and took my right by keeping my right leg on the right side karungal. Then there was a black out for a second or even a minute or an eternity, but I was snapped out of it immediately also. I was being pulled by that mechanic anna and there was a big crowd by now on that small junction. As it was evening peak hours, the main road passer bys were also stopping by. The stone had given me away under my feet. I had twisted to fall into the puddle of black liquid that was flowing through that ditch towards the once upon great river. I was clogging its flow for a brief moment before I was pulled out of it.

Only thing that was running in my mind was how much I am gonna get beat for coming out in banian jatti and also now that is fully dirty and black as I had fallen here. I thought this time i might even get soodu i.e., taking a long spoon, keeping in fire, making it hot and then keeping it on your leg, hand, back, thigh or anywhere, it is mercy of the mother in anger. It is told that this cure’s many adangapidari diseases.

I heard my mom running towards me. I was shivering in that heat. Everyone where giving their comments to play their part. My mom pulled me inside the compound. veetukkara aatha, that old hag, told that I should not cross that compound gate’s pipe and be washed there itself. She always enjoyed when I get beating’s. Like everyone of you would have had a old hag in your life, I had her. She would always be first to complain to my mom when I did something wrong and would stand to watch me get scolding or beating. That day also she was enjoying the show and was telling something to infuriate my mother more.

As my mom washed me with the water that was flowing down from that gate’s pipe, all the dirt and black fluid I had taken from the ditch was going back to the source and will continue its flow, but before it continues to do its work, it has to get all the scolding that I was hearing and should get lathered and carry that new friend along, mysore sandal soap’s lather.

My mother was feeling very bad. She was feeling that whole world was laughing at her. She was telling that if I keep my leg outside my house again without her permission, then it would be broken. She was swearing many more things. Then she was crying. This is a usual ritual. When I do something like this and get beaten up by her, she would end up crying and would give me loads of advice. As usual my sibling was enjoying this show.

That evening after finishing two soaps and throwing away a pair of my banian jatti, I was standing in front of god and promising that I would listen to my mom and be a good kid. I would not be running around like this and get bad names. For everything, I would be standing in front of god to swear not to repeat it.

God was an important part of my life.

Look for more Dejavu’s….

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PS: I wanted to write something else, and even after giving it a very deep though, I am not able to get the line on which I was thinking. Hopefully I write on that. This is one thing that happens with me, I lose track of everything. Anyways I would try to keep writing this daily so we don’t lose touch of the story.

Muradan

Vanakkam. En Peru Mowgli, enakku innoru peru irukku, muradan!

I got this name from my maternal grandfather for my dashingly heroic activities. When I say dashingly it is to the literal meaning, that is how my golden breaking touch worked. Anything I touch would be broken, be it a Horlicks bottle, be it my friends head, be it my neighbor’s kid’s leg, be it my own hand, be it a new dress or trousers, be it anything you can imagine I touch and it is broken. I have broken so many things that I have lost track of it all together. Right now when I turn back I see only a broken soul dried out of life source.

If someone would call me I would just run, without seeing things around or thinking about anything that would be on my way. My speed was important to me not my vision, so blind running was there always. That is why I was a good defender in my football team. It was so awesome to be fast. I would be all around the field making sure the ball never passes our side, that is my side. The same I did in volley ball, backing up everyone. This came with side effects of me breaking my knee, dress, shoes.

I was so excited to do things fast and be first. When people told that am strong and can do anything I felt so good. People would call me superman for being everywhere in the ground. These words were giving so much pride that I would ignore my bleeding wounds and continue to play.

That is why even when my grandfather told that I have to uproot a coconut tree to brush my teeth rather than a neem stick, I went and started pulling a tree, they never thought that I would go and do that. They all enjoyed the show, they liked me being so daring, till date everyone talks about it. The same people are not able to digest that fact that I try new things than the regular things. They don’t want me to have a beard as it is like a rowdy, no growing hair that is like loafer, no wearing t shirts when you go to others house, I should not have my own wishes, all I should do is what they tell and what they is what they think that others are thinking when I do something. Man, give me a break.

When you read all this it would be funny, but for me that is what I was and am. I can do anything that I was told to do. For that I would try everything possible. I would run, fall down, hurt myself, get bruised, lose everything I have, still I would enjoy all of it to just see the end of that side. That is why during my travel anything was not looking like a trouble; that is the same reason the six months in my dream world was not being so tiresome for me, that is why I have bent so much for everyone, but that does not allow them to take me for granted and make me a puppet.

This all does not matter to anyone. I was just being rough. I was called insensible boy. I was not using my brain. I was not taking care of my properties. I was not worried about what people called me. I was being naïve and innocent. I was just going around like a clown. That is what I was told. I had numerous sessions and classes for this. My mom, maternal grandfathers, only two out of three would do that, the middle one was enjoying whatever I did and he would be the first person who saw what can be done with the potential in me, he wanted me to join a military school and become an army man, as he know I was durable person, but my parental grandmother said a single solid no; maternal aunts; maternal uncles; parental aunts and uncles and even their kids were making fun of it and enjoying it.

Here no one understood what my character was. What all I would be able to do. They harassed me, that is how my speed has gone down, my consciousness has grown that I don’t dare, taking decision has become pain, facing someone has become slow and lifeless, this is what has happened to the muradan. My trousers don’t tear anymore between my legs, as I don’t run. My knees don’t break, as I don’t jump to catch anything high. People don’t make fun of me, as I am not running around for any silly things like my wishes instead am making money from abroad. My silence to all their talks has earned me name as a good boy from a descent family.

With all these new masks my attire has grown. Still from beginning I have enjoyed lesser clothes to cover me. I won fancy dress competition for being portrayed a tribal. I had mango and neem leaves tied around my waist and coal powdered and painted all over my body. No more can I do that, it is only for the fancy dress competition, in the present competition to survive and live a life, I have to wear my formals and have the never ending fake smile on my face to win this society.

Then why do you think I would enjoy this softness? How will the muradan be able to live? If this soft descent man is alive, what would he create? more fakeness or more good?

It is too tiring for a small boy who loves to run and play. Telling a boy to run safely is different from stopping a boy from running. Letting the boy try and learn new things is different from teaching only things that you think are safe. Showing the world equally is different from showing the world from where you are sitting. Allowing the boy to learn and become an adult is different from suppressing the boy under the make up a man.

That is the reason I would like to tear of the mask, remove the make up, get wet in rain to wash of all that has accumulated during this survival before I can revive some energy to let the boy become an adult by himself. For that I have to surely kill the man that the society has created. Who knows what would happen….

Yam ariyen paraparamen…

PS: Thank you D for sharing my post to all these people. I see not much have answered my question in the previous post. It would be nice if it is a discussion, which is why I am publishing this in a public forum. If you all want to separately write to me, then write to me here, on my FB page

Dejavus to continue…

Beginning from the end

This morning, a clouded summer morning, I called D to tell ‘I quit. I cannot do this anymore.  I am going to die’

I had my reasons, of course everyone have their reasons for their actions, right. Anyways, the point is simple ‘ennala mudiyala. Sema vazhiya irukku’. Every single thought process in my mind is streaming down to one point - death. I feel it is better to die, this whole fight is worthless.

I prepared lentil (kollu)rasam last evening, that was for my today’s lunch. If you have ever tasted it in your life you would know the specialty and importance of it. 12000 miles from my home, I had made this rasam to replenish my memories so that I can find energy to keep going. Such small and beautiful moments are the ones that make up my life. Rasam was spoiled this noon during my lunch, half my rice also had got wasted with it. The pessimist in me tells now I am half empty stomach. The optimist tells am half full stomach with wonderful lentil dhal and curd rice.

My mind goes with the pessimist inside me now. I am not able to take the fact that all that I had done has gone waste. Like musician has his very important piece somewhere in the middle of his creation, rasam is very important note in my lunch menu.

Now my life is like my rasam. The very important moment is spoiled, ruined. There have always been very small things I had loved and enjoyed, but all that has spoiled now. I don’t see meaning without them. Like my lunch, it has now meaning. There is reason for the food and the order that we eat it. Similarly in my life there were things that had to be in order and how it should have gone, but now all is topsy turvy. I do some here, I dream some there, I wish to be somewhere when all I am is here without any interest. This is not I should be living for.

Okay, let me go do what I want, I thought to myself, I planned for it; promised to be strong for it; hoped to get back and do all that. Still I called D this morning.

It is the same me who had changed a suicidal girl into an ambitiously career purser (she would be devastated if I die now, her own words);  who always stood till end of everything to see what happens next (I have seen and made 10 more people to see Anti-Christ movie till end); who thought defeats leads to great victory; who had ambition to become a very filthily rich person; who wished to have dozen kids playing all over his home and farm; who thought living in itself was a pleasure; who was so eager to make a mark in this history before dying; who wanted to have even strangers come mourn over his dead body.

What happened to this ‘same me’? Why do I feel to quit? I have gone through all this hurdles for this?

These are the questions that come to you, the same that D asked me. I have never been good at explaining things to anyone, leave D alone. D can prove gravity is up and I cannot even prove that the word ‘apple’ starts with letter ‘A’. That is my case.

Same thing happened this morning. He has convinced me to be alive, for a time period where I would write down all the reasons that I have for dying, or atleast turn back to see what I have across to get this mind set. It is not so strange right? More than that there is one more thing, he had asked  ‘you have believed me every time, believe this one time, if you feel the same after that point, then I will not stop you’. This is the first time he had asked me something like this.

I have never been able to be rigid or say no, that is how I had grown. I have seen very less people telling no on others face, on top of it, this is D, how can I tell no

As per his request, I am going to live for some more time in this world, I do not know how long that is going to be for. Before I quit I would like to record things that have been running in my mind and things I had faced. It should have happen to all of us, at one point of time. By writing it down here, I would be able to connect to that moment of yours with my moment, like a Dejavu. Let us see how much of it we come across. I have had many, people around me know about it.

From the time I am able to remember, I have had this question, ‘why do people want to live?’ With all killing troubles around them, people want to live, they want one more last second, one more last minute, one more last supper, one more last hug, one more last day, only one more of all of it. Why? Why everyone is so focused for it? Why afraid of end? Is it so horrible?

One reasonable explanation is that no one lives the present moment, so they need more of it to enjoy it more.

For me, I do not know if I had had lived all my moments, but my life has been a satisfactory one till now. So why to die then, if life has being so good and satisfactory?

The reason is this, the little boy inside me is in his death bed. The pressure in his respiratory pipe is constantly increasing. He has been breathing very scarcely for years now and whatever he has breathed is only poisonous smoke. He is being tortured. Who is doing all this right? Why should a small boy be killed? Answer is simple- he has to become a man. So to be a man I myself am killing the boy, I have to, if not there is a big queue to kill him.

This small boy has been the very source for my satisfactory life till now. If he dies I die; my identity is lost; there is no more anything left of me. I don’t want to see me living a single day like that. I have to kill this man before this. This is not a decision that was taken in a rage, anxiety, rush or any feelings. This has been a well thought out solution as of now. Mother nature also has told me to do this. How? I will tell you that part of the story as we go, it has an interestingly silly and serious side.

I have been seeing every single person around me after they have lost their girl/boy. I have seen various countries’ people by now. With all that experience I have seen that all have a slight trace of her/him, but this life and its day-to-day pressure has made them not think about it. If they think about it, they would become a rebel or kill themselves, but they can’t do their usual work. That is why they have to forget it.

I am going to tell the story of this boy. He has so many colours as a rainbow. He has tried to uproot a coconut tree to brush as his grandfather told, but the same grandfather is afraid to tell him to remove his beard; he could have been a good husband, wonderful son, great employee, a terrific rapist and a serial killer, still he became a losing farmer, possessive lover, absconding employee, philosopher who doesn’t know when to stop talking and a tissue paper for others.

To understand all this I have to start from the place where this all begins and give you all the important incidents that had shaped him to become suicidal.

Before that, I will ask you all two questions.

-          Why do you want to live?

-          Why do you think a person (me) should not suicide?

I will ask these same questions at the end of this series of memories. Let’s see how it goes.

I was named mowgli, but I wanted to change my name as priyan ahktar, though I was called as banian jatti, muradan, pappu, aandhai, aloo… all these names have a history and that is what is now coming back to show you all the reason why I should die…

Dejavus to begin from here…