മൂന്നാര്‍-

Deaths made me to shed my boyhood

Some deaths may influence our life more than required. This is a chronicle of such deaths, which made me to shed my boyhood days .

My childhood was in Mattupetty in a sleepy farm of Indo Swiss Project, in Kerala, India. Born as a child of typical government servants, my child hood was more or less incident free and comfortable. We used to enjoy the chillness of Mattupetty with wild animals in abundance, including elephants and the warmth of the fellow workers of my parents. It was just like a small community with links to outside world only by road down to 9 miles (15 kilometres) to Munnar and of course also with faulty telephone lines. Yes, Munnar was also a very sleepy and calm town those days with tiled shops and a good market with lot of Kannanthevan Tea Estate people gather around, without any of those tourist resorts. Kannan Thevan is the tribal chieftain who shown hilly terrains near Munnar to a European ideal for Plantations, so the company was named after him. After Munnar Power works and memorial for anonymous who laid their life for building the dams, when entering into the town there was High Range Club, on the left side, down there was a football ground besides the road leading to town and Munnar Govt. LP School, one of many of my alma matre. After that the road to town is through Pankaj Theatre, where all the mainstream Tamil films used to run to pack and passionate audience. In this theatre I heard (or might be seen) “Thankapathakkom” (the MGR movie) was running for more than 100 days to the packed audience. The people were so passionate about the movies to throw knives to the screen to help to save the hero from getting killed by the villain.


The road then pass through estate workshop on one side and Govt. High School, Munnar on the other side. Opposite to High School there is co-operative society and little upper in the hillock some prayer hall with a board of some Rev.Samuel or something. From here I come to know “Rev.” means reverend, not revolutionary as has been in some other parts of the world.

Being a 2nd standard student in Munnar school, we children used to play a lot in the lunch time in the stream which is the border to the school ground and road. It was full of water and small fish, flowing to one of the three rivers confluence in the valley of Munnar. The three rivers confluences into one in the valley, thus the name of the valley is Moonu Arr (Tamil) –three rivers. Opposite to the school there lies the river (or down stream of a dam) on the other side of the road. In the foot ball ground some days we used to watch fantastic foot ball matches, which even now I believe better and spectacular than world cup matches. The teams were from different tea estates of Kannanthevan Tea Company. I don’t know when Kannanthevan was took over by Tatas. Earlier it was Tata Finlay, then changed to Tata Tea Ltd. We used to go in a bus to and fro to the school which is a red Premier Road Master bus. But this was a new school bus, prior to which, we were having a ford van as school bus, again a red one. The bus will take students of the Mattupetty Indo Swiss Project from various schools in and around Munnar and Korandikkadu to farm. The farm is little away from Mattupetty Dam, the first masonry dam in India, on the upstream.

Once, we were returning from the school in the school bus, it was raining heavily, so may be in one of those monsoon months. One cannot even see the road. Earlier in Munnar Town there was a gathering of people near the bus stand with black flags. We (no, it may be only I) thought it must be some meeting of political parties, as black and red are flag colours of the Dravida parties of Tamil Nadu who was having (I feel now also) a presence in Munnar. Suddenly a convoy of hundred (my calculation at the age of eight) vehicles all of them put on their headlights, stopped our school bus. (We were having an ottakannan (Malayalam)- single eyed lorry with a contractor who was there to make a new rest house in farm). We were all looking out and one person has come to our bus stand asked the driver for a spanner or something . The ambulance, which was carrying the pretham (a slang Malayalam. In Malayalam it means ghost)- dead body of a famous foot ball payer, got a punctured tyre. I did not know the ghost could be carried in an ambulance. The stories I heard so far was that the ghosts are creatures who are having an inclination to kill by sucking blood and they need not walk as they can simply flow over or fly. Usually the ghost will appear in darkness, preferably around midnight before a single soul who may be returning to home after a late night drink or a romantic encounter. It will appear from nowhere in the midst of tea plantation (read paddy field or forest if it happens in other parts of Kerala, where there is no tea plantation) from one of the hundreds of labyrinths, before the prey. They will ask for chunnambu (Malayalam)-lime used in chewing betal nut with leaves of betal and tobacco. If the prey is not intelligent enough he will offer chunnambu, which normally carried by people who is having a whiff of drink or romance in those days, and that is it. On touching the body of the prey, the ghost will become large and eventually suck the blood and munch the flesh and soft bones leaving behind only skull and large bones for the passers by to see. However, the intelligent lot will offer chunnambu on a pena kathi(Malayalam)- pocket knife, the ghost will slowly fade away but growing like a mountain in the midst of tea estate when it go far and finally converge into the darkness. I was never liked this part of the story. In a story there should be some drama and climax with some blood and all. These ghosts, mostly very beautiful woman called “yakshi” and very rarely man with very good features called “gandharvan” and who are eating flesh and drinking blood, are ridiculously afraid of a piece of iron,. I always prayed for these poor creatures to get more rational thinking to overcome their phobia of iron or of knife.

But here this is a different case, ghost is being carried in an ambulance van with so many people around. I told our conductor that I want to see pretham. He took me to the ambulance, there I have seen lying in bed of flowers with incense sticks burning in the midst crying women and children, a body of a man wrapped fully with white and red clothes and covered with wreaths. Yes, my tryst with the death for the first time in my life. All fancies about the pretham are gone. They are just simply do not have any life, they cannot drink a single drop of water or eat a single morsel of rice, forget about thicker blood and protein rich flesh. And I felt, the death would bring tears especially of women and children. I know the tears most of children of our age are because of pain, neglect or empathy.

At that time there was talk about emergency. Indira Gandhi was quick to declare emergency. We in the school bus discussed lot about this and taken a stand that “adiynanthiravastha arabikkdalil” (Malayalam)-emergency should be sunk into Arabian sea. We did not know what is it what it is meant for us, it is just a childhood play. At that time apart from we children one uncle used to come in our school bus to Munnar from ettam mile, which is very near to Mattupetty Dam. Some of the Project employees were staying in the quarters near dam, though it belongs to Tea Estates. This uncle was working in a chitty (Malayalam)-a kind of banking with micro investments from a group of people, prevalent in especially Central part of Kerala- company in Munnar, used tell us so many things. At that time there was a Malayalam movie running in Priya Theatre (one of the two) in Munnar by name Mooldahanam(Malayalam)-capital. He was asking me about what is mooladhanam. I have read the cinema notice and told it is a story of an individual made from the oozing blood. He was insisting to tell what is capital. And finally after three days of introduction, I understood how a business is being run and what is capital and more importantly from where the capital comes and how it grows. Perhaps my first lessons on Marxism and Das Capital. This uncle always tells some stories during our journey, I am not remembering what they are.

Emergency was in its full throttle. There were news about the arrest and detention of people. In Munnar there was rumours about arrest of some trade union leaders. The uncle’s father what I heard is sick and taking bed rest at home. One day this uncle has not come, and it was told his father expired. After some days, one evening after returning from school my mother and me went to his house. The body was cremated then, and there was complete silence in the house. We left after 10 or 15 minutes. On the way back I heard my mother talking to somebody that he was not ill but was pretending to be ill from being arrested. He was a leader of the estate trade union and one day police took him from his bed. After returning from police station he died. This incident germinated anger against the establishment in me. I will no longer be a child as I was till yesterday.