Onam, beginning of festive days in Kerala. Every one loves to be at home, with their parents and siblings and enjoy the flavor of the nostalgic surroundings.This time it was 4 months after my last visit. The nature had changed its coat to lush green and wet. Every where water, and lilies is on the surface. These were invisible on the dry land in the last summer. Lot of migratory birds and Cormorants are busy in fishing.
This time the whole north malabar was hit by the unusual fever called chicken gunia. The after effects are really bad. My parents were suffering from joint pain with swollen ankles. We had taken preventive medicine to escape the mosquitoes.
For some reasons I felt this years Onam was dull and sober, it was raining. Many of the native friends are vanished sow as not in a mood to hunt them and find out where they are. Few phone calls to renew my presence and to prove I am alive. The traditional flowers has vanished now the flower carptes called “pookalam” are made of imported from the neighboring states.
Pookalam
Had some good time with my cousin brother and sat on few bottles of good danish beer as I missed my favourite ” Kalyani”. Had a great lunch at home with home made mom made delicacies with a exotic and delicious payasam. It was all in a rush the same day I need to come back to Cochin. I was feeling dull and low and bit nostalgic to leave the native. It is a great feeling to be with parents even if you grown up and grown old. Do you all think so?
Wife was busy packing, the return trip luggage usually used to be less of goods. But the baggage was not ready to get reduced. The native bananas and dinner came in as parcel. I was thinking is it going to test my endurance especially being a festive day it will be very hard to find rickshaws on road but tuned my mind to proactive thinking, there will be autos especially for you. Let us see when it reaches Cochin. Coming day the villain was the heavy rain and god knows this time the villain will a auto rickshaw.
pookalam
My brother dropped me and my wife at the station and I gave him few encouragement and motivation, told him to take care of Amma as she has joint pain. Hope he remembers all these. It was sunny bright afternoon, the rain clouds are scattered and not so heavy. The announcement was going on, mind started reloading the work mode and the life different from here.
Tasks, projects, reports,creativity, client, chats, blogs and tweets came in…then thought why to think too much in advance, then came the thoughts about the train. The onward journey was like a prehistoric or a vintage. The air conditioned chair car was a mess. Apart from seats rest of the things were all worn out. No trays to keep your food no cup holders, some seats the tray frame was there and tied with ropes some seats the push back was in meditation mode rather call it static mode. As i always think, thought about a compartment worst than this.
The final bell…seems train is reaching the station. It was boggy number 4, C1 seat number 57,58w… rush was not much as every one was celebrating onam. To my surprise the ambiance looked new and bit face lifted. It was like a middle aged lady with a coat of bright lipstick trying to say I am still young. But comparing the regular compartments she was stunningly beautiful. In my last journey back home, one of the A/c mechanic shared me his pathetic story about compartments..some of them has more age than his total experience, too old… he even told me how to identify the age of a compartment…
I was just searching for that number in my onward A/c coach..it was more than 25 years old..seems some second class compartment might have got renovated to an A/c. As i got in to the train it was refreshing feeling for the first time. The fan was blowing on to my head, made me feel it was going to freeze my brain. I took a chance to look back to find out which polar bear has landed here. To my surprise it was boy sleeping like a sloth, hard for me to reach the switch to off it… I was feeling bit uncomfortable and in my second try this boy was awake and told him to switch off the fan. Seems to be a well groomed obedient boy. Next came the issue of tea, hardly these days you can find tea vendors, instead its all coffee vendors. Don’t know the reason for this. Is coffee making more profitable than tea? need to do a survey.
This train is always punctual and fast, still so many seats vacant and to my surprise the next seat was occupied by a famous writer of Kerala. the train journey always brings some celebrity faces in front of you. You get a chance to interact and observe them. I dont want to write more about him because it might become a long blog.
Once its sat on the rope, it had 2 ..3 modes of closing his wings. First step was on alert as if some thing will attack and be ready for a take off. The next close mode is some more folded to the body which it does when it feels safe. The next extreme fold is once it really feel relaxed and confident. I was really close enough and reminded me of my childhood..my parents use to tell me I was really a sadist in catching the dragon flies and ties their rear tail by a natural string teared out of the edge of coconut leaf. I bet none of the new generation kids knows about such horrible fun..I honestly feel now so bad and sad about those cruel ways of playing. Those were smaller dragon flies normally glide on the ground levels. You can see them in green and grey mix as well as burgundy shade, blue as well as black.
