Neighborhood etc

At home, I used to wear a Khaki half trouser. I did not get good cloths to wear during these periods This Khaki cloth was coming from the Government Transport Department where my uncle was working. Apart from the school uniform, I used to get one pair of color cloths per year, during Onam festival; and sometimes, when dad gets some additional money by surrendering his unused leave. Dad was extremely healthy (I don’t remember him taking bed rest not even a single time, except for surgery (like cataract). He never used to get fever or even cold, one reason could be that he practiced yoga for about 10-15 years ) and hence he always had some unused leave.

I don’t remember ‘celebrating’ any or my birthday except the one I mentioned, but I remember mother preparing ‘payasam’ (a sweet) during most of my birthdays’.

The in and around places near me were, Sasthamangalam, Vellayambalam, Kowdiar and Vazhuthacaud etc. My school was about 3 kilometers away from my house and we (me sis, cousins) used to walk to and fro. On the way there was a Temple called ‘Althara’ and near that there was house which had a gooseberry tree. We used to sneak in to the compound and get the berries.

There were two palaces in our neighborhood. One at Kowdiar and another at Kanaka Kunnu. During Onam festival, all these area would be illuminated and the Kanaka kunnu palace looked stunning. Family members of the Travancore dynasty still live in Kowdiar palace.

One of the main attractions of this city (Trivandrum) was the presence of Red colored Double Decker bus (just like the one seen in London). I think this started plying on the roads during the British rule. There were only two or three routes for the Decker and ours was one (Sasthamangalam). I liked traveling in that bus sitting ‘up’. That too catching a window seat.

When I grew up, I read in the news paper that ours was one of the cleanest cities in the world that time (my childhood days, the beginning of 70s), though it was a very small city. We used to drink water directly from the tap and we did not catch any waterborne disease. For wounds, we never used to go to any doc to dress it but used to squeeze out the drops from a plant called ‘poochedi’ in Malayalam and apply it. There were two types. This stuff worked really well. I might have wounded a hundred times (a lil exaggerated?) and it never became septic. The famous doc of our locality was Dr.Keshavan Nair and we all had very high respect for him. He worked in a hospital called ‘Sri Ramakrishna Mission Charitable Hospital’. But it was popularly known as the ‘Sasthamangalam Hospital’

I developed cavities in my tooth and my parents did not care. Thus I could not eat some food items and others in my family ate. I remember me crushing the peanuts to powder and having them. Since we play without wearing any shoe, I used to get lots of wounds. Main culprit was broken glass pieces and thorns. These things were plenty in our school ground. I hid my wounds from my dad else he would beat me.

I remember one walking experience during these periods. Dad took us to the beach. There was a temple also. Unfortunately there was huge rush in the bus and dad said we will walk and he kept walking and we followed. I was about 8-9 years old and we walked about 8-10 kilo meters.

As I mentioned, quarrel between dad and mom was a definite thing during salary day. Mom used to pay her ‘share’ to that uncle, though dad asked her not to do so. Then mom started borrowing money to adjust this. Thus she created some private debts without father knowing. She did some extravaganza by spending money in restaurants. And this was something good for us since either we were part of it or she brought parcels for us, excluding dad. I gave him a share of it once (banana fry) and he shouted at mom for wasting money and thus we stopped giving him any share. Mom spent lot of money for eatables and then paid off at a bakery and grocers shop; those purchases were made by that uncle and mom’s sister and not by us. Dad spent some part of his money in lotteries (The main reason was he won a decent amount before marriage and put that money in some private bank which then declared bankrupt). The ultimate result was there weren’t any saving and we moved from one rented house to another.

At this stage, dad’s eldest brother took some initiative and arranged some money and we finally bought a piece of land, built a small house and started living there. One of my neighbors was a drunkard and rowdy. Almost all days there were quarrel and shouting. That huge guy used to beat his wife and she cried loudly. Sometimes he used to take a dagger and threatened to kill her. We can hear all these shouting. If what we had inside the house was fire (quarrel) outside it was forest fire. I was very scared of that man, who always had red eyes. I used to run away when I spot him.

Thus I lived in total fear. My dad hated this place and thus we came back to my uncle’s another house as tenants, for a short time till that own house got disposed. Then moved to another rented house.

Here we were living in a portion along with house owner. Nothing scary here. But I had some minor fights with house owner’s son (committed suicide last year, due to some financial liabilities). Some kids stuff. His sisters were nice to me and the youngest one became a small time movie actress.

My dad had some money with him since he sold that house for a profit. Another uncle of ours (died a couple of months ago) borrowed a part of it and he then hesitated to return. Dad got a part of it in installments, and this process took many years. He invested the remaining money in some land, which had coconut cultivation. This we bought from one of my aunt’s relatives. Thus I accompanied that aunt (sometimes with sister or mom) when she goes there to pluck coconuts from her property, thus we can pluck coconuts from our property. That was interesting journey. There we used to visit aunt's some of the relatives too.

There were paddy fields, coconut cultivation, small ponds, streams, pine apple, mango trees, rocks, tapioca, hen, cattle etc...