ON A TRAIN FROM KERALA WITH A LOST GERMAN

The evening sun had just given in and the sky still had its pinkish red hue on. Another train had come in, relaxed a little and left for its next point. Tiruvalla station looked suddenly deserted as soon as a train left. It was and is still one of the small stations in Kerala. Tiruvalla lies on the banks of the Pamba and Manimala rivers and is the largest town in the central Travancore district.

The Madras Mail was running late by thirty minutes. I knew that I would easily get frustrated waiting and I was constantly trying to kill the thought that I will have to kill time. I noticed that most of the travelers waiting on the same platform were families. Some of them would be boarding the same train heading for Chennai like me.

One little boy from one of these families came close to the edge of the platform and started pouring water on the track while his father was trying to dissuade him. This set a cue for a few other little boys from other families to try and do the same and they kept pestering their parents for their water bottles. 

Beyond the station’s fence, a crow who had just stolen a fish from a fish stall was battling with a cat, after it had inadvertently dropped its catch. The platform tea shop vendor was into a banter with a customer, possibly a regular traveler, on Kerala politics, while the radio in his shop was belting out some of the most melodious old Malayalam numbers. Some of the best lines in the songs got sucked in the discord of their banter and also the clatter of the vessels that the helper in the shop was washing. The fact that I missed out on these beautiful lines bothered me. Suddenly I realized that I was probably the only living being who was not doing anything and that added another layer of frustration on top what was already inside. 

It became a little darker by the time the Madras Mail came into the station. I got into the first-class compartment and settled down near the window. The train started moving as I slowly bid goodbye to Tiruvalla.  I always preferred the first class over the air-conditioned coach when I travelled solo. I loved the windows that opened out and let in fresh air. One could experience nature very closely as the train whizzed past the mountainous earth through which its passage had been hewn out in the Ghats with lush green shrubs brushing past the window frame. I loved the drops of water that came dripping down the window grill after a rain and the smell of wet earth. The compartments also had doors and thereby we could have our private space with just a few co-passengers. 

To my surprise, my co-passenger was a foreigner. He was asleep on the lower berth opposite to mine. The other two berths were still empty. I enjoyed the beautiful view through the window and the rhythmic music emanating from the tracks. In the fading light coming through the window, I saw him move and stretch his hands and legs. “Hi. I am Matteo”, he said and extended his hand in greeting me. “I am Roy. Nice to meet you”, I responded with hesitation. He sat up and switched on the lights. He looked dull and run down and that made me a little tense. A doubt that he may be drunk ran through my mind and disturbed me. Matteo lit a cigarette and started smoking. His hands shivered as he held the cigarette and let out a stream of smoke through the window into the darkness. I did not protest on the smoke accumulating in the compartment. I normally would proactively start a cautious conversation with a co-traveler, but here I hesitated even for that too. 

“I believe you are on a tourist trip in Kerala. How do you find the place?”, I pitched in. Matteo was looking out through the window and took time to make eye contact. “Absolute beauty of a place. I am from Germany and I love Kerala”, he replied with a vague smile. “How about your family? They have not come with you?”, I asked. There was silence while both of us caught the attention of a few kids waving to us from fields that went past. “I am single again”, he said. I did not want to probe any further as there arose a tendency in me connecting his depressive demeanour to probably a troubled personal life that he was into. I decided to digress a little. “I am sure you would be having a plan to see the best places here, like the Periyar National Park, the backwaters of Alleppey, the Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple and other places”, I said. “My ex-wife gifted me this beautiful watch last week”, he said. What I had thought about him was right. “You still meet her. That’s nice”, I said. “Yea. We went up the Nebelhorn mountain last week on my birthday. She is still concerned about me. She loves Kerala. I promised that I would take her to a few places here. She will be coming tomorrow to Cochin”, he said as his face suddenly illuminated with a faint smile from the melancholy that it had been soaked in. There was silence again as Matteo lit another cigarette and looked into the night. The train moved at a rapid pace with its rhythmic music. We reached Ernakulam and Matteo got up. He wasn’t steady when he stood up. “You have a safe journey”, he said and stepped out into the night. I wished him a happy time ahead.

Although I gave him a warm smile as he stepped out, Matteo actually left me in a daze. To me he appeared lost but I was not sure if he was lost in love again. I was also single then. It was the early 90s and India for me was still a country holding on to traditions and arranged marriages, at least in the social circle that I swam in. How could someone separate in a marriage and then accept a gift from the ex-wife and also take her to places that she wanted to go? 

Two years later, when my marriage was about to happen, since both me and my wife were from the same school, we thought it would be good to go together to invite the teachers. We had been in same school with me as one year senior to her. We both were into serious academic pursuits and we had hardly talked to each other. Our families were known to each other for many years and that was how the marriage took shape. But still, our parents debated and mulled for at least a week about our going together to invite the teachers. At school, the teachers also asked us questions on the same lines, whether there had been any romance at all between us, as they hadn’t seen anything in the open. 

Thirty years have passed. Today I see a different India, a different youth and a different older generation trying to come to terms with this change. It’s as though we have all moved towards what Matteo was touching upon thirty years back. Today it’s not a big thing. It seems to be happening everywhere around us. Nothing seems to be an issue as long as things finish well. The only catch would be the thrill in the ride till the end result shows up.

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ANOTHER EASTER...ANOTHER CHICKEN CURRY

We have Easter coming up the next Sunday. This is the first time I am going through a fifty day fast. But I have only been skipping non-vegetarian dishes and not been skipping meals at all. Along with this I managed to have Morning Prayer sessions in the company bus, while on my way to office, on most of the days. So in real terms this is actually nowhere close to a real fast.


Next Sunday, I will be in the long queue at some chicken meat shop in Anna Nagar, Chennai, to buy some meat for the Easter chicken curry that is to be prepared at home. This along with Kerala appam will form the sumptuous breakfast for Easter. My wife and sister would be the ones who would get this cooked and we would sit together around the dining table and have breakfast. Am happy atleast that way...I mean...by having food together, our family is still doing something together.

Our life has become so mechanical that way. We seem to be so busy running after things that really are not going to give us in proportion to this run. We seem to know it too. But still we run. Looks like we have to. There are just very few areas where as a family we can get together into some activity during a festival these days. This year I had just set up the tree and my daughter decorated the tree herself. I was too busy with work around Christmas time and I just could not join her. Again an example of things being done in isolation in a family.

I remember the Easter feast in Kerala when I was a little child. We had been there as a family during my school holidays. My aunt had planned for Kerala chicken curry for breakfast. My father and uncle were to take the lead in chasing the hens and catching them. Me and my cousins, all of almost the same age, were all over the place chasing them. The hens ran all around the back of the house, sometimes flew a little up into the lower branches of the trees, ran through the paddy fields, but finally they were caught. It was the role of the elderly males to kill and dress the chicken and get it ready to be cooked. My father and my uncle would get into this role and we kids would all sit around and watch. Once the hen was dressed and cleaned, my aunt and mother would take over and do the cooking. It was the role of the women to cook the food with all love and care. The more their interest and focus was in the cooking, the more would be the taste that would come out. And while the cooking was in progress, we kids would hang around, helping them to keep the traditional stove alive with dry twigs and leaves, blowing and blowing to get the flame out of the embers. Once the cooking was done, we would sit together and enjoy the family feast. Today the dressed chicken cut into pieces is available for our taking. And cooking ranges of all kinds are available that makes life easier. But that way we have killed the family activity associated with it. In those days, there was a lot of interaction over such activities that bound the family together.

Today the biggest factor that is hitting all families is the time at hand for the family members to participate in such activities. Be it family prayer, a family gathering, a family dinner, or other family activities, we find it difficult to see it happen and even if it happens, it does very rarely, in a nice and relaxed manner.

May be, it is we ourselves who should draw the line, between family life and the other busy areas we are into. Tradition is always great and sweet to be retained and for that to happen, we need to have a good time set aside for our family. After all, spending long hours over powerpoint presentations and excel sheets while leaving the family aside, will only deny us of those precious moments in life.