English is mine. Emotion is hers and I can’t position her

There is no dearth of materials in sociology, to talk about displaced individuals, affected by factors such as dam and airport construction in the name of modernity and growth for the affluent. The affected people are essentially poor, with less ambition, and very little shades of selfishness.

The idea of displacement of a different kind is also not new to the affluent/ middle class population with ambition and more impulsive desire for upward mobility, both financially and socially. Following is the brief snapshot picture of a girl of 21 years, flying to the U.S with all colorful dreams but only to understand later that life would be devastatingly frustrating sometimes in stark blue and white. Shall we listen to her? Emotion is hers, English is mine. I can’t position her now. That is immaterial to under the real story. “Everything seemed idyllic, till fate slammed into my life like a big bang for the second time. And there I was a single woman thrown out of home with two children. I was living (with) the America dream. But Alas ! A life filled with fame and fortune came to an abrupt end, to a grinding halt, like a bolt from the blue.

“ But I did not meekly submit and surrender, and was determined to fight and prove my worth. I put the past behind and began to concentrate on my passion and just focus on it. Success eluded at first, but I didn’t scamper into sunset. I had it in me to explore experiment and take risks.

There is no abject reverence to tradition. Nor I am on a confrontationist course. Its time to demystify life and make it simpler, less intimidating, make it a soul sibling experience by searching for fresh movement and charm.

Future is all about innovation. One need not be swayed by emotion and or recognition. We can’t change the attitude and thinking process of others. And yet we must attempt to change the lives of people in whatever way we can, reach out, share ideas and motivate the people.

I trust people despite having been hurt by those whom I trusted most. Take life head on and count success in the chosen field.”

It is not just her emotive feelings alone. I have added my own flavor, butter scotch to give hope and courage to all those who are displaced. At present I am also displaced dispossessed and hence I need this tonic for my own peace and harmony.

Long delayed sentimental trip to Mahe materialized last week-II

The flight was delayed at Chennai airport by more than half an hour. I was worried about catching the connecting flight from Bangalore to Calicut by the same Kingfisher Group Airlines. Fortunately, the same flight by which I travelled and which was scheduled to go to Mangalore from Bangalore was redirected towards Calicut fortunately, because of the delay at Chennai airport. Passengers moving towards Calicut were asked to stay back and in less than forty minutes, it took off towards Calicut.

At the airport, People were there to receive and the car travel was pleasant. I engaged myself in a conversation with those two guys by reliving in the past and narrating so many incidents , telling them that the present Home minister of Kerala was my first batch Third Group student, an obedient and polite student really but firmly rooted in Marxist background. On the way we stopped for a while , and tasted the black lemon tea: I enjoyed myself the cool air of the soil; In a matter of two hours , dream was going to come true after a very very long interval- 38 long years. Around 8 Pm in the night, when the vehicle was crossing the road, towards Mahe I could not believe myself, how a sleepy village had drastically changed in such a dramatic fashion .Until we came near the church and some empty ground opposite to it where some meeting was going on, I was not very clear about the topography of the region I travelled thus far . From there it was just a question of nearly 100 meters and a turn to the right, my old Pre- Degree college was standing majestically in the same old state, now really old but converted into some other office purpose.

I asked them to stop the vehicle and got down.I can’t find words to express my emotive feelings stamping in my heart at that precious moment.It was more like falling on the lap of a girl whom you loved once, but the girl now had become an aged lady, but displaying the eternal beauty . I desired to enter the building but unfortunately the gates were locked. I went near the compound wall,touched the name board and folded my hands towards the Lord, sleeping deeply in heavens, amidst the host of galaxies. At long last, the ardent desire to touch the soil and thank the region -my first place of work was fulfilled. But this thrill, fun and academic adventure lasted until I narrated all those glorious past to my board members the very next day, while going round the Dental college, located in a pleasant environment, surrounded by forest like atmosphere.

Stay in the Star Hotel at Telicherry and its rich food were no substitutes for boys and girls whom I taught forty years ago and whose faces, I could not fully recognize now with the passage of time. If only I had come across some erstwhile Mahe students there by happy accident, I could have been more happy. But a week after I met one of my old Mahe students on Pondicherry beach, who is currently working as commissioner of taxes in Mahe. Unfortunately, even one of my Pondicherry students, who is currently working as principal in one of the higher secondary schools there was not there at that time as he had come back to Pondicherry on an official trip But, I had a good sleep after a warm bath and good food , had a morning walk next day , a very fruitful governing body, followed by simple lunch in the canteen - ordinary fish curry cooked with coconut- the one I had tasted forty years ago.

The only consolation during my stay was that one gentleman who joined along with me as Assistant Professor during in the first week of August 1970 and became the principal of the college later in his pre-retirement days , also happened to be a member of the Board. Together we recollected the past and gathered those moments of joy and happiness. The hosts were kind enough to arrange a trip to nearby Cannur and I tasted the pleasant air of the winter there.We didn’t have time to walk over the beautiful long stretch of beach. A young boy, who was brought up in Pondicherry and whose father I happened to know in Tagore Arts College was instrumental in making our trip possible ,as he drove the vehicle. While returning back in the evening near a road side tent like tea shop I tasted a special kind of rice dish, cooked in a sea shell and fried on the stove , called Kallumakkaya. Then it started raining heavily.We reached Telicherry Gokulam hotel before it became night.

While I give an account of my long dreamt Mahe trip I should specifically mention a small encounter with a Dog, while going for a morning walk and also the pleaseant feeling of mingling with some sixty children and school faculty , who were on a one day picnic to Cochin, flying for the first time in the same flight I was travelling, the next day. That will wait for an day for narration. Will that day come?

Long delayed sentimental trip to Mahe materialized last week

Given a chance, at any point of time in life , any one will be happy and thrilled to visit his home town or village, visit child hood friends and also see the primary school or high school he may attended while he was young and simply breathe the earthly soil of the village. In my case, the long cherished dream was to visit the region called Mahe, the western enclave of Pondicherry Union Territory laying on the lap of the west coast, very near Tellicherry. This was the place where I started my academic career as Assistant Professor in a pre- Degree College , which was then stationed in a school building, overlooking the Mahe river from behind and the lovely backwaters/ Mahe river was mingling with the waves of Arabian Sea. It was really a picturesque postcard kind of typical natural Kerala scenery. I joined Mahe college forty years ago ago, on August 6^th 1970, soon after getting my M.A degree from Madras Presidency College.

After serving for two years (1970-72) at Mahe and getting married during the summer vacation, I returned back to Mahe alone in 1972 to pack up my belongings and start for home, not Pondicherry town but only to Karaikal Government Arts College. There I started my second innings, as a college teacher, this time as a married man. At that time I never thought that for the next thirty eight years I was going to be distanced from my first work place - a place which gave me a decent life and security as a college teacher.

My marital life at Karaikal as also the academic ambiance in the college was incredibly wonderful, and that kind of bliss, exuberance and energetic family and academic life, I could never dream later; four years of stay at Gokhule Institute, Pune during late 70’s and early 80’s – one fourth of the period in Pune spent with family consisting of young wife and young kids .This was the most fruitful time academically speaking but I returned back home in 1982 after the extension of fellowhip without the Ph.D degree , as the area chosen for research viz international finance was not only slippery but I was also too naïve and more academically more greedy. This attitude towards perfection and craving for more academic scholarship continues to remain as a stumbling block for my growth. No regrets.

In the last four decades, especially in the last few years I have travelled extensively to many places but Mahe was always missing in the equation of my journey. My heart beat alone knows how much I longed to see that sleepy village then which is of course more active now.

Thanks to more private capital inflows and Govt funds mushroom growth of Shopping complexes had appeared all over the small region which appears different now. For reasons hard to explain or elaborate, I could not take even a single step towards visiting that region ever since I returned from there in 1972. At long last, came an opportunity to visit the place as a member of Governing Body of Mahe Dental College Hospital, in the capacity of the representative of V.C’s nominee.

Like Cheran’s Autograph movie, I had my own excitement and sense of exhilaration to visit the place but unlike the movie for me there was no agenda to see the old boys and girls, as they might be positioned in different places. This does not imply that there was no boy or a girl in my mind . They all belong to past history and many of them I will never see in this birth again. But the feeling of love or infatuation that I had with at least one or two girls was unilateral and also immature.But it was definitely a kind of love at the right age- a finer feeling which age cannot wither away nor customs stale to tell in Shakespear’s language regardless of the fact that I have become grand father.

The desire was always there to see and engage them in an intellectual conversation.My subconscious mind was craving for it- Knowing fully well that it was next to impossible to find them. They might be in the mid fifties now Thanks to the travel agency and student friends ‘ help in my office, the to and fro trip by air was quickly fixed . I found myself in a fantastic mood of imagination,-seeing and smelling the soil, sitting in my office, a sense of the quiet descended at my heart, by thinking about the visit; Then I recollected my first trip to Mahe as a lone traveler in Mangalore mail forty years ago, landing there on a rainy day to join duty at Mahatma Gandhi Government Arts College. The infinite beauty of an enchanting Kerala girl in the compartment-that vivid memory, lingered in my mind; even after forty years the memory fails to evaporate, though the face has been forgotten. Small wonder then, Poet Bharathi also spoke about the company of beautiful young Kerala girls while rowing boat in the moon lit Ganges river, and singing lyrics in sweet Telugu.

Equip yourself to get afflicted with wounds when you start loving people profusely

“When life wounds you, I hope it is because you loved people.Not because you mistreated them.” What a fantastic sentence, wrote by someone. It is very much true in any body’s life. All through my life I have received cumulative wounds in my heart and mind .I also learnt to live stoically with all smiles on the black face. I have also learnt from scholars, that regardless of what happens in life at the end of the day/life, there will be always joy. Is this promise meant for solace and peace of all the disadvantaged and dispossessed? I don’t know.

Realizing happiness/peace is as elusive as finding out an equilibrium exchange rate for a national economy. All of us wait for a significant defining moment in life, to happen. When will it arrive exogenously? or should we strive for and generate it endogenously? Again I am not sure. But we shall always maintain our composure and steel our nerves to withstand all the shocks and disturbances of life. This simply means we must look beyond the ordinary travails and turbulence of life and their absurd outcomes.

I know , absence of love or denial of love or the pain from excess love are very much real and cruel in a man’s or woman’s life. But what can we do except to work and also do not forget to love the society, which in essence implies a crowd of people or your friends wound you. We should believe in a miracle and say and believe that being lonely and abandoned is also bliss and that some thing better is in store for the future. It may be a lie, a selective or seductive lie to give you temporary peace.

Many a time, I feel that I am a blessed man. Since I have been blessed and loved enough, the supreme makes me to undergo some turmoil and the newly found love also has become elusive and nonexistent although they are as real as the Sun and moon. As a nation living with dis- equilibrium exchange rate, all of us should also learn to live with all intellectual fire inside the body without finding fault with others.

I want to inhale fresh oxygen in the early morning, take a deep breath, after having a look at the beautiful sunrise and laugh away the problems of yesterday’s and tomorrow’s. But Alas! I am not able to get up from the bed even after seven, seducing myself that sleep also is equally good like walking. This kind of mixing and fusing with a sense of humor will not give any peace. I cannot abandon my responsibility towards myself and run away from walking. For quite some time I have been only writing, reading, remembering, ruminating and ultimately celebrating over the merits of walking but not in a position to take even a first step in that direction; especially when walking seriously has become absolutely important for my very physical survival it is foolhardy to ignore and remain physically inactive in the morning hours .Yes there will be joy in the end if I start walking. I cannot make a great leap forward in this direction. But I must change little by little. Who knows? Something bigger and something greater or unexpected stimulus would arrive through some company and at that time I will neither forget to walk nor laugh away my problems. Life has punished me enough because I loved people. But life has also given everything because many I have showered love on me. The million dollar debt is how I am going to repay my debt to all the good souls which have loved me. That will remain as a question forever. Because ,I know, living at margin , I may not have the time , energy and also even the resources to repay all my debt to the vast sea of humanity which has nursed and nurtured me .The crude fact of life now is that, after sixty, I behave and crave like a child, seeking attention, warmth and embrace. I can write a fine prose or lecture about love but the ground level reality is different. I will come out of childish/childlike behavior and became adult.

I wonder how I have been lived through with all my naivety inherited from mother

We don’t expect a miracle to save .People go through life wondering what they are suppose to do when it is always right in front of them .They should do what they are good at. Instead of dreaming and worrying about many things that they can’t accomplish, they must attempt to chew those things which are manageable. Although we know that everyone will get his moment, and that we need not worry about many things by sheer human nature many a time we complicate simple things and also tend to postpone those things which need to be addressed immediately. I have paid a heavy price in my life by not taking proper care of both domestic and financial life. By sheer fate and destiny- sorry simple stupidity and incapacity to sort out my priorities. lacking smartness and diplomacy and so on , I messed up many things in life.

The great consolation was that my mother lived for a long time and more important she spent her last decade of her life with me. She was always never tired of her work. Till the end her hard work alone sustained her life. She never complained about life, she never slept during day time especially after taking lunch. She lived her life fully, energetically, emotionally and may a time naively with God given serenity and wisdom. Only towards the end of her life I was patient, calm and understanding. I should have treated her well and given more to her. Her life itself was an education to me. My education was useless for my life except to get a passport to lead a comfortable life in academic corridors with some commitment of course towards societal causes. Strong parental genes have kept me in good stead amidst financial loss and domestic chaos. Economics, as my first love has always served as an anchor.