memmories
Posted in Uncategorized on 12/05/2010 12:09 am by neetha nairI was born in a small town Calicut in Kerala on 2nd December 1966. My father was working in a Pvt bank then. My mother was just 20 yrs, who was already mother of a 2 yr old son when i was born.
(I cant remember any of this first few years – sad na?)
The first of my memories are of a banana shaped glass feeding bottle, with rubber nipples on either side , A wooden blue & yellow Horse , a tricycle - red and white, a few iron bars that looked over to the main road and a flight of stairs to the first floor house in Kalpatta .I Remember the floor was red , And there were many pigeons housed on the tiled roof outside the iron bars . I was horrified by feathers , so much so that even now I hesitate to touch one , except the peacock feather. I keep away from winged beings :D
I don’t remember the faces of my parents or brother at that time – strange !!?
I remember my mother sewing on a machine, but remember her legs go swing swang- not her face.
I remember my mother sewing on a machine, but remember her legs go swing swang- not her face.
I faintly remember the face of a middle aged man, who was running a work shop next door , where we used to go and play in the evening and called the person “mama”. My parents knew them well , and so we were allowed to cross the wall or were often exchanged by hands over the wall. He was a bald headed round faced man with grease on his shirt and hands . Don’t remember further . We must have enjoyed going there – we were almost regulars .
The ground floor was the bank in which my father worked- those days the norm was to have an attached quarters . So we played even inside the bank after banking hours while the sweeper cleaned or some staff worked late. I remember the smell inside the bank, of the “ink” , of the paper, of the round round dots that came out of the punching machine, the stamp pads , the finger prints we made on paper by dipping our fingers on them etc…these prints are still on my mind…
One such day while we returned after the play session, we encountered a kobra on the steps . Our father was not home, mother was alone upstairs, and we were on the steps trying to go up but threatened by the snake. I remember the way we screamed , scared and wanting to run to hide behind our mother. Some people passing by the road in a jeep stopped and killed the snake and burned it in front of us. They believed that the snake’s eyes reflect the person who killed it and the other in the pair would hunt him down, so they burn it !
Another clear memory is of the then Notorious ( now famous) naxalite Ajitha – who visited our building. The police jeep that took her to the jail after her arrest had stopped in front of the bank and the lady wanted to use a wash room. We came down to “see” how the naxalite looked like. I remember the police women’s uniforms and the hands that were in cuffs. I hear that now she is a woman activist and is leading a respectable life after her release in 1977. As per her records she was arrested in 1968 which means I was around 2 yrs only then !
Wonder why some memories hold on so long on us.