October 27. 2011
Yesterday Achan was excited about cleaning the puja room lamp that is lit daily in the evening. Our neighbor had told him that pulinjika (bilimbi) that grows plenty in our backyard is excellent for cleaning the lamps and other brass utensils. "Sheriyanu, nokku, enthoru shining" (it's true, look, what shining!) he said excitedly, pretending to be a model for one of those ubiquitous detergent ads, while squishing and rubbing another bilimbi fruit onto the brass plate that forms the base for the lamp and the water-bearer 'kindi'. It must be the same chemical that is in Tamarind that is at work, we speculated. Tamarind is commonly used as cleansing agent for metal utensils. The abundant bilimbi at home has already replaced tamarind from our kitchen, now yet another duty is being taken over.
Packed in the glass jar on the top shelf of the kitchen, the tamarind looked dark and sour!
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Among the numerous cats in the neighborhood, there is a tabby that is just past the kitten stage. While sitting in the verandah, I have noticed it come into our compound daily, sometimes twice a day. It will go to the backyard and come back to the front, completing a rectangle around the house in around 10 minutes. I had no idea what it was up to till yesterday. I was nearly startled when it jumped into the garden from the sidewalk to the left of the house on its way back. Paying no attention to me, it pounced again and I could see the focus of its attention: a common sharp-mouthed garden lizard that is called Arana in Malayalam. Most boys named Arun would have been called Arana some time in their schooldays.
This particular Arana soon found itself pinned between the cat's teeth. Its long red tail continued to sway outside the cat's mouth looking like a mutant whisker. With its prey lodged in tightly, the cat noticed me and hurried away through the drain hole. Our garden and backyard are flourishing Arana colonies. Any time we step outside or throw some waste, half a dozen of them scurry away. Always biodegradable waste, I would like mention. These reptilian settlements have become the daily hunting ground for that tom.
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As I progress through the episodes of Kunjikuttan Thampuran's Malayalam translation of the Sanskrit Vyasa Mahabharatha, I am noticing that naughty wind makes frequent appearances. Every other episode, some damsel's clothes are blown away by the wind leaving her naked to be gazed at by some King or sage. In the Yayati-Devayani episode, all the one thousand servant maids frolicking with Devayani in the river lose their clothes to the wind. River Ganga gets hers blown away in front of Mahabheshan, setting off a chain of events that lead to the main story of the Mahabharatha i.e. the war between Kauravas and Pandavas.
Called my new pilot friend to wish him Diwali yesterday and realizing that he is spending the day alone in his apartment, invited him home. He told me that his roomie had taken off for Diwali and he himself would take a break for 'Chaddi', the sixth day after Diwali, which he said is a major celebration in Bihar. In the evening, however, Diwali spirits had already embraced Thiruvananthapuram, so he couldn't get an autorickshaw to come over. Achan and I split the chappatis we had made for him between us at dinner, despite reading about dire warnings in the new "Wheat Belly" book.
As new plants pick up pace in the backyard, more and more time needs to be spent to follow the important advice of "examining every leaf of every plant" for bugs. Achans finds at least a couple of caterpillars and bugs every morning. This introduces shades of gray in our relationship with the colorful, exuberant butterfly population. There was a tiny ash butterfly laying eggs on a new okra leaf this morning. We will get rid of the eggs tomorrow if the rain doesn't do it by then.
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It was so dark at noon that even though we have wall to wall windows in most rooms, the lights had to be turned on. The heavy 'thulavarsham' clouds were impressive in their grip over the land and their stifling of the sun.
Half past noon, it starts to rain. Achan hurried home from the bank right before that.
The rain begins quite gently. Like the murmur in the White House press room before the briefing begins.
I wondered how rain sounded when it had nothing to fall on. I remembered seeing rain coming from far away hills during one of the summer vacations spent in Amma's native village with my maternal grandmother. Beside me then, the tapioca plants, taller than me, were all bent by the wind that was bringing the rain. I couldn't remember its sound. Achan couldn't remember the sound of the rain that he had seen, approaching from miles away in the wilderness of Kasargod where he worked there as a lecturer nearly 40 years ago. I am pretty sure they sounded the same.
Switching gears, the rain shifts to the murmur of the guests at a middle class Indian wedding. After a while it begins to arrive in lashings sounding like grains being tossed for de-chaffing on a massive bamboo sieve.
The momentum steadies into a drizzle.
My paternal grandmother had a small, polished wooden plank that was used for removing small stones and other impurities from moong beans. She would hold the plank at a gentle angle and drop a handful of moong beans onto it. The round beans would roll off easily while the shapeless waste material will be stuck on the plank. She would shake the plank slightly from side to side. In my memory, the sound of the rolling beans had a rising-falling rhythm to it. The drizzle sounds just the same.
Through the curtain of the rain, the landscape transforms into a scene from a grainy old movie but instead of black&white, somehow in rich, diffused colors.
And then without warning, complete breakout. Downpour. The roar resembling the packed 84,000 crowd at Kyle Field responding to an Aggie touchdown against t.u.
Pleasantly loud. Organic.
The television news had to be kept at double the usual volume while we were having lunch. No thunder or lighting today. The young okra plants fell to the damp soil, their leaves burdened by the drops. The 'Agasthya' spinach folded its leaflets, closing into a 'Namaste' , grateful for the rains. The beds of the banana and the red spinach overflowed. An hour of underwater existence for the spinach saplings before earth soaked up all the water.
As the rain recedes, I hear the splutter of mustard seeds on a hundred pans of hot oil, the whispers of thousand Gandharva souls descending from the heaven.
"Listen to me as one listens to the rain" wrote Octavio Paz.
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The demon-king Nishkrithadhuman rules the land between the three oceans for several thousand years. Arrogant about his power and longevity, he ascended to the heaven challenging Indra, the king of gods. After an intense battle lasting a thousand years, Indra slaughtered Nishkrithadhuman with his Vajra weapon. As the massive body of the demon began falling back to the earth, the sages and devas panicked. Earth herself was worried that she would not be able to bear the impact. The problem needed a rapid solution.
The sages approached the legendary Agasthya. Using his incredible powers, Agasthya delayed the fall of the demon's dead body. He proposed a solution. The body could be transformed into three hundred million million rain droplets which can fall onto the earth over ten thousand years. The trouble was that once the demon was transformed into rain, life giving force would be restored into each droplet. The possibility of the demon piecing himself back together could not be ruled out. Hearing this, sage Vashishta said that he will take care of that problem.
With that assurance, Agasthya magically burst Nishkrithadhuman body into three hundred million million rain drops. They began falling to the earth on all the continents. The ones that fell on leaves became women. The ones that fell on the soil became men. With the union of each pair among these, the demon began piecing himself back together.
Upon seeing this, Vashishta created the great Indian hornbill, the bird with a hole in its lowerbeak so that it can drink water only directly from rains. The Hornbill travelled across the continents ingesting raindrops as they were falling. Thousands of droplets thus failed to fall on leaves or on soil. The pairing of the men and women born out of Nishkrithadhuman was thus disrupted.
Relieved and thankful to the hornbill, the devas, sages and mother earth blessed the bird with a golden crown and the ability to live without ever drinking water.
It is fun to make up stories for little nephews and nieces!
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When the rain let up a bit in the afternoon, Achan became Balarama with a spade and cut channels to drain away the water that had clogged around the banana and spinach. Today is the 36th death anniversary of Vayalar Rama Varma, a brilliant poet and arguably the greatest Malayalam movie lyricist ever. 2300 songs in his rather short life-time! Prolific and evergreen. There is an old, tattered, bind-less collection of Vayalar's works in our home library. Spent the afternoon reading some of the 1001 film songs and hundreds of poems included in it. Off and on, the rain played background score. The 1001st song published in the book begins, "Chandrakalabham chaarthi urangum theeram, Indradhanusin thooval povizhum theeram, ee manoharana theerathu tharumo iniyoru janmam koodi, ennikiniyoru janman koodi" (The shore that sleeps adorned in moon's ash, the shore where rainbow's feathers fall, in this beautiful shore, will there be another birth? will I get another life here?)
In lakhs and lakhs of Malayalee minds and lips, Vayalar continues to live!
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