Dark Deja Vu (BH:D264)

April 24, 2012

Yesterday evening I made a business related home visit. It was power cut time in the area when I walked over. 

The house is close to the one where I used to have physics and chemistry tuition classes 18 years ago. Negotiating a downward slopping, shoddily tarred, potholed road in the darkness reminded me of another chemistry tuition routine from 16 years ago. 

I was one of the students of Mr. N. S . Nair in his ISC syllabus chemistry coaching. Walking to and fro his home, we had to cross a narrow walkway through a coconut grove and an abandoned field. Interesting walks especially during power cuts. 

Mr. Nair was a scientist at the Geological Survey of India and glorified the extra finger on the palm long before Hrithik Roshan's career began. Recently a mutual acquaintance told me that he still remembers me. Those of us who went to his classes from our school were the "rebels". 

You see, the teacher who taught us chemistry in school also ran her own tuition center in an ironic admission of the lacklustre job she was doing in the classroom. Non-rebellious students were supposed to go that tuition. I am told that it still flourishes and she has made it her full time engagement. Of course, with over 100,000 students (104,852 is the exact number for yesterday's exam) writing the Engineering entrance exam each year in Kerala, the business is booming.

Our chemistry tuition was conducted in a small outhouse. A symbolic cane was always kept on the teacher's table though we never saw it applied. I remember absolutely nothing from the chemistry that was taught. My brain can be forced to come up with some images apparently from those times. One was a particular walk during a power cut when, fearing snakes, we stomped the entire way through the fields and talked extra loud. 

After the meeting, walk back home at 9:30pm. The road and darkness is familiar but surroundings have changed much. The noisy crittens and rustling leaves of the wild growth by the roadside have gone. In those spaces, towering apartment complex and new homes. 

Lights dimmed by curtains from the upper floors of the tall buildings substitute for the stars. Chatter of television screens make much less sense than chirping crickets. The dieting pet dogs of the mansions and the lean, gluttonous ones of the streets wail about and bark against their man-made segregation and class!

All the vehicles have safely reached their congested garages. A few students hurrying home after tuition, still in their sticky school uniforms, share the road with me. They are busy texting. Cellphones didn't exist in Thiruvananthapuram when I went to school. For us then, texting resulted in dog eared and abundantantly highlighted and underlined textbooks.

The headlines in the last page of The Hindu read like the 'state of the union': Record food grain production expected this year; India world's largest spam market; 47% of global measles affected live in India. Add to this the photograph of a thick diamond studded gold crown donated to some goddess by a Chennai businessman.

Talking about gold, Kerala celebrated Akshaya Thrithiya, the fad that has gripped this gold greedy population in the last few years. It used to be a simple auspicious day acknowledged as "Pathamudayam" marking the transit of the sun between constellations. Now the gold merchants in the state has managed whip up an Onam like frenzy about gold buying. 

Apparently, it is Balarama's birthday. Balarama walked around with a plough, epics tell us. May be it was a golden plough. The greatest demand yesterday was for gold coins embossed with the golden god, Sri Padmanabhaswamy's, image. But not far behind were coins with Islamic and Christian icons on them. 200% increase in business compared to last year. Shops had special 'shamianas' put up outside to accomodate the crowd. They were open for business till 2am! 

Mahabali should start getting seriously worried about his numero uno status in the festival calendar of Kerala.