On a Vijayadasami Day

Some places are like that..There may not be anything to see or anyone to meet. But we feel attached to it on some sentimental, emotional level.  There would not be anything important waiting for us, other than some deep, close to heart memories. You may feel a true sense of roots, deep connections. And yes,we call it personal because you alone can understand it. Deep within, you know that you belong there.  It is not necessary that you have to step inside those premises  breathe the air to drive nostalgic. Just the very name of the place is all enough to remind your forgetful memories and connections -    

 This is Kalakkath Tharavad at Killikkurissimangalam in  Lakkidi, near Ottapalam in Gods own Kerala. This is the good old ancestral house of great poet, Kunchan Nambiar.  

 At a non-physical, spiritual and emotional level,I feel that I belong here. It  gives a sense of bonding, a very strange connection that has a reason. This is the place where I opened my windows to that vast world of knowledge.  This is the place where I wrote my first alphabets on that tray of rice grains. Yes, my Vidhyaramabam, happened here, on some 23 years back of now. More than anyone else, the narrow corridors and timbered roofs of his ancestral house would be remembering that beating pulse of little me.  When I marked the journey with my little fingers on those tiny grains then, I never knew that I would grow up to a 25 year old ME to blog about the same . I miss that 3 year old innocence, green pattupavadai and dad’s classic Yezdi bike,a ride to Lakkidi. 

 Despite, having an academically oriented grandmother,a retired teacher who conducted the Ezhuthiniruthu  ceremony of all other members of our family ,my parents  took me here on that Vijayadasami Day. Irrespective of all the religious inclinations and customary beliefs, they took me here. And I wonder, why?

 Every year, I ask them, why they took me there rather than conducting the ceremony at home. And they said Nothing in particular.But deep within I know why?   I am happy that I feel connected to this Tharavadu. The place where the letters and alphabets are born and acquired at my fingertips.

 Today one more, Vijayadasami  Years have passed, God has blessed me abundantly, but when it comes to Knowledge, it feels Inquistive. I want to publish my Dissertation. I want to get a Doctoral Degree. I want to write a book. others .I want to think, feel, imagine, read, write, love and learn forever 
  And, when I get into my Seventies, I want to visit,  Kalakkath Tharavad  with my granddaughter (an imagined one) and say,   
My alphabets belong to this place

When Silence Speaks....

How beautifully does a shore understand the language of sea, the tree listen to the whispers of its leaves, the baby vibrate to the voice of its mother, the dawn wake up to the call of its darling birds, the earth give its ears to the rains of the sky.. They do all the talking without a language or script. Hadn’t you felt awesome in the way some people look at you, they convey you through their gestures and when you see all the tales in their eyes?

when eyes speak all the tales of the world

With some people in some situations, we really do not need a language to communicate. Those are the instances where language becomes nothing more or less than a formality. A stare, a touch, a kiss, a wink, a smile, a tear, a hum, a laughter…is all what that really matters, not always, but at least in some of those days of our life.

Hadn’t you experienced such moments in life where emotions overpower your heart and you run in short of words. And when it begins to grow beyond the periphery of certain fondness, despair or longingness, silence takes away all the eloquence. The innocence of a child, the smile of a stranger, opening an unread message, dreaming about that someone special, reading a beautiful novel, writing a letter with the doubt of posting it, watching a cloud on the sky, taking  hot water shower on a rainy day, tying up those divine knots, wrapping up the surprise gift for a friend on his birthday, eating mother’s food, taking a deep breath, praying with a sigh heart,  crying in the shower, falling in love, discovering a beautiful track…above all, those moments of Yoga, Dhayana, meditation..….do we have a better term to define such beautiful moments other than ‘silence’. Without uttering a word, a sentence we experience the best moments in life because the best of it happens only in silence.

the silence is bliss

 Once, one of my friends shared me an experience from her love life. She fell seriously in relationship with a guy, whom she couldn’t understand completely. The only thing she knew was she loved him when he proposed her. He cared her sometimes and avoided her at other times. She was confused, perplexed and disheartened. Sooner she began to know that his love is not true and she is only an option for him in his times of need. But the realization has not made any difference. Even though she knew it was true, she didn’t want to believe it. 

Now she began to fall in love with him all the more while he still remained the same. She said, “The more I hate, the more I love”. When she began to hear about his encounters with another woman she reacted in all her loud voices. She cried, wept, yelled, accused, grumbled, advised and begged to him in all those good and bad words. But nothing has changed. It has only made him go more and more away from her.

She began to grow tired of arguing, fighting, crying and thereby hurting herself day and night. When everything went hopeless and she learnt that he is much far than she could reach, she took a decision to quit and stay out of his life, leaving all her way for the silence to overcome. From next sunrise, in the place of those100 text messages which she sends him everyday, he received none; in the missed call log, where he normally received maximum calls of her, there were some other names.

As days went on, he began to feel the space, the gap, the darkness and ultimately the silence that was creeping into his life. With half of the heart which has not loved anything, he began to miss her. Her silence began to hurt him much more than her words ever could. His thoughts started to get occupied with her so much that he was no more interested in any other women. The presence of others reminded him too much of her absence. Every beep, miscall, text message alerted him of her silence. The days went on without getting even a slight glimpse of her. The music system in the car played the songs she had given, her photographs, the cards, his blue mug; the leather wallet in his pocket, the adjustable car seat….everything described him of her silence. The quieter she went, the louder her things got around him. 

After a while, it was deafening and when he knew it began to eat his soul and give him an emotional trauma, he came back to her with an open heart which was soft enough to regret and reconcile …this time not because it is a physical need, but because it was emotional and he wanted to save his heart. She accepted him with a smile…a smile in silence, realizing that there are times in our lives we don’t need to be vague nor fight over issues; JUST SILENCE will fight for us.  

Sometimes in life, with some people, when words fail to shower, stab and kneel, silence is the best weapon.  When words give you only skinned knees and broken hearts, all that we have to do is to speak, speak aloud in the reminiscence of silence… the silence that can break a wind and stop those seas, the silence that can bring the tears and skip the beats. Yes, that indefinite, intangible, eternal silence….

Yes, silence is in the 

cool waiting bench, the stillness of the cup and coffee, the late breakfast

, a lone long night drive, the rain dropped window glass, the squeaking train stops,

 the blinking lights, the spinning skies, the last kiss, the fleeting fingertips, 

the zooming lens, oscillations of the swing, the pages of the unknown book, 

echo inside a forest, the church bells, the unsent letters, the erased pencil markings, 

the breathing words, the winks of your cat the unhatched egg, unborn foetus, 

the mirage, the trembling earth, the smoker’s puff, the candle light,the silent night, 

the edges of words,, those fallen leaves,  

and 

           in the  memories of…………