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