By 
Every place in Keralam is a picnic spot. The place chosen by my father to build a house, after years of wandering from one place to another, reveals his love for scenic beauty, or it may just be a combination of circumstances, for which generations of Vasudevan uncles should be grateful to him.
The plot is in the bend of the river, the bank is quite steep, the perspective from the summit can only be described by a poet. The house is in the foreground, on the right hand side of the river that you see in my blog. Uncle Vasu built a bungalow there, with a terrace roof, a wonderful thing at the time. From the terrace, we used to look at the eastern mountains, the Western Ghats, which turn bluish in the rainy season. In summer, we all used to sleep there, looking at the diamonds scattered all over the sky. A Nambudiri from Karkoli taught us the names of some of those wondrous stars, the milky way traversing the starry sands. In the cities, our children are denied the joy that I experienced seventy years ago.
The carpenters who worked there made a small canoe and gave it to my older brother. I am a born friend of the water, maybe a fish in my last life. Looking at the bamboo rafts gliding slowly along the full river, the workers cooking rice in one corner and fishing, he longed to be one among them, when he grew up. Sometimes it would be a huge wooden boat, equipped with a thatched roof, something like a houseboat. Only in novels have I read about people traveling in boats on the Ganges.
As soon as we moved into our house by the river, my thread ceremony took place. I became Brahman, Ovinichunni, as we are called. The cover of my book shows the appearance of ovinichunni.
It was also the end of my early childhood. Every day I had to perform various rituals under the strict supervision of my father who, one day, was so angry that he grabbed both of my hands, lifted me up like a bunch of bananas, and beat me until his rage subsided or stopped. tired, I don’t know which one, all because I broke the sacred thread, while playing in the river water. I did not cry But the agony is still fresh in my sensitive mind!
My father commented: you are harder to handle than an elephant.
People from the neighboring houses came to wash and bathe there, for Papa made a bathing ghat in the river, duly paved with granite steps, and we always had the company of the village boys for our water sports. I was not aware of the fact that the thread somehow disappeared. It’s excusable in a six year old. We hit children, to vent our feelings. Aren’t children God’s creations? Who authorized us to punish them?
Normally my father is a very peaceful person. He is very slow and it takes him a long time to complete his morning rituals. He never uses the bath towel. The water will slowly evaporate. He was totally bald and had no teeth. In his bronze betel chew case, there was a special grinder for pulverizing the mixture of betel leaves, areca nut, lime, tobacco, and a bit of erattimadhuram (meaning double sweet root). I don’t know what it is. We used to eat it, erattimadhuram, which is really very sweet.
At bedtime, he would tell us to kick his feet with all our might. My brother and I drove each leg. It was fun.
He talked about many things with his brother, including poetry in Samskrutam, which I couldn’t follow. My brother imbued interest in learning and is a true encyclopedia. He went to school for a while and doesn’t know English; but he has read all the books in malayalam. He knows our family history and has written many things down in a notebook. No one has seen it. He recently passed away just before he crossed eighty.
Kirangatu Mana
One day we went to attend a function at Kirangattu mana. I was in the women’s wing. I looked towards the outer men’s wing and was overjoyed to see KRS (Unniaphan, Ramaphan’s son)
He took me around and showed me a wonderful new world. At about 3 in the afternoon, I guess, an old man entered the temple. He sat on a tiger skin. KRS sat across from him and repeated everything the old man recited.
After some time, he asked me: do you like to learn othu (Veda)?
I immediately said yes. So she told me to sit next to KRS and I also repeated Veda’s lines. I stayed in Kirangat mana with KRS for over a year.
Kirangatu mana
Traditionally, the young namboodirs of the kk family would go to Kirangatu mana. They were our gurus. For Rigvedis there was mathematics in Trichur and one in Thirunnavaya. None for us Yajurvedis.
So it was not a surprise for our guru. Surely my anxious face must have attracted his attention. At that time, Anujan and Kunjanujan’s nambudiries were not married. There were no children there. Naturally, we were pampered by everyone. There were many Nambudiris, most of them with wives in the royal palace at Tripunithura, who came there from time to time.
The tusks of Kesavan (elephant, property of mana) evoked amazement and admiration. Some iron chains recalled the glory of the famous animal whose beauty was only surpassed by its cruelty (it killed about 16 mahouts). Only Pozhichur namboodiri, who was just the shop keeper and never failed to give Kesavan something to eat, could hold his fangs. In the presence of this man, Kesavan became docile like a child!
There was a large country boat. The west side of the estate was a lake. I looked longingly at the island of Chenam, but never had the good fortune of a boat ride. There were separate bathing facilities for men and women (as in all Namboodiri families) and an additional tank in the temple. Today they are all dry. A huge manchadi tree provided us with dazzling red beads to play with. From time to time, Vasudevan from neighboring Kannathmana would join us. I can keep writing about those times…