The Desperate
Pride.
I get inspired in a jiffy. Being a designer at
heart(and by profession) , this one day in my life will continue to linger in
my heart with a slight flavor of helplessness , anger and pain of having
realized that I am another one in the strain of those proud Nairs of Kerala,
who have little left to hold on to.
Right when I thought that I had lost myself and the
enthu cutlet in me to the vicious circle of corporate life, marriage and
everything else that the modern era had to offer, I decided to take a break and
make a trip to where I belong, to the old nostalgic streets and the huge
‘tharavaadu’(ancestral home) in a small village of Malabar. Surprisingly, it
was that time of the year that used to be nothing short of a celebration for
every possible being remotely associated to the family, be it the cat, the dog,
the helpers or the neighbors’ .It was the ‘Machille Pooja’ Time, when the
ancestral deity was offered a feast for guarding the family wealth and
prosperity. I could not contain the excitement of being able to attend and see
all the faces that my memory had abandoned decades ago without a choice. I
spent a restless night brimming with vague memories from the past, of fun, of
laughter and immense caring and sharing.
Sanity told me it was not going to be same now, for I
knew those happy kids have grown up to be practical adults, most of them had
left the country for bigger fortunes and others were doing too good in life to
be able to find time for an old tradition. But my heart wished otherwise. I was
desperate for those laughter, the innocent hugs and the games in the rain.
I decked myself up like a small kid in my new salwaar,
with a bindi on my forehead and those glass bangles and started counting
minutes till the pooja started and people started pouring in to the humble
temple premises, where the pooja was to be held. But the only thing that poured
was rain, dark heavy rains that filled my heart with cold and made my heart
sink low. None of the few familiar faces I expected to see had turned up, and
the rest had changed beyond recognition. Nobody talked to anybody throughout
the ritual and the few smiles that flashed across the room were made up and
lacked the innocence. My grandmother, who has always been the closest to my
heart and being the one who understood the slightest variation in my aura
caught me sulking. She walked closer to me and patted my shoulder saying ‘you
will see more people for the evening rituals’. That sentence was a thread of
hope for me. With every conversation after the ritual and on our way back to
the ancestral house, hundreds of questions remained unanswered in my mind. I
needed answers and reasons for everything. The lace of fun, happiness,
belonging and everything that had put me down that day.
Evening came and rituals started. Granny was right…I
saw many more faces, few that was very close to my heart once upon a time, few
that were the role models back then and few that used to bring about instant
smile on my face. Nothing was the same. Loving hugs and passionate squeezes were
replaced with casual ‘HI’ and ‘HOW ARE YOU’. I could not believe myself as I
sat staring at them unable to speak a word. Reason was simple. I had nothing to
talk. I hardly knew their stories, and their world seemed universe apart from
mine. A lot has changed. I cursed myself for not having kept in touch and for
not having known them better as I grew up. After all, we were all the same back
then. We had so much in common.
My brother, being the over enthusiastic lover of
nostalgia and the craziness that he was, decided to take me along in his tour
of the old house. He was born 10 years before me and hence he had lot of
memories there. There was so much character in every brick. My mother joined us
in the tour and started reciting stories about her childhood as we passed each
corridor. She even dug out the black and white photos of herself with her gang
that looked nothing less happening that a Beatles poster. I was very impressed.
At the end of all that excited recitals and photo spotting, I looked into her
eyes to find the shine through pearls of tear and asked ‘why can’t we still
have the fun times, Cant everything be the same like before’. She took a look
breath fighting back the heaviness in her voice and said. ‘There is no WE now,
there is only I and YOU and you are born too late to make it all right’. She
walked away into her chores and got engaged in the casuals ‘HOW ARE YOU’ as I
tried to decipher those words.
As I travel back to that viscous circle, I carry with
me few lessons and disappointments. Disappointment that I will never be good
enough to explain to my future generation what it is like to be belonging to
one of the most prestigious Nair families in Malabar, which was respected and
looked upon, simply because I have only heard tales and seen the shatters.
Lessons that everything fades away eventually, the name, the fame and the honor
if not valued in the most pious manner.
This is an ode to that the last in the line of the few
Nair families in Malabar that is struggling to survive, and is desperate to
regain its long lost pride. This is also an ode to all those prestigious
families that failed miserably just because the new generation failed to
realize what they were about to lose.
