Vinay’s mother, whose name was Annamma was also facing a similar attitude from vinay’s father. Not similar, quiet worse than someone could expect. Vinay’s mother was very short and little fat with a very curly hair. She had small and tiny black moles on her both cheeks and it was prominent because of her fair skin. Vinay’s mother used to leave home by 8:30 in the morning and the kids used to get dropped in the school by their uncle Ranjith. Uncle Ranjith was around 28 years old. He was little short but taller than vinay’s father by few inches. He was healthy, very fair and had a wavy hairstyle which he used to maintain meticulously by pressing his hair with the back of the thin long comb which he always had in his pocket. Everyone admired his charming look.
times, his uncle used to drop mother when it’s little
urgent and the kids would take a walk to the school. And to help them in the
daily routine they had a “velakkaari” (Housemaid) at home. The term “velakkari”
was replaced later by “jolikkari”, then to “servant” and finally to “Housemaid” when Vinay grew up and understood the
inferior feeling about being called as a “jolikaari”. He was always baffled to
see that the housemaids kept changing every few months at his house. The truth
was that, vinay's mother would always flush out her professional and personal
frustration upon them.
Vinay’s mother gets back home by 6 or 7 in the evening with
huge books along with her, thinking she would finish the pending work at home.
Ranjith uncle would lend his hand in helping her finishing the work. He still
remembers them using the terms DEBIT & CREDIT frequently and finally his
mother would be signing on few pages. The entire procedure was fun for him.
Once they are done with the DEBITS and CREDITS, it was the time for watching
the news in the doordarshan channel. Uncle wants complete silence while
watching it. Mother also joins him and the kids would be busy in predicting the
name of the news reader of the day. The news was always followed by the regular
serial episodes which the entire family sat together and enjoyed the maximum.
He still remembers the day when uncle rushed back home, driving like Michael
schumacher at a very high speed just not to miss the final episode of
everyone’s favorite serial. The kids enjoyed that ride with lot of fun and
hullabaloo at the back seats of the car which the family had.
Mother and his sister Nisha were the next two people who
were close to vinay after his uncle in his childhood. Vinay always felt that
his mother liked his sister more. He had his own conclusions and judgments for
that when he grew up. One strong point which he pulled out from his brain that,
his mother thought one day his son also would become like his insensitive
father and would behave the same way to his future wife.
The kids used to fight at times and Nisha would end up in
winning the fight by pulling out her trump card and that was her status as an
elder sister or i would say it was because she was his "chechi"(elder
sister). And "chechi" needs to be respected always. Nisha looked
exactly like his mother and even had spectacle like his mother. She even got
mother’s curly hair. But she was not as fair as her mother.
While fighting, there were times when nisha would pull vinay
down hard on the floor and vinay ended up in crying loudly. And when mother
comes back home, Nisha would have reported the incident in her own twisted way
to mother before vinay could say something. He then takes the blame and the
scolding from his mother silently. These things happened again and again with
him. Vinay then would go back to his uncle for his relief and he loved being
with him. He used to jump on him, climb his shoulder, and pull his dark thick
and well-trimmed beard out of fun. He had his own few cute names to call him.
Finally would go to sleep with him hugging him tight.
Vinay could make out one thing about his uncle that, he
stays with them and takes care of everything. He was the one who took them to
school and most importantly Vinay used to play with him a lot. He could also
see him busy in household matters, helping mother in her work and at night he would
be busy doing some calculations in his long thick blue book. When vinay grew up
he understood that Ranjith uncle had been doing a monotonous job in his life
which included only doing domestic chores for vinay’s family.
Vinay's father was away from all these day to day life of
his family. according to vinay's father, he was slogging in the hot desert of
the gulf, just to make sure that his family is safe and happy way back in
tripunithura. His father used to come every 3 months which vinay figured out once
his mother was talking to someone over the phone. To vinay, his father's
arrival was a hindrance to his world of freedom as he was scared of him as well
as i mentioned earlier. But one thing that made vinay happy and that was the
numerous packets of exotic chocolates, soaps, powders and the strange clothes
he used to get.
Distributing the chocolates to his gang of boys was an
excitement for him. It made him proud as those chocolates were quiet hard to
find in the normal shops and also it made everyone understand that vinay’s
father was in gulf.
No comments:
Post a Comment