Chapter – 6, Vacation at mother’s hometown

Be it summer vacation, Onam holidays or Christmas holidays, vinay and his sister’s favorite holiday destination was their mother’s hometown. Mother's home town was a village called Piravom, which was almost one and half hours drive from their house in tripunithura. Vinay and nisha used to stay at chackochayan’s house (mother’s own younger brother) along with Nancy aunty ( chackochayan’s wife) and their 2 children (sajeesh & sangeetha). Mother’s hometown means complete freedom for vinay and his sister.  There is no one to put restrictions on the kids and no one to complaint about the chaos and mayhem created by the kids.

Vinay and his sister along with their cousins sajeesh and sangeetha, Just loved to roam around through the rubber plantations which was around chackochayan's small house. Apart from rubber plantations, chackochayan's house was surrounded by cocoa plantations as well. and the kids climbed cocoa plantations like monkeys and spent hours by taking a never ending and fun filled shower in the pond right at the middle of the trees.  Above all, vinay loved to play the typical and the traditional game of all the malayalee village kids which was called “kanjiyum curryum” (rice soup and curries). Nisha and sangeetha would take the role of making kanjee and curry and Vinay along with sajeesh would do the manly stuffs like imaginary hunting in the imaginary jungle. Vinay and sajeesh would be fighting with the air by diplaying their hunting skills and would cut down plants as it was like killing imaginary wild animals. And finally, they would be collecting some stones and broken plants which were the actual result of their physical venture.

One thing vinay noticed that sajeesh called her elder sister sangeetha who was of vinay’s age by her name or sometimes by “edi sangeethe” ( hey sangeetha) which was really shocking for vinay as he never called Nisha by her name as it was against the rule of showing respect. Nisha was 2 years elder to Vinay and she was his “chechi” and “chechi” always deserves respect. Once, vinay and his sister was playing and as usual it ended up in a fight and he called her“podiPatti” (get lost dog) to Nisha. It was an insult for her and she started crying as if he did a sin which was unforgivable. And finally he got mouthful from his mother that evening.

A similar incident happened few years later, when vinay’s father took him, sangeetha, Nisha and Arun (vinay’s friend) to veega land (water theme park in cochin and currently with a new name) during a Sunday. Vinay was sitting on his huge lifebuoy and was oaring himself with his hand in the family pool. Nisha slowly came from behind and shook him down into the water. Vinay twisted his ankle and out of pain and defiance he said, “Podi patti”.

Nisha broke into tears. Vinay was lucky that nobody noticed her tears as everyone was totally wet and drenched being in the water. Above all, she didn’t inform about vinay’s reaction to father. While on their way back home vinay could hear her gasping at the front seat of their car.

Let’s come back to his mother’s hometown. Another interesting thing about mother’s hometown was the Catholic Church situated at the top of the hillock near to chackochayan’s house. Chackochayan's house was very tiny, without electricity and without any kind of modern facilities. Still, it was a place of fun for the kids. One thing Vinay hated at the house was the washroom with the Indian style water closet. He always felt why it was necessary to sit on it every morning. Sitting on it on his haunches was an awful feeling for vinay.

Chackochayan and Nancy aunty took the complete care of the church and the church premises. In fact, chackochayan was the loyal kappiyaaru (sacristian) for all the priests who had served there. In the future, his son sajeesh also served as a kochu kappiyaaru (junior sacristian) at the church.

Chackochayan and Nancy aunty’s duty also included in serving all the priests who would stay right behind the church in a small house. The priests had to be provided with meals 3 times a day along with fresh cow’s milk every morning for making tea or cofee by the priests. Luckily, chackochayan was a proud owner of 2 cattles along with 3 goats, few hens, one parrot and a dog.

Since there was no electricity at the house, water supply was quiet difficult. Every alternate days chackochayan and Nancy aunty used to draw water from the church well and used to carry down the water in big cans on their shoulders. This frequent up and down acts made Nancy aunty stronger.  Chackochayan's body also developed with strong muscles and with a natural six pack abs. Vinay used to stare at chackochayan’s six pack abs with an amusement while he climbs down the hill with the water can on his shoulder.

Chackochayan also took care of the rubber plantations and made rubber sheets out of the rubber milk which he collected delinquently during every season. Whenever vinay was at his house he used to accompany chackochayan for selling the rubber sheets in the local market. Finally, he understood that chackochayan and family earned a living by serving the church, priest and by taking care of the rubber plantations. 

Vinay loved the cashew wine, pesaha appam(Passover bread) and pesaha paalu (Passover milk)which chackochayan and nancy aunty prepared during mondy Thursdays. And if vinay and family misses it anytime, chackochayan would personally travel to vinay’s house in tripunithura to give them a portion of it.

There was a practice of preparing delicious food items like pidi (rice flour balls cooked in coconut milk and cocont gratings), beef curry, cabbage thoran (chopped cabbage cooked in coconut gratings) and chicken curry at chackochayan’s house during the nercha(offertory)time of a jacobite church situated down at the hillock where chackochayyan’s house was located. All the preparations would start one night previous to the feast day and the entire family along with many other kids would be present in the kitchen for the preparation. That night could be considered as the get together for all the relatives of the family of vinay’s mother.On the feast day, the nercha committee members would collect all the prepared food items brought by the neighboring families and would be serving to the crowd present over there.Vinay would be eagerly waiting for the serving to start as he had been waiting since last night to taste all the dishes.

Vinay’s frequent visit to his mother’s hometown made him close to god and to church. Sangeetha and sajeesh attended Sunday classes at the church regularly. On a vacation,vinay came to know that, sajeesh and sangeetha were preparing for their first holy communion ceremony. Vinay got confused and was wondering why he and Nisha had no Sunday classes and was in a dilemma whether their holy communion would happen or not. Sangeetha was in the church choir team and sajeesh had many friends in the church. Vinay also noticed that sajeesh and sangeetha were very close to all the relatives and to the entire people who came to the church. This made vinay uncomfortable and felt he was the odd one out.

He wanted to woo everyone especially the elder uncles and the young chettayees (elder brothers) who visited chackochaayan’s house.  He also noticed that whoever male persons come to chackochayan's house would sit with chackochaayan and play cards for a long time. He also saw that, sajeesh had a kind of sync with the young chettaayes who visited them and he would be trying to sneak on their cards with complete rights, while they were playing at the front of the house on a paaya (mat made of dried and beated strings of coconut husk). this really made Vinay uncomfortable as he also wanted to be close to them. Vinay then decided to learn cards. But, He was confused whom to approach and was in a pensive situation.

He didn’t want chakkochayan to teach him the game. He wanted someone who was approachable. In the end, He was shocked to hear from someone that his mother annamma was an expert in playing cards. He was happy and rushed to his mother with a pack of cards and said,” I also want to play cards”. She took the card pack from him and said “get all other monkeys also here otherwise how would i teach you?”He made a sullen face to that as he didn’t want the other children to learn the game as they might snatch his opportunity to impress the relatives and the chettayees.

In a matter of time, Vinay proved his talent in cards and soon became an expert in games like kazhutha, rummy, gulan, keechu, gulan kallan, bluffing, making a set, etc. Finally he was happy that he was being appreciated by unknown people during his next visit to chackochayan’s house.