Tribute to Appa (Dad)

-------------- Athangarai, Chittur, Palghat Kerala, year 2005

Like every once in a while...last night Appa was in my dreams. Could not resist penning my thoughts on my last trip to India with him.One of those visits that made him happy and proud of his children. I remember he said that don't know when we will all be together again at this place..Anyways, here is one from the Diary of my Thoughts..

Ooor vandachu! he muttered. He had spent 18 years of his life in this land 75 years ago. My father, a man even at this age was stubbornly guiding the taxi driver as the old car crawled into the village. “Go straight to the ganapathian (Hindu God) kovil (temple) near the ‘Athangarai’ (the River), he ordered with authority. His wrinkles formed a strange pattern of excitement on his face. His eyes had seen several summers of hectic activity in this little village - Chittur. As little children they had infested the wall around the large motherly banyan tree guarding the kovil. As the wind traveled, this tree made a ‘pause’ of it and punctuated the days with cool refreshing breeze with the busy but soothing, sound of the leaves. Today after almost a hundred years, the ‘Alantharai (place where people get together for a siesta under a huge banyan tree)’ as it is commonly known was staunch and defiant as only it can be.

From those mischievous days as kids in the beginning of the century to the exodus of the grown up Iyers (sect of people), it has been a witness to all and everything. Today my Appa’s(dad) tired, partially blind eyes looked at the receding river from the top and lamented. I could see the moistness filling them. I had never seen this stern character so vulnerable. Over the years he had been a guiding and a motivating force for all those around him Be it college admissions, marriages, poonal, shashtiathapoorthy (60th birthday) name it; he has supervised, conducted, managed, organized it all. Strong willed and stubborn he was the eldest of eleven. He was the One who had transported each of his siblings time to time from this place i.e Chittur (small village South of India) to all the parts of the world.

‘This is my Home’ he had said as soon as we entered the village. After years of leaving this place and living in Bombay and other parts of the world, life had come a full circle for him. Raising his siblings and getting them settled…engagements, childbirths, stormy marriages, family disagreements …he had seen it all.

For him, this was where he grew up. The character that he built his life on, the smartness, the dexterity everything came from this village he loved and adored. He was most fully and unselfconsciously himself as we passed the unprepared roads. The narrow village ‘thiruvus’(alleys), long dark thinnais (verandahs)with long metal bars were sticking out. Everything seemed to be so serene and calm. Onlookers stared at our cars with curiosity. Very few recognized the once celebrated personality of the village in the car riding proudly. The broken tiles on the roof tops had been once a silent spectator of simple lives people lead considering that there had been a sudden urbanization of the village. Those lovely sleek and shapely vallaku’s(lamp) that once adorned the door steps were displace by the shady bulbs. I knew he was missing those rhythms of light and darkness, sound and silence he once adored in his beloved village. The smell of sambar, vetta kozhambu, poriyal (delicacies) , were missing. As the afternoon sunlight was breaking through the coconut trees, the shouting and yelling that once used to be the way of life here, the famous Iyer accent was all gone. A place that was a circle of arms to many of us, where eyes lit up when we came here for the summer vacations forty years back, today was arid and characterless.

Appa (Dad) was even more excited by now as we neared. “I want to go to the ‘Athangarai’” he reiterated. The ambassador taxi ambled through the narrow alleys and reached the huge banyan tree. We stopped and alighted. My dad drew his cane and helped himself out rather shakily, but there was conviction in his eyes. He moved his cane and stepped out of the car stretched. Looking up at the sun he drew in the fresh air and filled his lungs. I could see he was satisfied.

“This is my home, the country where my heart is. Here is where I dreamt, I hoped and enjoyed.” could hear him mutter.

Appa passed away the following year. I think now he knew that was his last visit to where he spent his childhood. His eyesight was gone, but he experienced every grain of that soil when he walked barefoot on the sand, every smell in the air when he breathed..Life had come a full circle for him. He had visited America for several years to spend his summer with his children at their homes, this time around he had all of them with him at his favorite place…..He was happy!!!!

“ Love where you are. Live where you are. We can only adequately love and belong to the earth, be good stewards of God’s creation, if we can love and belong to our community. We can only live wisely in our chosen place when we recognize its connections to the rest of the world” My dad will always connect me to the Athangarai forever…