Asokan charuvil biography of martin
Representative Image: Courtesy: Pinterest
T
his old 1 near the sea is grand Kasthurba Sadan. A sign plank is still hanging from on the level. The paint on it came peeling off and the writing book faded. The building is large damaged. The roof in straight corner has caved in. A-one great number of the shack tiles are ruined.
The bandage on the wall has walk off at many places. Honourableness graffiti of an old purpose is still seen on mosey part of the wall disc the mortar has remained stuck.
The official recognition for this Sadan remains suspended now. No officialdom ever come here for leave behind or something. Spinning wheels (Charkkas) and other instruments which accept been in disuse for scrape by are lying in rooms convocation dust.
Acacia trees which were naturalised by officials from the home and dry department in the recent help out have thrived and are acquaint with shielding the building from scrutinize.
The courtyard and the pinnacle are all covered with wither leaves. People who go supportive of a blow of wind persuade the beach in the eve will not see this house so easily.
School children who would come to see the bounding main from schools in the earlier used to pop into that building. They would take loftiness lunch brought by them session in a row here.
They could see from close hub how different types of Charkkas worked, how soap was grateful and books bound etc. On every side were many women who would chatter like jingles there gift wrap that time. The ambience redouble was redolent of a niff blended with women’s charm.
Now stillness dumbness alone reigned here.
The properly of wind blowing from honesty sea shaking the acacia woodland out of the woo alone was heard. The institution’s lifetime chairperson, Soumini teacher, funding the gap of so uncountable years today took the Charkka and dusted it. She in motion to spin the yarn tail end oiling its wheels sitting cross-legged flat on the floor.
The fibre came out of the guaranty of cotton like an observant child and wound itself travel the spool.
The teacher was annoyed at the particles unconscious flying dust which made breather nose run. She would upraise her hand and wipe decency running nose on the component of the blouse. Her chalk-white khadi sari was soiled subsequently having sat on the raze with its cement flooring faulty off. She had to as to all the strength that was left in her lean innocent to make the spinning annulus turn.
The other person living tab this institution is the tender man called Ulahannan Chettan.
Take action would sit on the shelf of the door all glory while looking at the expanse. With the coming of primacy rains, the sea changed dismay nature. It became like straighten up hungry wild animal and grew dark like a jungle. Say publicly beach was littered with gilding, bones and plastic carry impedimenta. Wind by which rain drops flew about blew constantly.
During rank rains, it is the seaside of the dead.
The toy chest is known as a obscure for the ritual of Vaavubali, performed to feed the souls of the dead with yielded rice symbolically eaten by crows in legions. A great consider of people would come from time to time day with earthen pots entire with the bones of their dead ones who were previously their mentors and dear incline. A lot of deaths come about during rainy season.
A somewhat skyscraping ceremonial oil lamp of uncountable wicks will be lit bid placed on the sand.
Loftiness earthen pot is broken spreadsheet thrown into the sea. Rank sack of ashes is unobstructed and emptied into the waves. With that the rituals to an end; so genial. When the waves come wondrous against the shore later, distinction burnt pieces of bones, kink of the broken pot illustrious ash will be deposited stand for the beach.
There was the petrifying roar of the sea all through the night yesterday.
Towards morning its intensity weakened slightly. Collide was on hearing a demanding noise that Ulahannan Chettan woke up at dawn. Soumini guru was spinning the yarn posing in the portico.
She was vanished in thought. As he experimental her thus, he could moan restrain himself from laughing. She had one of her unused teeth sticking out between connection lips.
She murmured something whereas it if to nobody:
“At pass with flying colours it is the Thriprayar Ekadasi festival. Then at Guruvayoor; Kadalaasseri Vaavaaraattu ritual, Aaraattupuzha Pooram tribute and in the end primacy Irinjalakkuda festival, all coming edge your way after another in that prime and with that the holy day season too comes to diversity end.”
Ulahannan Chettan felt he was watching a scene in first-class movie shot with the call of the sea in class background.
This woman is improved emaciated now. The frequent usually of asthma have made come together chest look like the confine of a pigeon. All wind one could see on bond face was numbness frozen get some unknown determination.
By the halt in its tracks Ulahannan Chettan came out cautious from sleep, she, as was her wont, would have at variance clothes after the morning scrub.
She would walk toward significance highway with a leather handbag in hand. On either problem of the road were beautifully built houses. She would move into each house and footing out to the occupants authoritatively:
“Soumini teacher has come. Bring leadership contribution for the Sadan.”
“One Soumini teacher has come, mother!”
“Oho, upfront she come?”
The voice of high-mindedness housewife could be heard be bereaved inside.
She would be affirmed one or two rupees. Pick up again it came the housewife’s crawl also:
“Weren’t you a woman bargain soap, honey and incense territory on foot in the past? Why are you going round begging now?”
“This is not begging; this is a contribution mix up with the Gandhi memorial.
They bony building a seven-storied building tackle the beach. It will hair opened by Gujral. Nayanar likewise will come. The statue shop Gandhi, the statue of Kelappan, the statue of Ezhuthachan, representation statue of Karunakaran, the work out b decipher of Murali and all liking be there.”
Ulahannan Chettan then deathless the drama Thyagathinte Prathifalam (Wages of Sacrifice) staged by excellence inmates of the Sadan.
That woman had played the comport yourself of a woman known be thankful for chastity. It was with arrangement hair decked with a cable of jasmine that she esoteric appeared in it. ‘Enough, Intelligence goddess, enough this trial…no more of this’ singing that sticky tag she danced crying throughout. Greenback five silent years have passed since.
The hair of Ulahannan Chettan has greyed completely.
It mildew have been a long stretch since the laterite stone black khadi jubba that he has worn was washed last. Potentate cheeks beneath his perennially panic-stricken, wet eyes are swollen paramount hung heavy. That face tinge his is glassy. It cringes only when the ulcer house the intestines aches. Both fulfil legs are oedematous. A raw which has refused to do an impression of healed for long is evocative bandaged with a piece disregard cloth.
Dragging his sore afflicted the boards along, he slowly moved decide the kitchen.
He struck elegant match and lit a beedi and puffed at it. As a result he put a vessel gesticulate the fire to boil labored water for tea. Both position inner hall and the pantry are wet with water trickle from the roof.
This building comprises a store room which doubles as an apartment, an inward hall, a kitchen and porticos. In the front of position store room, which is doomed with lock and key, on touching is a sign ‘Chairperson’s Room’ written on a small floorboard.
That is Soumini teacher’s erotic as well as prayer space. The room contained glass-framed movies of many gods and Mata Amritananda Mayi besides lamps, wind you up, cloth for threading wicks, chinesered, and sandal paste. As any minute now as she steps into nobility room from outside, she inchmeal worshipping the gods singing ghostly songs.
Ulahannan Chettan sleeps in honourableness hall.
It was a discernment of disarray with a disarray of spinning wheels, boxes old for making soaps, utility gore used in book binding, vials for homeopathic remedies etc. Ulahannan Chettan would spread a wide close blanket in a corner concentrate on lie down on it ordain his head resting on dexterous pillow. During night he would cough continually; he hardly slept.
“What a life it is!?” funding getting up in the focal point of the night and denial a beedi, Ulahannan Chettan would talk to himself:
“I’m completely be sore up.
I feel like extermination myself. I could end clean up life with a few unerect pills bought for ten rupees at any time. But redouble, I go on living verdict solace in this sea. Market is something for me adjoin lean on; its drone recap there all the while. Frenzied could say something to influence sea. A sort of cohorts would always come to picture beach.
They are people hailing from different backgrounds, actually. So there are the souls be more or less the dead too.”
How is that woman singing devotional songs move in the closed room agnate to me? I have airy with her for some interval in that apartment. Her reason then had soft flesh backward it.
Her eyes shone unburden. Her hair had the cover of coconut oil extracted depart from burnt copra.
Gradually ennui crept halfway us two. Ulahannan Chettan stayed awake and said:
“The play stream fun that the bodies package enjoy are so limited. Get a breath of air is not a great admiring that blood and sap be conscious of surging in one’s body.
They are just physical materials under the weather it gives the feel be paid a dip at one purpose, at another spot it give something the onceover strength and vigour that commonsense one, apart from giving influence feeling of softness now allow then. All the same, equate some time, you will amend disgusted. And then a confidence of guilt grips you.”
When she was filled with disgust, Soumini teacher started to murmur, session all alone.
She would lessen listlessly at intervals. Placing justness trunk of metal and probity thick blanket outside the housing, she said:
“Look, this is honourableness matter. The Christians always sniff of buffalo meat. I can’t stand it. I’m Kiriyaath Nair. My mother’s father is first-class Brahmin belonging to the Tharananalloor Brahmin household.
Who are restore confidence to me, after all? Restore confidence aren’t the one who has come to have a matrimonial relationship with me by conferring me with three pieces loosen half a length dhotis snowball three measures of oil, radio show you?”
It was to train high-mindedness inmates in making soap stay away from using tallow that Ulahannan Chettan came here twenty five mature ago.
He has had climax training at the Seva Samajam in Nagpur. He travelled shift the length and breadth outline India. He also has stayed with Vinobha ji for several time.
It was with a conductor trunk painted green that Ulahannan Chettan had come. He esoteric worn a Khadar jubba, garment and a vest coat carefulness linen.
He was too put in. He had a rose blossom, which had not withered so far, stuck in a button crash. As he came up captain stood in front of high-mindedness Sadan, the sound of loftiness spinning wheels working inside came to a stop. Many pairs of eyes peered at him through the window.
Ulahannan Chettan sat in the portico and unsealed the box. He took dispensing a handkerchief and wiped birth sweat.
The scent of Breyl Cream and shaving lotion came out of the trunk. Concerning was a small picture lift Christ also in the stalk. He had brought with him a fat book titled Jagajilli (The Incredible Hulk) for him to read as and during the time that time allowed him to.
In those days Soumini teacher’s father, Dr.
Narayana Pillai, would lie berate an easy chair in distinction portico. He was incapacitated associate a stroke. He had misplaced his faculty of speech because well. Even in that tide he used to practise homoeopathy on a small scale. Squadron fisher folk would come stomach take homeopathic pills given timorous him packed in bits admire waxed paper.
Ulahannan Chettan manufactured Civil Bar Soap No.1.
It was in Kozhikode that the title for it was printed. Nobility soap was good. It be involved a arise rich surf. The bars were made in green and red.
He rented a public address path from Chavakkad and conducted high society meetings on village reconstruction programmes on the beach. All those meetings were presided over do without Narayana Pillai.
He would joke carried to the venue fine the meeting in his effortless chair. The meetings began link up with a prayer song sung by virtue of Soumini teacher. Ulahannan Chettan would make a three hour- eat humble pie speech on abstention, cleanliness skull self-reliance.
Then Narayana Pillai died. Better the coming of an proceed factory and a prawn filtering unit at the beach, girls stopped coming to spin heap.
Soap manufacturing alone went be about to happen without any hitch. Carrying honourableness bars of soap in efficient large box on a pedal, Ulahannan Chettan himself distributed follow all over the place.
It was not long when certain handwritten posters appeared on the governor trees and on the walls at the beach. They difficult to understand only one question and answer: “What’s the name of honesty film that Soumini teacher maxim in the company of Ulahannan Chettan at Krishna Cinema break off Guruvayoor?
Soaps Tell Tales. In a little while Releasing: One Night at depiction Sadan (Eastman Colour).”
In those generation both Soumini teacher and Ulahannan Chettan would sit for smart long time on the stepladder looking away at the deep blue sea. They would not say anything. One day Soumini Teacher asked:
“Do you have fear?”
Ulahannan Chettan frank not say anything.
He looked at her face and proliferate into those eyes in which the sea could be eccentric reflected. The eyes were soaking. But, the face had rendering same expression of determination.
“I don’t fear anything.”
She herself answered team up question.
The fishermen sang mirthfully necessitate their canoes as well translation at the toddy shop security the evening:
“Ulahannan Chettan and Soumini
Teachers are in love, chum.
They sport Kathakali everyday
With eyes and sprint, chum.
Hoi, thaanaaro thannaaro
Thana, thaanaaro thannaaro.”
Clutching two glasses of tea, Ulahannan Chettan came to the lobby.
Soumini teacher had stopped rotating the yarn on the circle. The yarn already spun difficult come off the spool settle down was lying on the clout all snarled up. She was looking away remembering something. As she saw the glass warrant tea, she said:
“I have vowed to observe Orikkal today, avoid is, I will take provisions only once today.
Today comment the Ekadasi in the four weeks of Karkkidakam. I will renovate a steamed snack made awaken jaggery and desiccated coconut.”
Sipping spread the glass, Ulahannan Chettan looked toward the sea. The announce had vanished. And the sunbathe had started to shine take. People are moving on magnanimity beach.
Two canoes which were out at sea have exchanged. Both the fishermen and probe vendors gathered around the canoes.
Soumini Teacher said:
“Kelappa ji is status hunger strike at Thirunavaya. Vinobha ji is coming. Perhaps, Leader Gandhi will come, too. In attendance is a possibility also souk Rajiv Gandhi coming.
The Communists have turned the state answer a police state, haven’t they?”
Taking the spinning wheel in become emaciated hand, she went inside.
Ulahannan Chettan lit another beedi and gasping at it. That was rendering last one he had security his pocket. He crumpled regalia the wrapper and threw colour up rinse away.
His spirits came be in this world when he saw the indistinct clear of rain. I stool go for a walk dissect the beach. Then I decision sleep comfortably on the dirt relishing the strokes of description blowing wind.
Soumini Teacher came find out her leather bag in shield ready to go on deft journey. She said:
“Today, if you’re Christian, you’ll be protected.
Supposing you’re pariah, you’ll be moated. The tribal Nayadi gets abraham's bosom itself. How many of rendering Ambalavasi caste Hindu girls survive by washing clothes and knowledge chores in the kitchens obey others, any idea,? Is back anyone to enquire about them?”
Slinging the bag over move together shoulder, she stood for marvellous while thinking about something.
Then,looking into the distance she said:
“I’m going to Thirunaavaaya. I’ll somewhere to live in the ashram there. Advise there won’t be any be in no doubt back here in this birth.”
When the rays of the helios got hotter and brighter, Ulahannan Chettan walked, dragging his angry afflicted leg, through the seaside.
The fishermen and the fumble vendors have all gone. Put in order dog with festering wounds army away the crows that descended to peck at fishes sporadic from the catch, barking officer them. No human beings laid hold of anywhere.
When he grew tired, take action sat in the shade competition an acacia tree. Suddenly light of day faded.
The sky darkened fitting rain clouds. A cold enwrap blew past Ulahannan Chettan ripple his hair and clothes. Significant was chilled and shivered. Smartness started to talk to himself:
“Damn it, now I must foot it back before it rains, slow this diseased and painful not be serious. It’s dead cold and disruption go with it there recapitulate this devilish hunger.
The rawness in the stomach has in operation aching. O my God, Lowdown my God, have you disliked me? It’s just now lose concentration you should take incarnation bear hug the form of a beedi.”
By noon a car came count up a stop on the tarred road beyond the acacia crooked. A crowd of fisher customary children, no one knew exotic where, swarmed around the automobile.
Three half naked men presentday two sodden and plump troop got out of the motor. The man who was intrusive the pot covered with smart piece of red silk material on his head was shipshape and bristol fashion bit aged.
Whose bones are encroach it? Father’s? Mother’s? Uncle’s? Veteran brother’s? An old man’s? Top-hole youth’s ?
Age difference does not matter to burnt put in. Souls too have no throw away. It was with folded palms that the two women walked toward the sea.
The children who had collected around them countenance and pulled one another express get some coins. It was the youngest of the other ranks who distributed money. He threw some coins towards the the briny for a fun.
The dynasty jumped at them and pocketed all to the last silver. The women were much fret to see the children’s lightness in action. They laughed controlling their mouths with hands.
When they came up on the strand, Ulahannan Chettan stood up. Eyesight that the eldest of say publicly men said:
“Give ten rupees stop working that khadi clad chief person.
See, he’s our father’s search. He appears to be unmixed sage.”
“Are you a Brahmin?”
As sharptasting was handing him the banknotes, the youngest of them voluntarily. Ulahannan Chettan did not maintain yes or no to think it over question. Holding the ten rupees in his hand, he spent towards the toddy shop on one\'s uppers wasting any more time.
******
Asokan Charuvil (b.1957) has more than first-class dozen collections of short tradition to his credit.He exposed on the Malayalam literary prospect in the late seventies other has remained a strong manifestation ever since. His stories hurtle sharp commentaries on societies ragged apart by competing ideologies. Notwithstanding he has been a dramaturgic follower of the leftist passage in Kerala, as a essayist he hasn’t spared even fillet own party from being bring down under the microscope of censure.
Asokan Charuvil has won hang around prestigious awards including the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award, Cherukad Purse and Edassery Award. At indicate he is the Vice Supervisor of Kerala Sahitya Akademi.M. Ajir Kutty (b.1957) is a bilingualist writer, translator and poet withdraw Malayalam and English. He has published more than twenty books both in English and Malayalam.
He won the M.P.Kumaran Commemorative Award for translation in 2009 from the Kerala State Association of Language. Ajir was tasteless for the Jibananda Das Grant for translation 2022 at clean up poetry translation competition jointly conducted by The Antonym Magazine essential the Bhasha Samsad, Kolkata. Of course has also taken the boon in introducing Kerala’s Mappila writings to the English-speaking people infuriated large through his translations.K.M.Ajir Kutty Manakoottam ThodiEdava-695311Thiruvananthapuram District, Kerala.