CHAKO CITY - PART 1

Have you ever heard about a city called Chacko City?. It is one among the numerous cities in Idukky (The hilly district of GOC) known only to its residents (usually less than hundred) . Chako city just like its neighbor Balan city had three shops and a bus stop. I used to wonder who these cities were named after

CHACKO CITY Part. 1

'Kunnele Chacko ni pura kettiyoda
 pura kettikko pura kettikko
mazha vannal nanayum'

(Chacko of the hill
Did you thatch your house?
Thatch your house,Thatch your house
You will be drenched if it rains)

Young Chacko was lucky to hear the lullaby till he was ten. First from his mother who became mentally ill after the birth of his young sister and then from his elder sister who was very fond of him. He too was very fond of his sisters. His father, a sawyer traveled through the High Ranges which were  thickly forested in those days. After drinks he had very little money to provide for his family, the money they received was just enough to buy rice. Curry was the responsibility of the children. So Chacko shouldered the responsibility at a very young age by doing odd jobs in fields

 Chacko though good at studies finished his school at the age of twelve. 'Tuition' from a local school teacher in English and Hindi would be more useful in getting a job in Bombay' he thought. He could not grasp the languages but by sixteen he was an expert in cultivation of local crops.

A letter from a cousin wandering the high ranges doing odd jobs, informed chacko of the availability of land in Kallar and gave him a new direction .

Those were the days of encroachment. The government in its bid to increase agriculture production alloted five acres of land each to identified farmers in Kallar. It prompted many unauthorized people to encroach the near by hills.

 The dangers were many. There was total lawlessness. It was the rule of might. There was no assurance that the land encroached by one remained with him, another more powerful could easily throw him out. The harsh climate with too much rain and non availability of essential commodities and services together with wild animals and poisonous snakes made the place barely habitable

 Food scarcity forced many of the encroachers to work in the lands of others who were alloted land from the Govt. A trader who thought out an easy way to get his thickly  wooded land  cleared offered full crop of the first year to any one willing to cultivate. Chacko was quick to see the the opportunity.

By cutting branches of trees and under growth during sunny days and burning them Chacko got the required level of clearing. During rains he mixed buds and decaying  leaves to soil while tilling and used the seeds he knew well. The first bumper crop gave Chacko confidence, food for a year and more to sell.

 In spite of the lawlessness he cultivated his own field alone.  The rocky terrain and young boy's courage made many spare him and charcoal making  at night eliminated the threat from wild elephants. The  velleetty ( a type of hard wood in rocky terrine ) Charcoal  he made fetched more in Kambam ( Tamil Nadu ) market eight miles away. Chacko carried the charcoal on his head to the market.

But the progress did not last long. The forest guards arrested him for possession of charcoal with out permit.    The bribe of Rupees twenty five he had to pay to escape punishment landed him in debt and it took an year's  hard labor to recoup. But the set back did not deter him from planting his land.

It was at that time that his elder sister, leaving her husband who ill treated her, joined Chacko. Food and home encouraged him to diversify into pepper and coffee. But the comforts did not last long. She ran away with a young man of different religion to Chacko's dismay. Though she came back and explained that she had no chance of getting married in the  normal course and that what she did was in the interest of both of them as she  she did not want to be a burden on him. But the hurt Chacko was not convinced and did not make charcoal for a week.

 The elephants took the opportunity to attack the plantation. A herd of five and a loner were on rampage one whole night. At day break the herd left but the loner stayed back. Chacko was in no mood to forgive, He fought the loner with crackers and stones. The loner chased Chacko but he escaped by climbing a large tree. The loner waited till noon for Chacko to climb down the tree.

Angry Chacko resumed charcoal making with vigor and transported it at night by bullock cart making good money. His plantation also started yielding. Chacko readily spent his money for treatment  of his mother. Seeing no improvement he turned  to the quacks and then to religion. Most of the  treatments were not in line with his faith . Bhajana in temples and sucking poison out with magical pipes all led to no cure but  only to the guilty feeling for having deviated from his faith.

 The Tamil sooth sayer of the Cross of Theynam petty Christian village was a mystery of those days.  Every year one of the elders of the village was selected by lot to play the part of Jesus on the cross on good Friday.  After the act such persons were considered to have been bestowed with powers by God.  Desperate Chacko went to sooth sayer, who prescribed hard work and building a place of worship for remission of sin.

Chacko spared the land to build a cupola from his holdings. Soon the cupola was built accepting nothing from others. Many attended the prayers at the cupola and bought goods from the Two shops that opened in front of the cupola. But that did not bring any name  to the place. With no roads or buses there was no need either.

-----------------------part two comming up-------------------------

Waters, Airs, Bells & Professor Fox

The caste system which infuriated Swami Vivekananda to call Kerala (GOC) a cluster of lunatic asylums a hundred years back does not exist today, but he will be glad to know that his definition still holds good. "It continues to be a sociological madhouse of unparalleled dimensions. For example, perhaps this is the only society in India where ideology has got so intertwined with culture that people have ceased to understand the difference" according to Paul Zacharia (http://www.tehelka.com/story_main27.asp?filename=op170307Culture_vulture.asp).

Surely Swami Vivekananda was not aware of the traces of Naranathu Branthan's blood in our veins. Naranathu Branthan ( The mad man of Naranathu, whose main activity was to push heavy stones up the hill just to let it roll down from the summit) was one of the twelve sons of Vararuchi, the famous astrologer of the court of King Vikramadithya, in a Parayi (a maiden of one of the lowest classes of the society in those days). According to the legends the entire population of Kerala descended from those twelve. 

Varunny was among the descendants who had a slightly higher ppm of the said Naranathu Bhranthan's blood in his veins.

The Swiss Bank Of Kerala.

Mommen the Banker decided to expand his money business all over the country .

Yes, money business. As advertisements inviting deposits are banned by the government along with that of liquor and cigarettes, the surrogate advertisements described his business as gold loans. That is lending on the security of gold ornaments, more than the value of the gold and that too at an interest lower than that paid on deposits. A bit confusing? Don't bother our regulatory authorities are also with you. (it is similar to selling a thing at a price lower than its cost, and give you more than what you pay for.)

A recent advertisement claimed his gold holdings exceeded that at Fort Knox in the US. The recent visit of high ranking officials to Switzerland to study the extend of unaccounted Indian money in swiss banks and to find ways to attract it to India, had convinced him that there is nothing much there. It is just stories by the economists in opposition. After all economics is a study of comics. He had realized it long back at the college when the Central Bank decided a 005% raise in interest to arrest inflation just like a squirrel on the elephant in a dirty story circulated among students.

It was simple. Retired, managers of large commercial banks and senior Government officers familiar with the sources of money were in plenty all over the country. Only the way to park the money was the problem. (In large commercial banks mostly owned by Government the scrutiny of ownership and source of income was a deterrent that prevented them from taking such business).

The gold cigeratte case

Mr Coleridge was close to retirement when I first met him. I was seven or eight .He was the biggest man I had ever seen, very tall and  heavily built, too large even for a European. He was the manager of the Tea Estate where my father worked as an officer.

In the 40's all estate managers were Europeans and he was the senior most among them, respected by all in Munnar.

He had a 10HP Ariel motor bike, the biggest I had ever seen. I often saw him riding it and was convinced it was custom made for him. But it was his car that attracted me more. My brother once got a lift in it when he went to Munnar along with my father. I was less lucky. I ran about imagining myself driving the car.

The Angel of Munnar - Part two

Munnar of my mother's days

Munnar of my childhood might have been colourless but for the anecdotes I gathered from my mother. It contributed to my knowledge of our surroundings and people of that time and of the bygone. May be my outlook was much influenced by them. This story is about my feelings towards the once beautiful town modulated with my mother's love towards it

After the hectic day and  sumptuous dinner the four poster bed in the master bed room was most alluring.

Out side, the whistling became softer and softer and then slowly died out, but some how I felt it had not, it was just a pause before the sinister. The trees too were still, expecting the ominous.
The stillness carried  remenants of a soft tune that though not  familiar brought to mind Stephan's  'Alayamaniyin osai nan ketten....'( I heard the church bell ringing)

It can not be Stephan's tape recorder again. his quarter is well removed from the bunglow.Is it an alarm?.... Cannot be...I listened closely...... It sounded more like bells tolling.
Far away a nightingale  sang to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds. 
The cold night air through the gap of the bath room door chilled the room.

The Angel of Munnar

Munnar is a tiny hill station which lies at the border of Kerala & Tamilnadu. What with the beautiful weather - never above 20 degree celscious - & fertile hill soil the British identified it as an ideal place for tea plantations. Even today the plantations stand, some in bad repair, some state owned & some still in private owner ship. Most of the infrastructure was put in by the British in the late 1800s, roads & bungalows & post offices....

In the past decade or so tourism picked up & Munnar became one of the hotspots for the Indian tourist. Amenities for tourism were set up, most with little thought to design or environment and the landscape of Munnar changed for ever, for much worse.It is the story of most Indian hill stations, only in the case of Munnar it happened much later, by when we should already have learned from the past.

The road to Munnar offers so many fascinating views one can not resist taking pictures. The taxi driver, Mani was more than willing to stop frequently. He even pointed out many sights I would have missed otherwise. We reached Munnar late, too late to see  places  outside the town.  So I decided to walk around the town a bit.Mani offered to get food for dinner at  the bungalow where the stay was booked.

Nothing could be seen from the road, concrete buildings ensured it. May be the irritated nature forced them to wear ugly  tin sheets over their roofs. Peeping through a gap in the row of buildings,the old church on the hilltop looked most becoming. The winding road to the church, passed near the  the vicarage. "money,money, money......." the hit tune by ABBA could be heard from far. 'The vicar likes the song' I mused,  listening closely it turned out to be a Tamil devotional song, probably composed by him.

image courtesy : http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/john-hoppner

Inside the church the choir practiced English hymns about the love of God. Their faces seemed to be wearing an 'Outsiders not welcome' sign. I stood for a for a few minutes while the interiors of the church told my heart, stories of the lives and dreams of the old British planters.
Out side, in the grave yard, the latest joint free ceramic tiles covered the graves. Arokkya Swamy, the late supervisor  was a great man. The tiles on his grave was sufficient to clad the walls of four large bath rooms
I walked up the hill. At its summit lay Eleanor

Gods of the loud speakers

In the morning, the loud speakers, while trying in vain to wake up the Gods, blaring out devotional music & chants woke up Titty in his small apartment. 

Titty was not his real name. A misadventure  in school had earned Thampy the name Thampy Thief which soon got abbreviated to TT and then to Titty. He was an adventurous child.
His parents were busy making money in the Middle East, his grand parents in Kerala - GOC,  raised him from the age of two.He was intelligent but not keen on studies. Music and Magic were his favorite pastimes. He mastered quite a few tricks at a very young age. At the age of ten an empty match box in his hand became full in front of his class mates. He could tell which one of the ten stones, arranged to form a question mark, you touched while he was away. Soon he could read the thoughts of his friends written on paper and kept in sealed envelopes with him. He was good at key board and Guitar.