Headless Chicken

Grandfather

In my early years except for a year or so, I grew up under the care of my grandparents in Kerala. My grandfather was an expert in kalari payattu. To illustrate that it is not hearsay, let me tell you an incident. One day I located something wooden in the shape of a dagger in the attic. On asking my uncle as to what it was, he mischievously told me to ask grandfather. I took it to him. His face beamed, said it was what is known as ottakkol (I won’t bother to translate the Malayalam words pertaining to kalarippayattu) and went on to demonstrate.  After a deep breath and along with vaithaari, he started the movements associated with its usage, slowly at first and working towards a crescendo. Grandmother heard this recitation, which was actually verbal instructions for kalari movements and hence totally out of place at the verandah of the house. So she came over to investigate. As she reached the verandah what she saw was her husband taking a somersault over the ottakkol, which was held horizontally in his right hand at about waist level and landing on his feet with me as the ardent onlooker, all of eight years old. I don’t know whether you can picture it. A man on the wrong side of sixty, doing a somersault over a wooden dagger, in the verandah, without any warming up or anything of the sort, except for that deep breath, dressed in mundu which he took the trouble of pulling one end through the legs to shove onto the back. Grandmother fumed. On being questioned rather harshly (something unusual) by her, he put the blame squarely on me, though sheepishly, saying that since I asked him what the item was he was only explaining it to me. That was him. Fit as a fiddle even at that advanced age when people shy away from physical stunts, especially when out of touch.

He was macho by definition. A total male chauvinist. A misogynist to boot. An alpha male, thin and tall with a straight back and a strong spine with a flat abdomen and a bald head. I could write a whole book about him. I grew up under his tutelage, and boy, am I proud! Actually my wife should understand this and excuse my trespasses, but she does not. He had an idea to teach me this martial art, which is supposed to predate the more appealing karate. That eventually did not happen but as a prelude he made me twist, turn, jump, cartwheel, do handsprings and so on and so forth which were more or less the first lessons of kalarippayattu, known as meipayattu  or body control. It is not easy, I can tell you, when you got to get your whole body within and below your knees in a squatting position with your arms together, from the folded palms to the elbows in front of your face and your face itself is looking up straight. Every sinew in the body is strained to the maximum. I learnt it (had to) and many more such punishments (as I see it now) to the body, but I enjoyed it those days. I didn’t find it too punishing then.

With such body control and flexibility, wherein all the joints in the body could be manoeuvred through an extra inch or two and into acute angles, all the supposed to be tough exercises in the Officers Training School were cake walks for me. I was laughing when others were shedding tears. In fact during the medical exam at the Service Selection Board, I was made to demonstrate the movements of various joints to others. But did I make it my speciality, during training or later? No.

Mythology

Now my grandfather had vast knowledge in Puranas and Mythology. After I finish sandhyanamam, which comprised of a dozen slokas along with other cousins every day, he used to make me sit next to him and tell stories from the Puranas, while the cousins would vanish, about whom grandfather never bothered. It was very interesting. English tells you about bedtime stories, which mostly are macabre in nature as are their supposed to be nursery rhymes. Have you noticed that? That those nursery rhymes are macabre? But here it was in the evening and all about Gods and their powers. It was magical, giving raise to very high imaginations. By the time I came to Madras at ten years of age, I practically knew not only many slokas and their meanings, but almost the entire Mahabharata and Ramayana, along with their stories and stories inside stories as also their purpose and meanings, values and principles. (This may be the reason why I digress, as accused by my wife, often while telling my stories). There was only one problem while listening to grandfather. I could ask any doubt only once. He would explain once more. That’s all. Ask to clarify again, there would be a barrage castigating me for my lack of attention, or intelligence, or grasping power or uptake or what have you. So anything still not clear to me were later to be clarified from my grandmother, who was no less in her own knowledge, and who could not only clarify but also explain what the stories stood for, with much more patience and feminine benevolence and in a language that I could understand. Oh, by the way, grandfather’s expressions were more Sanskritised in nature. So for me there might have been some problems there too! Grandmother could come down to my level!

So did I preserve and build up on the childhood inherited learning? I remember in Madras when we used to spend evenings on the terraces and enjoy the sea breeze, (which was a pleasure those days and absent now due to too many high rise buildings and lack of trees, which in short we call urbanisation) I had held some neighbourhood girls, almost all older to me, in awe with my mythological story telling abilities and explanations. All that vanished over a period of time.

Ah, not exactly. Once while in the Army and on an exercise near Ranchi, as we were resting post-lunch on tents that were pulled down during the day (only during night the tents were to be erected; exercise is war condition), the Education Officer and I had a little discussion about some mythological story. When I countered him with a few blasphemous acts by our Gods, he remarked that I had knowledge about mythology but all were supposed to be to denigrate the Gods! I laughed aloud.

When my children were growing up, my wife tried to prod me to tell them stories from the Epics. I found that I had gone more or less blank. I could tell only superficially. I could not explain when they asked questions like “why?” The depth was gone. Life style and values had changed. One thing that pains me most is this loss. In fact as I was about to retire, I thought I will take up learning Sanskrit to learn our scriptures, epics and mythologies. But I did not. Now my granddaughter uses the word “epic”, but with a totally different meaning!

‘Xian High School

That’s how we referred to our school in short. It is actually Madras Christian College High School. The school never laid undue emphasis on scoring marks. It was one of those necessary evils, that’s all. Importance was given to overall development. Often we used to have classes under the trees! And there were plenty of trees in the vast school compound. We had periods when we cleaned the school area with wheelbarrows, pitchfork, crowbar, rakes and such things. The habit of reading was inculcated by having a library period once in a fortnight. We had to have library cards and the number of books that we borrowed was checked by the class teacher. One period in the other fortnight was audio-visual class where educative films on various aspects were shown. Like about animals, plants, manufacturing (will never forget the chocolate factory!), sports, geography, history, music and so on. In short everything about life. It was here that I learnt how the Russians worked on their Olympic Athletes like Valeriy Brumel (one of my early heroes) and made them medal winning machines.

As for sports, enough and more grounds existed for various games, around some of which ran a 400 mtrs track. In the verandah of our class rooms there were replicas of shields displayed saying “22^nd year in succession”, etc. The sport and the number of years varied. I do not remember any shield less than of 20 years! We never had a games period as such. But after the school we could borrow any kit or ball that we wanted from the marker (the man in charge of sports goods), with no questions asked! It was our responsibility to return. He was so friendly and was always with a smile. We had coaches who used to walk around and advice and instruct in a free for all manner. Some of them were from NIS Patiala too. One of those coaches made me switch from Scissors to Western Roll in high jump. Fosbury Flop was unknown and the Straddle had just come in. That’s how Valeriy Brumel mattered! All in all I learnt to play a host of games during those five years in school, quite well. Thus I was able to represent my college in multi disciplines of games and sports. This carried on in the Army too with more additions to a respectable level. By the way, have you heard of Paddle Tennis? We had that too in our school!

But did I take anything I learnt on the fields forward? Did I specialise in any sport so that I could have increased my level of representation and recognition, as my father had tried to tell me right from school? No.

The Three Rs

It is of paramount importance that a student is well versed in the basic skills of education; the three Rs – Reading, ‘Riting and ‘Rithmetic. Starting off from Malayalam novels, poems and travelogues (which I had started reading earlier from Kerala and which gave my imaginations and dreams early flights), Greek mythologies like that of Osiris and Isis through our non-detailed texts (which had no exams), Fairy tales, the Panchatantra, and so on to Perry Mason, Sherlock Holmes and their ilk  and then on as I got into college, through Bertrand Russell, Freud, Carl Jung, Maupassant, etc, before graduating to English novels, particularly action packed espionage stories and thrillers, not to miss out PG Wodehouse. I must say at this juncture that some time very early the idea that novels were of low value had got into my head, which changed later though. Suffice to say that others called me a voracious reader. I always had a book in my hand, say like even while being in the badminton court where while waiting for my turn, I would be turning the pages of a book.  This habit of reading, slowly tapered off as the years passed and that is the most uncanny thing that could have happened to me. One who likes to read never gives it up. But not me.

As a youngster in the Army, I took to writing small poems. I found that to put down my emotions on paper relieved me of a lot of stress, real and imaginary. It became a totally personal thing. I also started writing articles of general nature too, with a tinge of management. It was very strange that while the poems were of serious nature, bordering on pain and sorrow, the articles were rather light hearted, meant to be laughed off. There was no such deliberate intention, however. It just so happened. I published both the articles and the poems in in-house Army Journal, regularly. After some years, both dried out! Why didn’t I take up this literary activity seriously? You tell me!

The Conflict

There is always a conflict between generalisation and specialisation. There was this college mate of mine, one Chandrasekharan who was such a good volley ball player that in his first attempt itself, he was selected to play for Madras University, right from the first year of graduation – a rare feat. That was a huge thing in the 60s, because there were no universities under every stone as there are now.  There was tremendous respect for a University Blazer. But this fellow was absolutely zero in every other game! That’s rather unusual, for a sports man will be able to dabble in many games, normally. At the same time unless you are a genius, you couldn’t be excelling in half a dozen areas, sports or academics. Everyone is not an Isaac Asimov!

I must have been an Epicurean, in a way. It was pleasure and enjoyment that was paramount. I don’t remember ever having a burning ambition or what they call, a fire in the belly. After a game, drenched in sweat while sitting on the ground, as the breeze stroked me, I was transported to heaven. Same was the philosophy in non-sports area too. Being the cat’s whiskers in any one discipline and being a dolt in others didn’t jell with me. I would rather be one who can do this and also that with almost equal dexterity to a decent degree. It must have something to do with the schooling, apart from the family upbringing, where undue academic excellence was not stressed upon, though that was never discouraged but a well rounded personality was the unpropounded norm.

However in one’s career one must be a specialist with in depth knowledge in one area at least, while being a generalist otherwise. That is where one has to salute the Army, as far as my case is concerned. After the Degree Engineering course, which was an integrated one, the Army sent me on an electronic equipment course. I was elated for two reasons. One I had liked Electronics. Two, only those who did well were detailed on that course and to my mind I had no claim. Electronics chaps were called “crème de la crème”, by others sarcastically and disparagingly out of jealousy! But once the Army made that error in my case, for the first time in my life I had an aim – to ensure that I get detailed for the specialisation course in electronics, by doing well enough. Fortunately that happened and I went back to my natural ways after that.

To be a good leader of men, to be a good officer in the field, to be a good officer in the office, to be a good player in the sports field, to be a friendly competitor where it mattered, to be a good ball-room dancer (how I wanted to learn tap dancing!), to be a gentleman in the society, to be well read, to be well dressed, to be chivalrous, to be helpful to others, to back the underdogs (I always seem to back the weaker team in a match!) etc were all of equal importance to me. Perhaps I am a non-linear person. I even had an opportunity for mountaineering as also to be a part of an Antarctica team! I simply did not know where and in what to excel or even whether I wanted to excel at all!

I think I just ran around like headless chicken all the while!