My dad......12thAug2018
My earliest impressions of him goes back to the Indo Pak war of 71’ when I could see him tuning into the BBC to get the latest updates on the war front.Punjab and Bengal was what I could decipher through the suave ramblings of the firangi newscaster and forced myself to believe that these countries were at war. All that I cared for was the tuna sandwich which he conjured up for both his kids like a magician. He excelled in the kitchen.The long years of bachelor life in Bahrain had made him into a numero uno chef helped by the right kind of prodding from his mates in his living quarters.
All through the extreme climate he remained a sworn teetotaller though his refrigerator was always stocked with crates of Heineken and Carlsberg as I remember it. The bar in the house was frugal and I guess the guests who turned up on Friday evenings to savour his patent ‘Jeeraka Chicken’ brought their own stuff.Christmas was when we used to get treated with wine. His concept of wine drinking was quarter of a shot glass filled with Wincarnis a very sweet British tonic wine which he served to us kids in his fluffed up macho grace.
The Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam had him as their secretary for donkey years and one of his passions was to act and direct Malayalam plays and force it down the gullet of the gullible crowd. Playback singers Jesudas and Jayachandran used to come and bask in his hospitality whenever they landed up with their musical troupe. Jayachandran was also a relative .
To land up with the job of an account officer on a big trading firm he had the help of his hard fought bachelors degree in economics from Thevara college. He claims that he was the cricket captain of the college. This man was at peace with himself learning botany in Alberts college when he was whisked into commerce ,which his uncle said had better job prospects.He claims to having been the hockey captain of the college. Later on before sailing off to Bahrain he was one of the founder members of the Ernakulam gymnasium.
Me and my brother still are skeptical about his yarns regarding captaining two college teams as he never sat with us to watch or analyse even a single match during all these years.The only proof being a photo of him in the college jersey wielding a hockey stick. Amen to that.
I was sent to a boarding school in Kerala after my fourth grade and was fortunate to be with my parents only a few weeks when I got to visit them for my summer holidays. It was evident from the shrouded pain in the letters he sent me , that he wanted us kids to be more focussed in our careers and not be the regular spoilt ‘gulf kids’.
My father decided to quit the gulf job after a near fatal car accident during my visit after the ninth grade .The whole family scraped through with multiple fractures and other injuries. The judiciary and the police blotched the case to favour the Arab kid who rammed into us. To this day he has nothing nice to say about Arabs . Such was the scar that he politely hinted to me to refrain from applying for a job with the Qatar airforce when I had a strong chance of bagging it.
He was a son of the soil and was so happy to be back home riding his cycle unlike the nouveau rich gulfans. The sight of my dad and his brother was a sight to watch with their gleaming bald plates, chugging along on their broken down scooter . The farmers in them reaped sacks of long beans which they used to proudly bring home in sacks.
Those were the times when we all used to sit under a thatched shamiana in front of the house listening to the strains from a ‘gulf transistor’ and cracking jokes emanating from a full belly.The bonfire which was lit to drive away the mosquitoes dies off eventually and marks the end of an eventful day. We used to harvest our own rice and it was deemed to be the end of the world if we had to go buy it in a store.
The ancestral house was more of a farm house with two cows,a dog,a dozen cats and a whole lot of chicken.My dad to this day has six cats which he feeds their fish biryani religiously every single day. He has been featured in the local daily too for his love for animals
His memory is slipping off slowly after he had a fall and suffered a head injury almost a decade back. We have kept a driver for him now as we refrained him from driving .Mr Menon has still to recover from his wounded pride.
Kochappan as he was fondly revered to in the neighbourhood was known for his generosity and often going to ludicrous levels.A couple of years back he pawned my mother’s jewellery to help a soul get his daughter married off. It was only last year when we kids interfered and brought home the jewellery to where it rightfully belonged. The man with simplicity as his charm and generosity as his ammunition struts into his Ninety-first birthday today.
These moments need to be cherished. Happy birthday Achan.
All through the extreme climate he remained a sworn teetotaller though his refrigerator was always stocked with crates of Heineken and Carlsberg as I remember it. The bar in the house was frugal and I guess the guests who turned up on Friday evenings to savour his patent ‘Jeeraka Chicken’ brought their own stuff.Christmas was when we used to get treated with wine. His concept of wine drinking was quarter of a shot glass filled with Wincarnis a very sweet British tonic wine which he served to us kids in his fluffed up macho grace.
The Bahrain Keraleeya Samajam had him as their secretary for donkey years and one of his passions was to act and direct Malayalam plays and force it down the gullet of the gullible crowd. Playback singers Jesudas and Jayachandran used to come and bask in his hospitality whenever they landed up with their musical troupe. Jayachandran was also a relative .
To land up with the job of an account officer on a big trading firm he had the help of his hard fought bachelors degree in economics from Thevara college. He claims that he was the cricket captain of the college. This man was at peace with himself learning botany in Alberts college when he was whisked into commerce ,which his uncle said had better job prospects.He claims to having been the hockey captain of the college. Later on before sailing off to Bahrain he was one of the founder members of the Ernakulam gymnasium.
Me and my brother still are skeptical about his yarns regarding captaining two college teams as he never sat with us to watch or analyse even a single match during all these years.The only proof being a photo of him in the college jersey wielding a hockey stick. Amen to that.
I was sent to a boarding school in Kerala after my fourth grade and was fortunate to be with my parents only a few weeks when I got to visit them for my summer holidays. It was evident from the shrouded pain in the letters he sent me , that he wanted us kids to be more focussed in our careers and not be the regular spoilt ‘gulf kids’.
My father decided to quit the gulf job after a near fatal car accident during my visit after the ninth grade .The whole family scraped through with multiple fractures and other injuries. The judiciary and the police blotched the case to favour the Arab kid who rammed into us. To this day he has nothing nice to say about Arabs . Such was the scar that he politely hinted to me to refrain from applying for a job with the Qatar airforce when I had a strong chance of bagging it.
He was a son of the soil and was so happy to be back home riding his cycle unlike the nouveau rich gulfans. The sight of my dad and his brother was a sight to watch with their gleaming bald plates, chugging along on their broken down scooter . The farmers in them reaped sacks of long beans which they used to proudly bring home in sacks.
Those were the times when we all used to sit under a thatched shamiana in front of the house listening to the strains from a ‘gulf transistor’ and cracking jokes emanating from a full belly.The bonfire which was lit to drive away the mosquitoes dies off eventually and marks the end of an eventful day. We used to harvest our own rice and it was deemed to be the end of the world if we had to go buy it in a store.
The ancestral house was more of a farm house with two cows,a dog,a dozen cats and a whole lot of chicken.My dad to this day has six cats which he feeds their fish biryani religiously every single day. He has been featured in the local daily too for his love for animals
His memory is slipping off slowly after he had a fall and suffered a head injury almost a decade back. We have kept a driver for him now as we refrained him from driving .Mr Menon has still to recover from his wounded pride.
Kochappan as he was fondly revered to in the neighbourhood was known for his generosity and often going to ludicrous levels.A couple of years back he pawned my mother’s jewellery to help a soul get his daughter married off. It was only last year when we kids interfered and brought home the jewellery to where it rightfully belonged. The man with simplicity as his charm and generosity as his ammunition struts into his Ninety-first birthday today.
These moments need to be cherished. Happy birthday Achan.
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