Yen's World

By Ye n

Instructive, thought provoking, enriching, fascinating - a kaleidoscope of images of glorious hues sprinkled with sombre shades.

A true story, spanning multiple genres, that has waited for generations. Seized by the sheer power of faith and self belief, and fortified with the truth that one will prevail only if one wants to, a young man swims against the tide to reach the shore, tutored by a guide he never sees.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Yen
• Release date: Aug 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386728702

Book preview

DEDICATION

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Dedicated to Dad and Mum, and also to the loves of my life, whose stories fill the pages hereafter.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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This story would not have seen the light of day if not for the active encouragements of my wife and daughter who goaded and urged me to transfer  what they had heard so often from me, in print for the rest of the world to hear as well. Half a life was spent in wondering whether anyone would read it.  Here it is now for you to prove them right.

PREFACE

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Are you afraid to dream?

Can you hold steadfastly onto a faith?

Do you have the courage to pursue your dream?

Dreams for most of us are just that – dreams, but not for this young boy. From a childhood of abject failure and tattered hopes, he held onto his dream. He learnt that faith was not something you found in a supermarket; rather you discovered it within yourself. It grows in you, around the template you were born with. If you allowed the potter to shape you, he would. If you resisted, you would remain what you started out as – a lump of clay.

This is a story that has waited for generations. A story about odds; about how one grasped an opportunity, overhauled a handicap, and surmounted the obstacle to make it count. Seized by the sheer power of faith and self-belief, and by a willingness to submit to the realization that one will prevail if one wants to, a young man learns not to swim with the tide, but against it. Yet, he allows himself to align and flow with the ceaseless rhythm of the cascade, in the belief that the waterfall’s course, that hurtles through the deep ravine, would eventually lead one to the sublime, the steady, the real, the final - the one that you searched for all your life and never found - the river that leads you to the open sea.

This is a story like never before that takes you on a roller coaster ride, through the rustic sixties in the Indian South, through the sedate seventies of Bombay, through fog filled icy nights, East of the Iron curtain, to a sultry damp one in South East Asia, through the sights and sounds of continents stretching from the Far East through the Near East, Middle East and Africa to the Meditteranean and Europe – surfing and sailing through the stormy Pacific and windy Atlantic, through haunted seas and ships with life, in the company of adventurers and ghosts, fighting the perils of nature, abuse and reward, life and death. Filled with nail biting suspense and mystery, tender romance and exciting drama, on the ships he loved so much, and who even loved him in return, not knowing that he was being tutored in the most important lessons in life, by a Captain he never saw.

This is a true story of a boy who literally rises from the ashes. When all is lost with no hope left, something, or someone from somewhere would always pull him through. He struggles to understand it, to give this something a name. He resignedly called it a coincidence, a stroke of luck.

But, when these strange coincidences kept occurring again and again, repeating itself at every key stage in life; when the critical roll of the dice gets fortuitously propelled onto the foot of that ladder, in life’s game of ‘Mokshapat’, the popular ‘Snakes and Ladders’ - one is then compelled to witness the design, the hand of destiny, the moment of truth.

The four parts span multiple genres.

The New world starts literally with a hushed bang, and a lengthening ‘cul de sac’, from where a guiding hand mysteriously appears, to steer a handicapped child back onto the road, carrying his desperate fears, trials and tribulations, sculpted inside a changing landscape of the fifties and sixties.

An Inexplicable world deals with growing up, where the young lad, bolstered by a strong belief in himself, is guided by several mysterious turn of events, that is difficult to fathom. Catapulted from the pits of despair, to the lofty clouds that he had dreamt of, only to find out, that along with heaven comes hell as well. A meandering youthful life courses through small towns and slums, with background visions of an ocean, with characters appearing inexplicably - all stitched up like a Bollywood potboiler.

A Shadowy world is an exposition on the innards of one of the world’s most hazardous jobs. A journey with unforgettable picture postcards from across the world, each chapter, a spellbinding story by itself, some fighting harsh nature, some - death, some - invisible forces, and others struggling to find a way out of a lost water world.

A Mysterious world, is extraordinary in itself, in that the story now takes off into more bizzarre adventures, entering the realm of the twilight zone. Throughout the book, suspense is woven with a deft narrative, hopefully compelling the reader to go on. Whatever weird happenings one can think of is there, knitted along with tender moments and flights of fancy and romance, juxtaposed with tears, laughter and fear.

All the questions that we grapple with in life, our perpetual quest to find the answers – hopefully this book will help you find a direction or an inflection point to start the search. Inspiring or at the very least, thought provoking, it begs a fresh understanding of life – one that is humming around us, within us, and everywhere in the universe. Life and truth with all its hues and shades, is brought out from behind the curtain, onto the full glare of the lighted stage.

Just as a butterfly flapping its wings could theoretically birth a typhoon across the other end of the planet, the book connects a string of unconnected and barren simplicities into a web of myriad complexities, across time and space, at a pace and style that is targeted to keep the reader hanging onto the edge.

The book is unusual, in that it embraces complex subjects like marine technology, and ocean navigation, amply embalmed with raw courage and bravado, a troubled adolescence, exorcism, spirit worlds, romance, and chilling encounters – simplified by an easygoing narrative style. Each chapter tells a different story, yet it is skilfully linked to each other and to the ethos of the book.

It is hoped that the reader will come away enriched, after sharing with the author, what he had held closely all his life, among a few close friends and family. There is so much more to tell.

Many names have been changed to protect the identity and privacy of the persons concerned. However all events have been recorded and narrated as honestly and correctly as they occurred.

PART I  A NEW WORLD

1  THE CRICKET’S SONG

A flaming golden-crimson sun is settling over the low hills, as swathes of shimmering vermilion glisten on the placid waters of a lake, fronting a retirement home in Kerala. Gazing out, legs propped up on a reclining chair is Rajeev. Age is showing on his creased hands and grey balding head as he thought of that day sixty five years ago, where it all began.

It was still and the crickets were not out, nor the fireflies.

He shook the kaleidoscope[1].

It is a crisp winter evening. ‘Gurubaxani Nursing Home’. He recalled that name. Mother had mentioned it often, while narrating a story about a day in this small non-descript maternity home in Colaba, Bombay. His father, a naval officer, was away on duty, and could not attend the delivery of his second child. Their home was just a few blocks away, at 3rd Pasta lane. The mother and her newborn child were shifted to a room on the ground floor sometime early at night - the baby in a cradle and the mother in a bed by the side. There were no attendants as relatives were all in faraway Kerala.

Well into the night, mother opened her tired eyes. The darkened room reminded her of a home she had left just a few years before. She was barely out of her teens. In Chengannur where she was born and lived, the nights were like this. Perhaps darker. When her father Neelakantan Pillai a magistrate, built ‘Kamala Vilas’, it was the pride of the neighbourhood. Only the well off, could build homes with gabled roofs, and large granaries to store paddy. But electricity was still years away. Oil lamps were the only light and they crackled and eventually died out. Ammini used to lie watching the shadows play on the wall. Stories of demons and witches filled village lore and the darkness brought them all back to life. Father used to lie in the adjoining room, with her mother, yet the ritual of a nature’s call at midnight was the foreboding fear that would not go away. Toilets were never near the home, and if one needed to go big, it was a frightening event.

The hand held single wick, brass oil lamps would hardly assure confidence. A kerosene lamp had to be lit. These were hard to come by, but a magistrate with close ties to the ‘burra sahibs’ would be able to lay his hands on some. But, even with a brighter lamp, the business evoked dread. Smaller needs were met by a kind of sloped two-foot square drain near the far wall of the bedroom itself, which led out into the back yard. One just squatted and did it, in the darkness. This avoided a larger mobilization of resources and people. Eventually gripping her eyes tight, anaesthetized with the still sultry air, she would sleep with a ‘churring’ of the nightjar, interspersed with occasional hoots of the owl. Nights and the accompanying darkness always brought fear.

This nursing home room was dark, but there seemed to be some light seeping in. She stiffened. The unmistakable sounds of a heavy shuffle of footsteps drifted into the room. She thought it was the nurses on their routine rounds. She shifted her gaze without turning her head. Bathed in the dim night lamp, she could see the ghostly silhouette of a man who seemed to be dragging something large and probably heavy into the room. This did not seem to be part of a routine and suddenly she was gripped with terror. She froze. Watching through the corner of her eye, she discerned with horror that the object being dragged on the floor was the body of a woman. Oh my dear God, she prayed with her eyes clenched shut, Save me, please save my child. He is going to kill us.

The room was not very large, as most small nursing homes would have. Within moments, the killer and corpse were beside her bed. He peered into her face and convinced himself that she was asleep. He squinted into the cradle. It seemed easy to finish them off as well. It would ensure a safe flight. If either of them awakened, his getaway would become more complicated. He hesitated for a while, and then decided to let them be. He shoved the corpse under the bed; glowered once again at the sleeping woman and the child and quickly slinked away.

Ammini lay there holding her breath. She wasn’t sure if he was still there. She heard no departing footsteps. Opening her eyes might mean death. It took a while for the shell-shocked mother to gather enough courage. Through a crack in one eye, she looked above her. Then she cracked the other eye open. The room was quiet. She could scarcely hear herself. She turned towards the cradle. Her child seemed to be there. Then she let go. A loud holler, again and again - with all her strength. She looked around and saw a switch hanging on a wire beside her. She vaguely recalled the nurse pointing out the call bell. She squeezed it with all her might.

The killer was never caught. The slain woman was a housekeeping staff at the nursing home, and it was not clear what the motive might have been. Investigations by the local police, could never establish as to why the killer took such elaborate trouble to drag the corpse into the room, instead of easily leaving it at the scene of the crime. Rajeev recalled a tale his mother once recounted to him; much later in life, while he was in his forties. It appears that an astrologer had once told her that a life would have to be taken, on the birth of her male child. He had dismissed it off then as just one more of her fertile, imaginations. He had heard about macabre tantric rituals. Indian mythology was full of bizarre stories. However, this was modern day India, in a city, and not in some obscure tucked away village, populated by shadowy ‘Tantrics’ and ‘Godmen’.

Fiction writers of that genre loved these stories. Could there be any truth in them? Rajeev imagined the framework of a script. It might run something like this.

‘A life taken at the birth of a child. Was it a sacrifice?’ ‘Mother and child clothed in protective armor.’

‘A strange retribution, in a twilight zone.’

‘Was this a foretelling of some kind, a disturbing event....a cryptic herald?’

‘Tantrism’, at least some offshoots as practiced in medieval times and even in pockets today, strongly believed in blood sacrifices to commemorate an event or anoint a deity. Most ancient civilizations, from the Sumerians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Incas, Mayans and native American Indians, gave human sacrifice the highest sanctity when it came to ritualism.

How could one ever believe these fraudulent ‘astrologers’? They were such good mind readers, and surely, mother must have dropped some pregnant hint at some time, while babbling away to him. There was no way an astrologer could know any of this, and whatever happened on that frightful night. Astrology was just, so much bunk.

Decades later Rajeev grabbed an astrology primer, and tried to figure out what this vague and hazy subject was, one which seemed to have the faith of a majority of Indians, and it appeared; of many foreigners as well. He delved deeper into this incomprehensible pseudo science. In course of time, he ran across an astrological rarity - a six pointed star. Every planet in it was placed 5th or 9th to its house or exaltation thus creating a six-pointed star. This, he learnt was a rare configuration. The ninth house is a house of past life and the fifth of the next one.

The six- pointed star was an ancient symbol of Divine benediction in many esoteric religions. Wherever this star flashed, a divine presence was assumed.

Rajeev’s experiences were indeed astounding, and a few were staggeringly absurd, an ‘out of this world’ kind of event making them extremely hard to swallow. Some of them were a long time ago. Memories get blurred, but he knew they were real. It was difficult to concede that he had achieved things in life solely by himself. There seemed to be a hidden hand behind every outcome. Was there a guardian angel supervising every stop, start and turn in all of us: a providential concealed, camouflaged star, which possibly sets things up?

The vermilion and crimson had given way to dried orange and some burnt sienna, while across over the eastern skies it was grayish blue. Broad sheets of black were already showing. There was a gibbous moon tonight, somewhat hidden among the clouds. Green bursts of pinpoint lights flashed among the gently swaying coconut palms. This was firefly country, and soon he would hear the crickets sing. Life and time moved without a feel. One could sit here, numbed as it were, and watch the next sunset as well, and the next.

The inky blue turned blacker, and now Rajeev couldn’t distinguish some of the stars from flies. A few of them were so bright and they glowed for so long! The chapel over on the hill, 3 kilometers away lit up. These and a few other stray lights were the only glow on the horizon. It was just like being on the ocean.

He rotated the kaleidoscope again.

Midnight blue sky above, bathed with shallow tendrils of ashen white, glimmering here and there, with pearls of pastel hues. Black, chameleon sea below, with the ‘swoosh’ of water lapping by the ship’s hull as it leapt across, leaving a curdy, cussed up frothy wake.

What if he could see through that bulk of water? Deep into those cavernous scary depths he followed, dark and ominous.

The deep oceans at night must be the most enchanting and achingly beautiful places on earth. Nature at its majestic, marvelous grandeur, with the imposing canopy of the cosmos overhead, and the velvet carpet of small undulating wavelets below falling endlessly into the unfathomable silent depths of a sepulchral water world.

The crickets had begun their song.

2  A SILENT SCREAM

Rajeev was born to ‘Nair[2]’parents from erstwhile well known ‘Tharavads[3]’, and grew up with a sister, a year older, and three other sisters 3, 8 and 12 years younger.

Rajeev’s father – Ramakrishnan Nair, although from a family of wealthy gold jewellers and landlords from Kadithuruthy (Vaikom) in central Travancore, never became a landlord, or businessman himself; lost his own father Krishnan at the age of three, and was raised by a somewhat cruel uncle also called Krishnan Nair.

Krishnan Nair had eleven children, all heirs to his jewellery empire and vast lands. Young Ramakrishnan, in this crowd, unwittingly became a vassal, and found himself entrusted to all the menial jobs – a ‘bonded child labourer’. He once recounted to Ammini, how he was always the chosen one, to keep ‘watchman duty’ all night at the paddy fields. Kaduthuruthy was an upland area, and nightfall brought out a lot of wildlife. Petrified, and cold, all alone in the darkness, on a small elevated platform of poles and thatch; night after night; young Ramakrishnan slowly soaked in the realization that this was all there ever would be. Buttoning up enough courage in the growing years of his teens, completely devastated one day after a customary thrashing; he ran away during the world war years and joined the navy. He had never been able to quite fathom the word ‘love’, and consequently, did not know how it was to be best displayed.

Rajeev’s mother – fondly called Ammini, also came from a family of landed gentry, but were more educated, lawyers and the like. However, there was one fable of her ancestors, which would literally come to haunt her and the family ever after.

Sabarimala is the most famous and revered mountain pilgrim centre in Kerala, and one of the largest in India and the world. Every year during the festival of Makara[4], millions of pilgrims from around the country throng the place. A great-great-grandfather of Ammini’s, ostensibly a Brahmin (Namboodhiri), was supposedly sought, to install the divine Ayyappan’s idol at Sabarimala. The temple has a long history dating back to around the 10th century and was known to have been rebuilt several times, the last in 1950. This tantric priest was renowned for his mystical powers and his Namboodhiri family from a famous Madom[5] of Chengannur was known to be an ancient unbroken line for close to 1500 years. Even today members of the same family are the high priests of Sabarimala.

As close as 85 years ago, Polygamy was still being practiced among the Nairs, who followed the matriarchal system of delineating ancestry and heritage. Aristocracy was graded according to the number of wives, a noble or small chieftain held.

The Heads of the Nair ‘Tharavads’ and Namboothiri ‘Illams’ or ‘Madoms’ were often known to have more than one wife, with the latter being permitted to also take a Nair wife as a consort in addition to his Brahmin wife.

This famous Namboothiri priest evidently chose a beautiful Nair lady as a second wife, and this it appears, was the start of Rajeev’s lineage.

Namboothiri Madoms were extremely orthodox with tradition, and as purveyors of the caste system, frowned upon the presence of a Nair inside it. Thus wealthy Namboothiri’s maintained their Nair wives if they had one, in separate large houses outside the illam. With large tracts of fields and property at their disposal, this was hardly a problem.

This priest thus continued with the nebulous and murky traditions of his ancestors and lived between two wives, and their homes. However, it appears that his first wife, did not take kindly to this seemingly indiscreet, cosy arrangement on her husband’s part. Brimming over with envy at the ravishing beauty of this new entrant, she cursed the family forever and leapt into a well. She left no issues.

The Namboothiri priest reportedly left the Madom forever, and moved into his second home, with a temple built inside it, with his Nair wife, and one girl child.

Legend has it that the priest subsequently disappeared and probably took Samadhi in some obscure hill or cave. Legend also has it that he turned his powers into being an Asura demi God called ‘Brahma Rakhshas’. These ‘Asura’ Gods are known in pu ranic lore to be sometimes more powerful than Devas, and worshipped in many Kerala temples as lesser deities.

Rajeev could recall, so often in those formative years; his mother’s claims to seeing visions: spirits of the priest and his lovelorn wife.

Ammini was a frail woman, and brought up, coddled and cosseted, by her own father, mother, brother etc, and from all accounts lived an over protected life. Her father Neelakantan Pillai was educated, and for the then small town of Chengannur in Central Travancore; one of the very few who was.

He worked at the Munsif court, and it appears that the British put his knowledge of English, to good use, apparently to argue cases, or even to write out judgments for the locals. Eventually he rose to become a Magistrate. But it was Ammini’s mother, the small and diminutive Kamalakshi who left behind a legacy.

Kamalakshi Amma was the youngest daughter, among seven siblings, heir to one of the richest Tharavad’s of Chengannur. Her father Paramu Pillai apparently inherited very vast holdings of land, mostly paddy fields, which was literally the fortune one could count on. The large acreage under paddy, meant more workers to till and harvest and larger granaries to store the harvest. This meant that the joint family ‘Tharavad’ had to be large as well, and the head honcho called the ‘Karnavar’ was generally very powerful and rich.

Paramu Pillai’s brother in law was the ‘Peshkar’ (collector), and so the large ‘Kuzhuvelil Tharavad’ exercised considerable influence in the area. The Tharavad’s wealth purportedly came from his mother – an only child of a ravishingly beautiful Nair and a Namboothiri priest.

Thus the frail and demure Ammini, who was the ‘apple’ of her father’s and mother’s eye, came to be the owner of the ancestral house, and it’s land, which a century earlier had passed on from the Namboothiri’s clutch.

‘Kamala Vilas’ stood at Mundancavu, a kind of suburb, barely a kilometer from Chengannur railway station. Rajeev recalls the landmark, a railway over bridge. Once the taxi crossed that, he knew he was almost there. A short low sloped wooden tile roof structure on the right, was the next. It had three small divisions in it, which turned into three small retail outlets, one a tiny haircutting saloon, another sold traditional white towels and dhotis, and a third where grandfather bought his betel leaves, and ‘Adakka’(Areca nut), for his regular ‘paan’ sessions. Most of the shops were boarded over, and only grandfather knew their timings. Rajeev would barely have the time to shift his gaze from the boarded up saloon, and there it would be – the wrought iron gates of his ancestral home. There would be a small welcoming party consisting of grandmother, and all her maids, domestics, stray relatives and curious locals. After the customary hugs, and kisses on the cheek, the elders would be busy rambling away inside, while Rajeev would visit all his familiar and favourite trees, the cowshed at the back, where Kalyani the octogenarian always seemed to be present, this time with a new cute brown calf.

Clad in shorts and a bush shirt, all of seven he would waste no time to forage under the trees for fallen mangoes, or ‘chambakkas’. The ‘chambakka’- Rose apple or Java apple, is a tree endemic to South east Asia. A mature tree is a heavy bearer yielding up to 700 bell shaped colourful fruits ranging from plain white to pink, red, crimson, purple and even black. During early summer, the fruiting is more profuse, and invariably coincides with the vacation periods when schools were closed. Every trip back to ‘Kamala Vilas’ was greeted with handfuls of ripe ‘Chambakka’, and the peculiar sour, sweet taste of ‘Naadan’ (native) mangoes.

The afternoons were filled with explorations among the groves, where a surprise awaited every turn. Rajeev would sometimes discover a nest, and then the excitement would mount. More often the humid afternoons brought rains too, which was heralded by the ubiquitous, incessant kor-r-r-kutroo, kutroo, kutroo of the invisible ‘Brown headed Barbet’, a chubby, myna sized, heavy billed, grass-green arboreal bird, with a brownish head. They are usually single and difficult to spot, but when the banyan in the woods behind was fruiting, which Rajeev felt was year round, flocks of them congregated nosily to feast on the figs. When the call of one started, others in the area joined in, and the chorus continued interminably. All childhood memories of home were associated with this monotonous and somewhat sad song.

But rainy afternoons would find him on grandfather’s lap, as he sat on the far wall of the living room, on his customized long armed easy chair. The interesting thing about the chair was the position by the window overlooking a short rear verandah, which looked out onto the groves and gardens at the rear, and also into Kalyani’s home. He would run out frequently in the drizzle, to pluck a handful of hay from the stack and throw it into Kalyani’s enclosure. On the verandah also hung Mohan’s cage, and that was interesting too, but the cage was hung too high for him to try a stunt, but with grandfather helping him, he would push a green chilli pepper or a string bean towards Mohan who always obliged with a sharp keeak. He had a rose ring around his neck, and it seemed he was always happy.

The point of interest in grandfather’s chair was also the ‘paan’ box and tray on the window sill, which Rajeev was always curious about. He would watch grandfather ceremoniously take out the orange ‘adakka’ from the tray and then using the specially designed hand cutter, slice off the outer husk. He then got at the hard wood like fruit inside, and with a dexterous hand, sliced off pieces of it, which he wrapped in a fresh betel leaf from the heavy brass box. Before he did that he had a small open bottle with a kind of dip stick inside, from which he extracted a white liquid, lathering it onto the rear side of the leaf. The leaf itself was chosen from the box with a kind of studied serious demeanour, inspecting each one from all angles, and then pinching off the stalk, just a little. Then he would carefully wrap the leaf around like an envelope, and deposit it, kind of contentedly into his mouth with just two fingers. Rajeev sitting on his lap would follow his fingers all the way to his reddish mouth from where a sweet breath would emanate.

The Areca nut is the seed from the fruit of the Areca palm, which grows in much of the tropical Pacific, South East, South Asia, and East Africa. The name ‘Areca’ itself originated from the Malayalam ‘Adakka’, and dates back to the traditional and popular ‘paan’ chewing culture for over 4000 years. A few slices of the nut are wrapped in a betel leaf along with calcium hydroxide (slaked-lime), and may contain other spices like cloves and cardamom for flavour. The Betel leaf itself has a fresh, peppery taste, but it can also be bitter to varying degrees depending on the variety. When chewed together they acted as a mild stimulant, causing a warming sensation in the body and a slightly heightened alertness.

In the subcontinent, the areca chewing tradition dates back to the Vedic – Harappan periods. Royalty had special attendants only for carrying the chewing ingredients and a spittoon. Even a sexual symbolism was attached to the tradition, with the nut representing the male and the leaf the female principle, as lovers chewed it for its breath freshening and relaxant properties. Hinduism and some schools of Buddhism consider the nut and leaf as auspicious ingredients, using it in many ceremonies and for honouring individuals, especially teachers, elders and gurus just as cultures across the areas where it finds wide usage, do.

In India, the largest consumer of the nut, ‘paan’, and ‘supari’ (the nut sold in commercial pouches) is virtually everywhere, leaving behind the inescapable messy red stains - result of the expectorate, when spitted out. Rajeev was not permitted to play with the cutter, nor allowed to munch on a slice, but he had ensured enough skill to pouch small pieces whenever an opportunity presented. Invariably he would be found, and the paan tray moved higher.

The groves at the back stopped at a perennial stream behind which ran the railway track. Going back after vacation would be filled with deep pangs of separation, especially as the train crossed by the stream, and one could see Kalyani’s roof in the distance, with the gables of Kamalakshi Amma’s ‘Kamala Vilas’ flitting in and out between the trees. Ammini used to describe the stream in her childhood, where large ‘kettuvallams’(country boats made with timber strapped together) constantly sailed by. The stream was a tributary to the Pamba, made famous by Sabarimala’s mythical tales. But it was the period before Onam ( the traditional harvest festival) that Ammini waited for, where her father’s special ‘vallam’ would arrive loaded with vegetables and fruits from the highlands, gifts from those who perhaps gained from his work or position. Her Amma would also be waiting for it, promptly dispatching it to all and sundry, relatives, neighbours, and all who called at the home, including every single workman and woman who had ever entered her home. She was the personification of charity, and walked the talk.

After grandfather passed away, with what appeared to be a kidney disease, possibly brought about by his addiction to his inseparable ‘Adakka’, grandmother continued to battle it out alone. When it became impossible to continue, she decided to leave her most loving ‘Vilas’ forever. Retiring to her children’s homes far away, she bequeathed the home and the groves to her eldest and favourite daughter Ammini. Inheritance of this kind is ‘passe’ in almost every household in feudal India, and more so among the Nairs, where women in the family inherited the wealth of a ‘tharavad’, but what made a difference here was an ominous curse carried by a fable, generation after generation.

Ammini was a sick child, overcome with asthma from a young age. During her senior school years, she was so sick that she did not write the final examination. Having forfeited a year, she was reluctant to further continue her studies, not a very unusual proposition for girls in India. It was not the case with her mother who was a keen student, and pushed through school and even college, earning a name for being among the earliest women graduates from Kerala. Chitra Thirunal Balarama Varma the last king of Travancore, was a progressive ruler who started an exclusive women’s college in the state capital, encouraging women to the letters. However for Ammini, life was spent mostly inside her ‘Vilas’, enveloped by the stories of demon kings and witches, black magic, ghosts and in her impressionable years, nights of shadows and darkness. It was easy for a child to believe anything, but here the stories were mostly from her own family, about great grandfathers, and great grandmothers, and about the eerie tales that passed itself down through the ages.

The young teen used to fall asleep listening to these frightening tales, and sometimes even enacted the tales in her dream. At times she sleep walked, or seemed to be in a trance state, that her doting father spent considerable amounts of time and resources to rid her of whatever it was. Eventually she married into what was considered a rich progressive ‘tharavad’ of the Krishnan Nairs, only that Ramakrishnan carried no riches , just the name and lineage. It appears that Ammini’s problems continued, and for her proud husband in a uniformed service, and staying in a Naval colony, daily life was surely a challenge. Whenever Ammini displayed a distortion in her voice or facial features, the young children, then aged 2, maybe 3, normally ended up in hysterical screaming. The trance like state would end up in her passing out and eventually she would wake up, supposedly normal. On some nights, she could be seen walking about in the hall in the darkness. Ramakrishnan in desperation tried all the trusted measures, but nothing seemed to work. One particular exorcism rite, witnessed together with Rajeev’s older sister Sarla, was conducted by a powerful ascetic from a village in Central Travancore called ‘Chennithala’.

Ramakrishnan used his annual vacation to take his family back home to Kerala. They would spend most of the vacation at ‘Kamala Vilas’, while he would spend a few days alone with his mother at Kottayam, about 30 kms away. It was on one of these annual trips that this event materialized.

It was a busy morning unlike the languid ones on holiday. That day everyone had to bathe compulsorily and get ready for the outing. That meant a lot more buckets to be drawn from the well, and plenty of water to be heated up, using