Vasco Da Gama and the Priest

By Thampy Antony Thekkek

'Funny, hilarious and oblique. These stories are told from an unconventional angle.. the visual richness in the stories adds a new dimension to the reading experience.'

- Benyamin, author of Goat Day and Jasmine Days

Thampy Antony Thekkek's twelve storied in this book span village, city and country, animal and human, real and surreal political and sexual, pecular and twisted.

Vasco da Gama and the Priest is a daring collection of stories. The authors freewheeling imagination explores lust for life and victory, mysteries of female psychology, the feelings of metro life, die hard habits, and angst and frustration of expatriates who forfeited their roots.

There are many hauntingly familiar characters in the stories, they do not hurt anybody, yet taunt many. He gives a dressing down to the society in a witty way. With this book, he certainly claims his space in the English Literature.

Winner of the Basheer Amma Malayalam Award 2019 and Kerala Ezhuthukoottam Pravasi Award 2019.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781796086300

Book preview

Copyright © 2020 by Thampy Antony Thekkek.

ISBN:       Softcover                 978-1-7960-8608-9

                 eBook                     978-1-7960-8630-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 01/31/2020

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Contents

Lifeline

Foreword

Certain Girls Are Like That

Miss Kerala and the Saint

Goddess Ananda Kalyani

Idichakkaplamoodu Police Station

Dr. Daivasahayam

Capt. Itak Chacko, BA Malayalam

The Path to Gurudwara

Vascodigama

The Psychology of Enasu

Natasha Bukowa’s Kiss

Joseph the Alien

The Wind from Ottapalam

Lifeline

I was born at Ponkunnam as the third son of Mariamma and Antony Thekkekuttu, and I am proud of my village roots. My education was at Ponkunnam Government High School; St. Xavier’s College, Trivandrum; and Mar Athanasius College of Engineering, Kothamangalam. My official life began in Malappuram as a civil engineer in the government service. Later, in the United States, I took an associate degree in architecture. Now I live in the United States with my wife, Prema, and children.

I have no answer why I have taken up acting and writing when I could have lived comfortably as an engineer and later as a businessman in the United States. Such an image did not matter in the family or in the village. My younger brother Babu Antony and elder brother Joseph Antony, who was an athlete and volleyball player, had made a name for themselves. My father used to collect and preserve the newspaper clippings about them. The first experience of sweet will be the sweetest, as the theory of diminishing returns goes.

Our eldest sibling, Leela, was a good reader at school and in her husband’s house in Bombay. My life with her in Bombay during the holidays might have lured me into books. I was a regular visitor at Ponkunnam Public Library, which even my parents might not have noticed. Ponkunnam Varkey and Ponkunnam Damodaran, the famous writers from our village, had already influenced me. The first celebrity Ponkunnam Varkey’s story, Sabthikunna Kalappa (The Speaking Plough) was my favorite story. But my dearest writers were Basheer and VKN, and their wit influenced me in more ways than one. Yet my life as an artist happened just by accident, and I do not take it as a big deal.

I reached the United States in the eighties and became active on stage for the theatrical group Manga run by the local Malayali association. I wrote comedy plays for the theater, and they were published by Olive Books. Later DC Books published a collection of my poems. My debut into filmdom happened through Jayaraj, the director; and the hero in the movie was Babu Antony, my brother. But the burden of life and responsibilities drove me away from the premises of films.

Rajiv Anchal offered me a chance to act in his telefilm when he visited the United States. The spirituality in my eyes impressed him. Then I acted in a Hollywood movie, Beyond the Soul, in which I acted as a professor with a philosophical bent. I was chosen as the best actor in the Honolulu Film Festival for my performance in the film. It was an unexpected flash of good luck, I guess. All awards happen out of sheer luck, determined by the mood of the jury. I was the first-ever Indian to be honored so. The media began to notice me thereafter. I could act important roles in many Malayalam films later. The roles I played in the Malayalam and English movies yet to be released will hopefully be noticed. But now I am fully into writing. I began with poems and articles, later short stories, and now a novel too. I am in good ties with my characters, and it makes my life euphoric, and that is my impetus to write more.

On looking back, I was a late bloomer. If you eat slowly, you could eat anything. Do everything very slowly and patiently; and you will spare yourself from many a hazard, let it be walking or driving. Answer the questions also very slowly, taking your time, allowing space for a thorough process. That is the policy I keep—better late than never.

My first story was published in the Christmas edition of the Vanitha in 2013 and I am grateful to its chief editor, Madhu Chandran, for that. The next one appeared in 2014 in Chandrika under Shihabudeen Poithumkadav. Prasad Lakshmanan and Piravanthoor Sasi of the Kalakaumudi chose my stories consecutively for the Onam editions. Subash Chandran of Mathrubhumi; P. K. Parakkadavu of the Madhyamam; Saji James of Malayalam weekly; Deepesh of the Gokulam weekly; the chief editor of the Malayalam daily in the United States Jacob Roy; George Joseph of e-Malayali; and American writers who supported me such as Dr. N. P. Sheela, Cherian K. Cherian, Dr. M. V. Pillai, Joel Kumarakom, Madhu Nair New York, Rini Mambalam, Benoy Sebastian, etc., are gratefully remembered.

The established writers from Kerala like Zakariya; K. P. Ramanunni, Benyamin who wrote the introduction to this book, Madhupal; and Arshad Bathery are affectionately and gratefully remembered.

I also gratefully remember Kamalram Sajeev and the staff of Mathrubhumi who published my landmark stories Vascodigama and Enashuvinte Manasastram.

There are many more writers in Kerala who have profoundly influenced me, and the list is too long. I remember them all with all my humility and commit this book to you, readers.

Antony J. Thekkek

California, USA

Foreword

Writing about Life Sitting in a Metro

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THE old-generation literati and some critics complain that the new stories do not have the musk of Kerala soil. They accuse that such stories are not accepted anymore by the new generation. It means that these critics failed to understand the new social environment. The new Kerala readership is not very much Keralite. His neighborhood does not necessarily have an exclusive Kerala milieu. This world is much wider, and the concept of global village is very much palpable here. His friend is not his compatriot anymore as a rule. His friend could be from anywhere in the world. He does not have to say good morning to the next-door neighbor Gopalan. The revolution of social media made it possible. While living in a sleepy village, the new Keralite deals with the people in Austria and Australia.

Neighborhood, Kerala identity, and rustic life have become impertinent here. For him, the foreign lands are more familiar than his own. Here, the stories in exotic settings are appreciated as his own much more than the translated stories of the past. The wide world is now very near.