THE DECADE OF DISCONTENT

For now, I know that nobody is reading my blog.That gives me real confidence and courage. An extended blogger’s freedom so to say.To do a real honest monologue. So here I go,until someone reads it.

To be born to poor parents who belong to an upper caste is like getting thrust into a I Class train compartment without ticket. You know you may get caught any time, and that you cannot get out so you will always make an attempt to appear normal. To be constantly aware of your own deprivations but having to conceal it is not easy business. I was in one of those compartments on a fine morning in May, 1960 and grew up amidst a great deal of contradictions and myriad problems. ..I spent my childhood trying to untangle these, and to get over these deprivations –by sweeping them under the carpet of course-of almost everything normally taken for granted. Call it fun, laughter, comics, toys or good advice….and all of that.

My father had an ego disproportionate with his own accomplishments. It appeared very odd, like a very thin person wearing a huge XXL shirt and I had sensed this contradiction very early. He went around riding a wave of this inflated self-importance which I now suspect ,may have been an expression of a deeper sense of failure. This prevented him from expressing love and tenderness and made emotional engagements near-impossible .He held on to this unprotected ego until his later years ,and gave it a hiatus during the last few months of his life, when it was too late. Years later, still grappling with the upshots of a wasted childhood, I was to discover my own inability to spontaneously express love which I possibly inherited from him . I also realized ,with a gnawing sense of regret,that unexpressed love is both meaningless and futile at the same time ---and is like the coin collections of a scrimpy and ungenerous miser as poignantly noted by Kamala Das in one of her many memoirs---My father however had shown remarkable practical sense and courage in decisions which shaped my future abilities, just as my mother’s love –largely unexpressed but yet discernible - had shaped my character.

I was unable to relate, emotionally or otherwise, with either of my elder sisters, for reasons that are entirely distinct .I took refuge in my mother---the only other passenger left in the compartment--- who believed that forfeiture of all pleasures in life was her solemn duty. I shall return to my mother in one of my next posts but shall just say here that her sacrifices, and her near-masochist tendency to endure suffering, were the real building blocks of my life today.

Outside this train compartment, Kerala’s social life was transforming like the changing landscapes. During the 1960’s Communist Party (Marxist) under the leadership of E M S Namboodiripad was at their theatrical best . EMS, like someone said about Harry Truman,was "all facts and no imagination" , who tried to feed some complex theories of dialectical materialism and stuff, to the impoverished Malayalee Working Class. (He did not know how to imitate the mimicry artists in Kerala like VS, or boost TRP ratings of satellite channels like Karat).EMS came to power in 1957, enacted a most controversial Land Reform Ordinance and was dismissed by the Nehru-led Central Government after two years.He came back to power yet again in the late 60’s but the social impact of these were so huge that it transformed ordinary human life in Kerala beyond measure.. We shall return to the interesting political upheavals of Kerala during the 60’s and how it affected my life in one of the later Posts.

So it was like starting the innings with a few wickets already down. There was no Coach ,no Manager. And I did not know the name of the game ,for a start.