കുചേലന്റെ യാത്ര

യാത്ര കുറെ ചെന്നിരിക്കുന്നു. ഒരല്‌പം വിശ്രമം. ഇനിയും നടക്കാനെത്ര ദൂരം? ഏതു ദിക്ക്? കുചേലന്‌ ഭാണ്ഡ്മഴിച്ചു. ഭാര്യ കൊടുത്തയച്ച പൊതിച്ചോറ്. നടുക്ക് ഉപ്പുനാരങ വച്ച് ചുറ്റും ചോറ് വച്ച് പായലിലയില് പൊതിഞ്ഞ ഒനിഗിരി. ജപ്പാന്‌കാരുടെ പ്രിയ ഭക്ഷണം.

ഭാണ്ഡം വീണ്ടും കെട്ടാന്‌ നേരമായി. കുറെ നാളായി പേറുന്ന ഭാണ്ഡം. പണ്ട് അത് മടിശ്ശീലയിലൊരു പൊതിയായിരുന്നു. പിന്നെ കയ്യിലൊരു കെട്ടായി. പിന്നെയും അത് വലുതായി. എന്തൊക്കെയാണതിലിന്ന്‌. ഭദ്രമായിക്കൊണ്ടു നടക്കുന്ന കടലാസുകെട്ടുകള്. പഴന്തുണി. ആഗ്രഹങ്ങള് സാധിച്ചു തരുന്ന അത്ഭുത വിളക്ക്‌. പവിഴമുത്തുകള്.

കുചേലന് ആഗ്രഹങ്ങളില്ലാഞ്ഞിട്ടല്ല. ആഗ്രഹിക്കാന് പേടിയാണ്. ഇന്നലെ നടന്ന രണ്ടടിയും ഇന്ന് നടന്ന രണ്ടടിയും കൂടിയാല് നാലടിയെമന്ന കണക്കു കുചേലനറിയാം. നാളെ നടക്കുന്ന രണ്ടടിയും കൂടെ കൂടിയാല് കണക്ക് തെറ്റി. അവിടെ കുചേലന് കണക്ക് അറിയില്ല എന്ന് നിങ്ങള് വിചാരിക്കും. നാളത്തെ രണ്ടടി കുചേലനെ ഭയപ്പെടുത്തുന്നു.

നാളെ എന്ന കണക്ക് ആകാശത്തിലെ നക്ഷത്രങ്ങള് പോലെയാണ്. ഉയരത്തില്. ഒരിക്കലും എത്താനാവാത്തത്ര ഉയരത്തില്‌‌. എത്തിയവരെയാരെയും കുചേലന് പരിചയം ഇല്ല. ഒന്നുകില് എന്നോ കത്തിത്തീറ്ന്ന ഒരു മണ്ണാങ്കട്ടയുടെ നിഴലായിരുന്നു ആ വെളിച്ചമെന്ന് അറിഞ്ഞ് മടങ്ങി വന്നവരാകാം. അല്ലെങ്കില് തീക്കുണ്ടില് എരിഞ്ഞടങ്ങിയിട്ടുണ്ടാവാം.

നക്ഷത്രങ്ങളെക്കാളും പൊടിമണ്ണാണ് കുചേലന് ഇഷ്ടം. ഭം‌ഗിയില്ലെങ്കിലും കാപട്യമില്ലാത്ത പൊടിമണ്ണ്. രാവും പകലും നിറം മാറാത്ത, മഴയ്ക്കും വെയിലിനും മീതെയല്ലാത്ത പൊടിമണ്ണ്. പിറന്ന് വീണപ്പോള് ചോരയൊപ്പിയ മണ്ണ്. പൊരിവെയിലത്ത് നടന്നപ്പോള് പരിവേദനങ്ങളില്ലാതെ വിയറ്പ്പേറ്റ് വാങ്ങിയ മണ്ണ്. എപ്പോഴെന്നറിയാത്ത നാളെ താന് അലിഞ്ഞ് ചേരേണ്ട മണ്ണ്.

After 1996

Life after 1996 was total different. I just compiled the travel record now. Extension of what I did for Japan tax earlier. Today I did it for US Visa application. Thought of posting it

Arr Dep Port / Country
11-Feb-97 8-Mar-97 Japan.
First international travel. It was fun and at the same time daring to travel with minimum winter clothes at this time of the year. And no language too!
23-Mar-97 26-Mar-97 Seattle.
First US travel. Two days and two cities. India - Seattle - SFO - Japan. This is the trip where I got confused between day and night. Summer sun in Seattle too bright at 9PM!
27-Mar-97 14-Jun-97 Japan
Back to Japan for full three months stay. To the new apartment at Kamijima.
22-Jun-97 21-Jul-97 Seattle
One month stay in Seattle. Had a lot of fun in work too!
21-Jul-97 21-Jul-97 Singapore
A transit drop at Singapore, taxi up and down Mustafa became a habit
3-Aug-97 23-Aug-97 Seattle
24-Aug-97 20-Dec-97 Japan
5-Jan-98 2-Feb-98 Japan
2-Feb-98 7-Feb-98 Seattle
The short notice trip to Seattle via Kansai. Still dont know what I talked there and what for.
8-Feb-98 3-Mar-98 Japan
3-Mar-98 6-Mar-98 Seattle
7-Mar-98 21-Mar-98 Japan
Bye bye Japan. (Stage 1) I am going to get married. Dont know if I will come or not. Misa, Mina and kids were at Hamamatsu sta. waving Japan and India flags. Another sad sayonara.
22-Mar-98 22-Mar-98 Singapore
Marriage shopping at Singapore. A ring, a chain, some perfume. And some junks.
28-Jul-98 29-Jul-98 Singapore
haha! I missed my flight walking through shops in duty free. So took a permit to go out, stayed with Jochan/ Bino and flew the next day.
29-Jul-98 26-Aug-98 Seattle
27-Aug-98 27-Aug-98 Singapore
27-Sep-98 16-Oct-98 Seattle
17-Oct-98 17-Oct-98 Singapore
31-Jan-99 21-Feb-99 San Jose
Getting into new business. The new customer on audio drivers.
22-Feb-99 25-Feb-99 Dubai
Family travel plans fail for the first time. It was all set for wife to join in while I fly back. Plans are not to stay that way. I have always been wary of planning anything ever since.
12-Sep-99 27-Sep-99 Milpitas
The next customer that we successfully closed down!!!
27-Sep-99 27-Sep-99 Singapore
22-Apr-00 2-May-00 New Jersey / New Orleans
And yet another customer which never came up well.
14-Nov-00 15-Nov-00 Singapore
8-Jun-02 27-Jul-02 Japan
The second stint in Japan. Pilot travel for setting things up
24-Aug-02 4-Sep-03 Japan
Move in with family. First international relocation. Stay in Kawasaki and later move to Ichikawa Shiohama
5-Oct-03 11-Jan-04 Japan
Break for TI interview in Bangalore. Was supposed to be a stealth travel. Jojan tracked me down!
17-Jan-04 13-Mar-04 Japan
Second Sayonara to Japan. I might come on short visits. But we are going to set up a living in Bangalore. Could not stop tears when Malik sahib led prayers before getting into car
13-Mar-04 15-Mar-04 Singapore
The first family pleasure trip. You have to be out of a job to enjoy a vacation.
18-May-04 23-May-04 Japan
First visit from TI. The new face of Japan!
23-May-04 24-May-04 Singapore
Flight did not confirm. Had to stay back. Again, Mustafa!
13-Jun-04 19-Jun-04 Dallas
The most horrible travel experience. Thanks Cherian for taking care with food and rest
22-Jul-04 27-Jul-04 Japan
27-Jul-04 31-Jul-04 Korea
5-Sep-04 11-Sep-04 Japan
12-Oct-04 20-Oct-04 Japan
5-Dec-04 13-Feb-05 Japan
Back with family for the extended business trip!
13-Feb-05 18-Feb-05 France
3GSM Cannes, France
19-Feb-05 2-Apr-05 Japan
Another bye bye - but this time to come back for a longer time
25-Apr-05 29-Apr-05 Japan
15-May-05 9-Jun-05 Japan
5-Jul-05 13-Sep-06 Japan
13-Sep-06 20-Sep-06 Dallas
21-Sep-06 8-Dec-06 Japan
7-Jan-07 19-Feb-07 Japan
19-Feb-07 28-Feb-07 Dallas
hahaha! I came to Japan to enjoy a weekend with family! This return travel was the one got postponed because of storm
5-Mar-07 10-Mar-07 Dallas
11-Mar-07 Japan, so I remain...

Career Starts

The first job was in 1993. When I left "homestay" to join CDOT in Bangalore. A dream job of the time. Did not have to think twice to leave my PG to take this up. All done in less than a month and left to the new place, the new job, the new life, "the career". When I boarded the Kanyakumari Express from Alwaye, I had a bag, a suitcase and a bed roll. And Rupees 800 in my pocket. Thats where I started.

CDOT had arranged our stay in a (then) remote place called Kammanahalli - Jal Vayu Vihar. Thats where we lived for the first one year. Thats where we struggled to reach on holidays with very few buses connecting. Thats where we had a tough time locating good place to dine. The first one year of career where the industry basics were learnt. The new acquaintances. Non-mallu people around first ever in life.

One year later, while many people preferred to stay around JVV and the new AWHO that came up opposite to it, some of us moved out. A small vibrant mallu group was formed near R.T.Nagar. Best part of CDOT life. Sreeraj lassi on saturday evenings and Anand chettan's mess food on other days. Annan returning to Bangalore. Kutty returning to Bangalore. Anand leaving for Trivandrum. Biju flying to the US. Brehon and Maya getting closer stealthily to get married soon. Kutty finally finding his partner. Radhakrishnan, Ajith getting married. KK, Fine and Anand Mathew moving in. All in a span of two years. And I had one house shifting too during this time. On a small pull cart. Kept to the same locality.

When I started off in 1993, I thought I would stay for a long time. Like for 10 years. A couple of years down, moving out became the buzz word. The new software companies. New VLSI opportunities. The map of Bangalore just began to change again. And thats where I decided to move to Trivandrum. To a comparably modest salary and a modest lifestyle. A small attempt to venture into some software - following a crowd. Right or wrong - thats a question that I never ask. You have no power to find that out. Never.

So I moved out in 1996 Jun. Transported things by train again. A couple of aluminium vessels. A couple of clothes; Puttu kutti; Chirava; the few good items that I had - like the good spoons from MK Ahmad that I still have here. Had some furniture that I sold / disposed too. Two cots that were transported from home. Including the yellowish one that I slept for years in Kalamassery. The two chairs Anoop helped buy for Rs.100 each when Infy changed their office and sold the furniture to employees. The bent folding table which was my first furniture while I was in JVV - second hand from the shop owner George for Rs200.

So when I started in Trivandrum in Jul 1996, I moved into the new house I rented walking in with a bag of clothes. And almost no bank balance too. A 3 bedroom house with a yard and compound wall for a single guy with a bag load of clothes! I am sure the local guys who wanted to get money when a big truck unloads was taken aback.

I still remember the farewell card they gave me at CDOT. It read "The hardest word in the English language - Good Bye". A long way. 11 years back.

Seerathunnabi

We observed the seerathunnabi day last Sunday in the mission house.

A day to remember the Holy Prophet? Am I not supposed to be following him day in and out? At work and home? At leisure and business? The excellent exemplar is not to be limited to a day in a year. I think the idea of this day is to present the pure life, the highest values, the model for civil administration, the exemplar for a family man, the ideal business man, the concept of peace, coercion, war and avoidance of war to the general public. The Holy Prophet who has been misprinted by the so called followers of him. Who has been mispainted by the so called protectors of God. The great souls of his time did not grew great because of any academy or a theology college. Those souls did not turn aback from violence and vice not because of a sword that hung over them. His great missionaries went around the world not as teachers - but as students and knowledge exchange agents. They spread light from various sources around the dark corners of the world. Later we saw the dark ages moving out, the new enlightenment coming up.

The new so called Muslims think they are smarter than the Holy Prophet even. They have a sword in one hand. They have a holy print on the other - which they cannot read themselves. The Hadith is unknown to them. Enlightenment is wrong way. To think is to sin. To be flexible is to fail their faith. Faith is not anymore a trust. They tie Islam into the robes, the beard, the food habits and all the culture around. A Muslim girl with no headscarf? - no way. Islam for them is beneath the scarf. Open up and it flies away. Islam no longer liberates them. It shackles. The harmony of Islam creates a stress within them. And still they expect people to come in?

They proudly believe that the heaven is theirs to stay. The prophet taught us that you should have heaven in earth too. If you have that, if people around can enjoy that, you are saved. Live in a hell on earth, make it a hell for others, you dwell in hell forever. If you cant find peace, if you cant create peace, what you are living for? yaa ayyuhallazeena amanoo li ma taqooloona maa laa tafghaloon - O believers, why do you say what you do not do?

We had a good dinner and then some sweets too. Why sweets? For tarnishing an image that should have been respected, followed, copied in a day-to-day life? For limiting the memories to one day in a year? Well, for some, it was a program done for the sake of doing it. For writing in a report. Or for being self convinced of having done a job due.

The first move

I think the first move happened in 1988 - not 1989.

Thats when HMT built the new B and C type quarters. Like for A.S.5/2, my dad became the first occupant for the C-7/2 also. Unlike the old one, this was bigger, with two bedrooms and better dining and living rooms. Unlike the old one, this was on the first floor. Unlike the old one this did not have a backyard and no neem, no spinach, no pudina and no guava. Unlike the old one, it had toilet inside the doors. But unlike the old one, it had a lot of air, windows on three sides and an electric calling bell.

I was a visitor there as I was doing my engg. and visited home every weekend with a load of laundry. I used to enjoy the west facing window in the kitchen area which gave a good view of all three sides, the regular pedestrians, the buses on the main road, the grazing goats and the most beautiful of all, the rain approaching from the west. The roar was so audible and I can see the thick semi-transparent opaqueness arriving as if its a tsunami. Though I never heard the word tsunami that time.

Time had run a lot by that time. We were no longer kids and the new supposed-to-be kids were born adults. Everyone used to get locked in front of movies on Sunday evening. Thats when I used to have my evening walk. Walk down the road into the lonely woods emptying my brain of all the things I wanted to unload from the past one week in college. And to get refreshed for a new week.

A notable miss was paapithalla, the old lady who used to explain the floods during the ninetees. Probably she was mentioning the floods during the Malayalam era ninetees. For no one knew when she was born. And which floods it was. May be it was a tsunami that has supposedly changed the geography of Kerala. That created the port of Cochin. Khader remained active, delivering the morning news paper to almost everyone there. He handled major part of our movement from A.S.5/2 t0 C-7/2. Before that major part, a lot of minor part has been moved on multiple trips on bic and scooter. I did not get involved in all the packing and shipments, as I was a weekend visitor. But I found everything was packed. No misses. From the old bedsheets which could one day be used as footmat for bathrooms (they are still in my mom's cupboard) to the little red sweater that I had worn when I was around 3 - everything. There was no packer, no mover, no survey and no insurance. Need to be moved. Move it.

Today I had the shipment survey at my apartment. He gives a set of documents - Power of Attorney, Customs declaration, Insurance valuation, policy, this and that. Then he goes around and lists down everything that we have. I have shipment allowance for one 40" container by sea and two 20" ones by air. After survey he says - well there's not much. I thought we will need two days - but we can finish in one day. And not much stuff for even one air shipment container too. Fits into one box.

Its only today that I feel of the move. So far, it was just something in emails. Today this guy has come to pack things up. Man, I am leaving this apartment. The sofas, the dining table, the cots, the chest all goes too. I will not see the Hiroo towers Sakura trees bloom next time. I will not be able to capture another cycle of seasons through my front windows.

A.S.5/2

A.S.5/2. This used to be our address from time immemorial. A.S.5/2 HMT Quarters, Kalamassery to say in full. The small "quarter" of a four in line house. One of the 32 houses of the kind. One of the total 365 quarters in the 900 acre land HMT acquired for factory and colony. That was the so called bright days of industrialization led by Nehru.

This small house has all my earliest memories. The second one from left as seen in the picture. With the bright light. I took this picture when I revisited the place and the new inhabitants in 2005. Seventeen years since we left it. Time enough for a girl be born and turn to her sweetest. But my sweet memories of this house could only grow sweeter.

The cashew nut tree that used to be in the front yard has disappeared. The beautiful henna wall that my dad used to maintain has been orphaned. Kids who used to play around all sorts of games in the evenings have vanished. The charming air of joy seems long dead.

Most part of the colony is now unoccupied. The well lit roads are no longer maintained well. As the once thriving public sector is now struggling to come out of losses, the days of glory are all gone. We were all lucky to have stayed at the best of the times.

Salute to A.S.5/2. This is where I started my journey. When the world was within the four walls of the small house. When time was pulled along with the worker shift sirens of the factory. Starting at morning 5:30 till night 9:30. Once in a while they blow at 3PM and 3:02 PM. The call for silent prayers for someone departed the day before. When people used to care each other.

This is the place where we had the firsts of everything. The first Bajaj scooter which ran for 15 years, still appreciated to 200% of its purchase value when my dad sold to buy a new Chetak. The first fridge which ran for 10 years before being sold out. The first TV - 12inch one - which ran a long time which I later "inherited" and later traded for a new one. The first car which ran only for one year.

This is place where I had my first birthday with no cakes or sweets. This is where I had my 19th also probably. And all the ones in between. That means more than 50% of my life so far. And that too when future was thrive and planning unknown too. Looking back from the point in time of an unknown future and all out planning - Thank God for such a wonderful child life. Prayers for my kids also to have a wonderful memorable life for forever.

Cycle of Seasons

Finally I could capture all four of the seasons.

As I looked out of the front window of my apartment, this is how seasons played hide n seek on me. They taught me that every season is a time to enjoy. That every level of mercury has a beauty of itself. The colors vary. But the combination is always right. None stay forever. All are visitors. Come and go. Rejoice the beauty. Clean up when you start shedding the dry leaves. Wait for the new ones to bloom.

So far I have lived five such cycles in Japan. Seen the beauty from the more village like Hamamatsu. Enjoyed it in the suburban Ichikawa. And rejoiced then again in the center of Tokyo.

Time for me to leave. Move on to the next battlefield. The new land. The new people. New schools. New summer-autumn-winter-spring. Had been busy mentally preparing for the past weeks. Getting squeezed between thoughts of move planning and inability to do so. Between decides and decide-nots.

Another couple of weeks Insha Allah.

The crowd puller

not worth a title

Girls evolve. Loved child to a lovely wife to a loving mom. And cared for always.

Guys grow. Great son to a caring husband to a respected dad. All at the same time.
And they fail too. One or more. Or one by one till every one. Or all at the same time.

Sakuras are adored. Because they stay for one week in spring. Had they stayed longer, had they come in summer again, they would have been rubbish.