CLOSE to two decades ago, a postal envelope came looking
for me at my Mumbai home. The envelope was handed over to me by the postman, and
curiosity made me open it in a jiffy. Out came the manuscript of a poem in
Malayalam, a few lines penned in blue fountain ink. Amused, I looked for the address again,
wondering if the postman delivered it at the wrong door. The address was indeed
mine, and I tried to find out the name of poet who had sent it to me who had no
inkling whatsoever as to what verse looked like!
Worse, I couldn’t recognise the name that preferred to stay hidden
in the form of a signature beneath the poem. After much investigation, I managed
to decipher the name, and yes it was the retired gentleman, an acquaintance who
my father had great regards for. I had learnt from my parents that he had this
habit of writing poetry, and that he nursed a passion for words.
The piece of paper with a smattering of chaste Malayalam finely
crafted in blue fountain pen ink transported me to the few occasions I had met
him. The first time we met, it was my father who told him I had developed an
interest in journalism and had gone to the university to learn the basics of
news writing. Another time I met him was when I had written a few news and
feature stories for the Kerala Kaumudi after the newspaper took me in as
a cub. He seemed happy that I was pursuing journalism as a career.
Later on, as a journalist at the desk at the Business
Standard in Mumbai, I carried on reading, learning, editing, writing headlines
and creating pages, night after night. Reading was limited to just the
corporate and money stuff so that editing financial news reports came easy. I
never had the faintest thought that an elderly gentleman, a poet no less, had collected
my Mumbai address to send me the latest poem he had written. Privileged indeed
I was, to have a manuscript send to me so that I would spent time reading it. Our
short discussions, whenever we met, were about Malayalam literature (of which I
know too little even today) and the changing trends in journalism (much before the
web and round-the-clock news television made their advent in Kerala, or Tamil
Nadu for that matter). So, obviously the
chat was about print, and print alone, and I remember I had enjoyed those short
discussions, seated between the poet and my father.
As I began to read and imbibe the poem that had landed on my
palm from miles far away, I realised how important a place the poet had given
me in his heart. It was then I remembered, he had once said I should consider
reviewing his works for the Malayalam paper I had worked for then. As I knew I wasn’t
qualified enough to review eminent verse, I had pushed it to the backburner of my
thoughts. But now, I heard him speak to me again from the piece of paper I held
in my hand. And then I decided to review it in my humble words. After a week or
so, I send it to him, and totally forgot about it - I still don’t know why!
And then one day, on my annual visit to my parents, an uncle,
my mother’s elder brother (whom I respectfully address as Kochammavan)
narrated an incident when a bunch of relatives came calling. Kochammavan recalled the pride in my father’s eyes when the
poet showered his love on me and my father, while waxing eloquent on how I had interpreted
and penned a review of his poem.
He recalled the
instance, an annual meeting of the Malayala Samajam at my place, where the
poet, Sri Narayana Pillai, went on stage to address the audience of office
bearers and members of the Samajam after he was honoured on the dais. He held
out the latest issue of the monthly magazine of the Malayala Samajam and started
reading out from a page. It was the review I had written. My father too was in
the audience.
Kochammavan’s words still play out in full HD quality
on the big screen of my mind. I imagine the pride in my father’s eyes and the smile
he had in his lips. While recollecting Kochammavan’s words that I had made
my father proud with that simple gesture, I can imagine how my father must have
felt that day.
I write this today, after so many years, as I feel so
immensely proud watching my daughter Shreya’s first Bharathanatyam recital on
stage. I had never imagined that she was so passionate about dancing, and the way
she imbibed the intricacies of what her able teacher taught her astonished me
big time. She has indeed a long way to go, but her best, for me, is her first stage
outing. Pride, for me, is the moment when she was on stage dancing her heart
out.
I now realise how my father must have felt when he heard the
poet read out his son’s lines on a public stage years ago.
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