After 24 Years, Ramu Heads Back to His Village

 Something in me has gone soft. Or so I think. Ramu, the next door dhobhi, has lived next door for almost 20 years as I know. He says he has been here for 24. Dressed in his trademark shorts and a mischievous smile on his old, wizened face, Ramu is always up for a conversation. He has the energy of a ten year old, nay, eight year old.

Akela and Ramu

I would call out 'Ramu' and he'd come running with an 'Aye'. He never said no and always has a smile and something nice or nonsensical to anyone he comes across. 'Ela unnaru Anjali amma?" he would ask Anjali with great love. He has the same love for dogs, cats and talks to them in the same manner.

He would be at his work ironing clothes, beedi in his mouth. At night he would go off for a drink and get nicely drunk. Many a tantrum he would throw at his wife (their tiffs grew worse in recent years). He would sleep out in the cold and cough like crazy and I'd wonder if he would survive. But he would survive and was back on his feet again, smile on his face, beedi in his mouth.

Clean the tank, get a mason, get a carpenter, clean the car, iron the clothes, trim the plants, water the plants, receive the courier, fill air in Anjali's bike...anything we needed, he was there. Rarely he would ask for money and I would give him without hesitating. Just for that smile and energy and always being there he was worth his time in gold.

So it came as a surprise when he suddenly said, 'I am going back to my village saar. I won't be coming back.' I was shocked. When? I asked. This evening. I had to go out and was disturbed all through and when I got home I looked for him. He was still there. I realised for all the work, for all the loyalty, for all his good energy, I never had one picture of him. I called him and he came and in his typical ways stopped to pet Akela.

'Entamma Akela, tinnava?' he asked. (Did you eat Akela?') Akela wagged its tail and went to him. He petted it. It was a beautiful moment epitomising the spirit of Ramu, giving love wherever he goes. not thinking transactionally, always happy, always young at heart. I asked him to pose and he posed with Akela.

I asked him why he was going away and he told me matter of factly that his wife wanted to go back. I told him Shobhs was upset at his sudden going. He turned emotional too and said it pained him to go after all these years where he got so much love. For a moment his eyes grew moist. And mine did too. There's so much to learn from him - his smile, his child like nature, his loving and giving nature. Wonderful stuff. So happy to have met Ramu in this life. There will never be another quite like him. Wherever you go Ramu, have a great life and my best wishes are with you.       

Day Out with Hari and Tenzin

 Hari is Gowri's brother. I met him fist some fifteen years ago. He has had the most interesting life. Mostly I loved the cricketing part of his life. Growing up in Palakkad he was doing well as a cricketer. He was sent to Bangalore to join the Brijesh Patel Academy and they found that he has the stuff to make it big. Encouraged he went (with his father's active support) to Chennai, to pursue his cricket and study 11 and 12. But his uncle with who he was staying staunchly refused his cricketing pursuits. 

Me, Tenzin and Hari

Hari focused on his studies and decided he wanted to study Astro Physics. He was well on the road to becoming one when the all too common Engineering dream was drilled into his head. He wrote the exam and cleared it and then joined an engineering college which he gave up after a year and a half. Then he went about doing his BSc Physics in a local college, played varsity cricket for Calicut University (one spectacular inning he played, unbeaten on 80 in a score of 100 or so is what I remember) and after his graduation, applied for MCA at RES Trichy and got in. Why MCA and why not Astro Physics? His father's business had by then gone into the red and he needed to earn.

From MCA to TCS and a software job that led him to Miami and Los Angeles and he kind of paid of most of his father's debt and quit his job. Hari always had spiritual leanings and was meeting people from ashrams and staying with them. In between he had to seek another job to retire some more debt and that was when I met him circa 2007-08. He got a job in Kochi and after retiring the debt he quit and fully and finally retired to a life in his spiritual quest.

Chilling in the back

Hari had lived in ashrams, travelled to holy places, up North, South, West, East. He has lived for a long time in Thiruvanmalai and it is after they shut down the ashram there that he came to Hyderabad. Now 40 plus, Hari is a rolling stone, still seeking. Our conversation came to this interesting part when we stopped that day. I will add some parts here after I speak to him next. Maybe tomorrow. About what he is seeking? Whether he has found it? If not what has he found? What does he wish to do further? Any material cravings? Purpose etc. He is quite at peace with himself and I have always found him to be so.

Tenzin looked fitter and younger - like a school kid (through he is 29). As always he comes with a box of goodies - green tea which is good for my hyper tension, some stuff for Shobhs and a t shirt for Anjali. As always he gave his massage to Shobhs and this time I insisted that he give me one too and he did. He has now got a house allotted to him at Bylakuppe in the Tibetan settlement and he said we should go there sometime.

Tenzin's discipline amazes me. He will only only this much and only what he wants. No craving of any sort. There are timings and stuff to do and it all follows that. Apparently he went down and played basketball with some kids down below. He is his parents only son and it must be difficult for them to be away - its fifteen years now - but he has the solace of speaking with them now on phone. I hope they get to meet and stay together sometime. He said something about a childhood love who is also studying medicine in Tibet and who wants to wait for him to marry him but he is not sure it will work out. There's incredible fortitude in that small frame, his love for medicine, for helping people is immense. I am glad i know the young man.

That said I am sure he is going to stay here longer so I will call him over so I can spend more time again with him. He shared a poem with me recently. I'll post that tomorrow. For now, some pics.    

A Walk in the Woods - Bill Bryson

 Bill Bryson decides to walk the Appalachian Trail which is some 2100 miles long and takes months to hike. He starts the story with some ways to die on the trail - bear attacks, falls, frozen deaths, murders - and then heads off with his friend Stephen Katz who is the highlight of the book. The parts with these two are delightful. The research was bring and I found myself skipping most of that because I am not likely to walk the AT.

The two get going and Katz, completely out of shape, a reformed drinker, hangs on every inch of the way, and comes up with some fantastic moments. Like the time he wants to have an affair with Beulah whom he meets at a laundrette and ends up running away from her husband. Then there's Mary Ellen who adopts them because she feels they cannot take care of themselves. They break their journey and then pick it up later and almost complete it. Katz gets lost towards the end and somehow gets back which is a huge relief. We need men like Katz around.

All in all as entertaining as Bryson's work is always and there were times when I burst out laughing. Of course the descriptions of the ways people could die could make people think twice but some of them are quite crazy. Like a woman who puts honey on her young kid's hand so a bear can lick it off - and the bear bites off the arm.

That's how the book is. They made it into a movie and I remember watching Robert Redford and Nick Nolte. It was fun. 

   

Father and Son

 I saw this duo - father and son - the other day. It was interesting chemistry - the father speaking excitedly to the son, who is trying to match up to his Dad. Something about the lad's posture told me he was eager to grow up and be like his dad - trying to match him stride for stride..

Father and son

Yara - Movie

 2021. Italian. Based on a true story. Yara, a thirteen year old girl disappears while walking home from the gym, a mere 750 metres away, in a small town. How the public prosecutor leaves no stone unturned to find the killer is what the story is about. Quite gripping.

 

Special Correspondents - Movie

 2-16. Ricky Gervais. Loved it. Reminded me of Woody Allen.

Two correspondents in a radio station in New York lose their passports while going to the airport en route to a Latin American country to cover war - and end up reporting the war from a room across their office. Enter Gervais's wife who raises money for their release and also makes herself famous.

Loved it. Funny. Watch.

Munich - The Edge of War - Movie

 2021. Based on a novel. It's a gripping account of how two young government officials who were friends at college try to stop Germany from waging the war at great risk to their life. The way the two young heroes try to navigate the space between Hitler and Chamberlain...gripping stuff.