Part II of my life in Kerala

Those were the days. Soon my parents and Thangi left for Wadi with Madhu. I started my first sojourn in life away from the only family I knew, in a town to which I was a mere visitor earlier. Moovattupuzha was a small town. It had two centres of power, Kacherithazham (the court complex) and postaapisumpadi (the post office). The whole town was centered around the river. We had the Kavumpadi and the Kizhakkekkara on the opposite sides of the river. Atleast in the early 1980, Iyers mostly occupied Kavumpady and Muslims the Kizhakkekkara. The Kizhakkekkara area was called the chantha – or the market - and housed a cinema theatre the Apsara. There were two other theatres Latha and Lakshmi. Latha was on Thodupuzha road and Lakshmi n Velloorkunnam. There being no TV, cinema was the only means of entertainment then. The Malayalam heroes then were Premnasir, Madhu and a young one called Jayan. Mohanlal and Mammooty were yet to come on the scene. Jayan died in a helicopter accident while shooting and there was a lot of grief all around.

Now like in the rest of India, movies in Moovattupuzha too were released on Friday. Every Friday morning, a cart with triangular cross section, bearing movie posters on either sides and drawn by a man, accompanied by another who beat drums walked the streets of Moovattupuzha. This was for information and publicity of the public. The movie tickets were low priced like 2 Rupees for second class, 3 for first class and 5 for balcony etc. I was introduced to Malayalam cinema and they were all invariably good. Unlike the love romance genre or the gory violence of Bollywood movies these had social messages. They felt real. Actors like Nedumudi Venu brought a lot of realism to movies. Later in Coimbatore, I learnt Malayalam movies had a different connotation in other parts of the country. But I have hardly seen one such movie while in Kerala. In fact they remain some of the best movies to be made in India. Charting a middle path avoiding the gaudy, overacting themes of Tamil movies and Hindi movies of those times and also from the overpowering reality of Bengali movies they blended realism with entertainment in a healthy ratio. Since TVs were yet to invade living rooms, apart from radio and books these provided wholesome entertainment.

Often I accompanied my uncle Balan Mama and Vanaja Mami to these movies. Sometimes I went alone. A few words about Balan Mama and Mami. Balan Mama was the last son and indeed the last child of my maternal grandparents. The eldest son/child, Ponnanna, left home early and was employed with a British company Pierce Lesley and Company at Cochin. He had set up a separate establishment and after the daughters got married off one by one, and as my grandparents aged, Balan Mama became the head of the family. He was a Government of Kerala employee who retired as the Assistant Registrar of Cooperative societies. He was not a man of many words. He was silent to the extent of being dour. The main Anchu Muri Madhom had two portions. The three rooms on the left were rented out to one Subramania Iyer of Trikkariyoor. Subramania Iyer and his wife Kaveri had two children, Rajan and Vanaja. Vanaja grew up at Anchu Muri Madhom. Balan Mama took a fancy to Vanaja Mami, though given the character of Balan Mama this seems strange to imagine. Vanaja Mami on the other hand was a vivacious girl. Eventually they got married and had two kids, Sreeram and Lakshmi.

Most sisters of Balan Mama were married off into ordinary families and they stayed in some godforsaken places and invariably some of their kids, my cousins came and stayed in Anchu Muri Madhom for their higher education. I was one of them. To the credit of Vanaja Mami, she endeared herself to all these cousins of mine and was friendly in a comradely sort of way. Maybe it was because she was of an intermediate generation. She tried her best to treat her husband’s nephews and nieces very much like her own kids. Like my own mother who spent a majority of her life under the overpowering influence of Thangi, my maternal grandmother too functioned under an overpowering mother in law and hence she was a shadowy woman. Vanaja Mami was therefore the face of the family amongst outsiders.