five minutes to six am. the sound of an auto gently coming to a halt in front of your gate and the familiar bright lights of kk's autorickshaw. gulping down the last sips of amma's coffee and hurrying out of the door with all our sundry packets in our hands.we always seem to be carrying these sundry bags in and out of palakkad! what they contain is often a mystery to us too! and they are not light :-)
the sights, sounds and smells of palakkad waking up on a monday morning. a dark november sky at six am but the town is already alive, very alive. the early morning walkers, the early morning workers, the early morning shirkers, it seems to be raining malayali men on the roads this morning! the chai kaddas where life awaits its wakeup cup - and its wakeup news, the bus stands that never really went to sleep - teeming with life as they are at this hour, a pack of dogs huddling together and looking menacingly at the passersby- we pass by them and all are suddenly very awake! and the bright lights.
these lights so bright and too bright so early in the day :-) who ordered them on?! wherever i look it seems that someone is shining the torch electric in my eyes. it's six am guys, be gentle! the all night petrol pumps and atm machines, those early morning chai kaddas and bakeries, but most of all the denizens of the palakkad roads. trucks, buses, autos, cars, taxis - these guys party early, their "in your face" headlights brightly announcing their existence! as they say - palakkad is "developing" and how :-) welcome to traffic jams at six am - in palakkad?!
palakkad town station. the magical queues that build and disappear in minutes and the regular routines of the morning travellers. today i have a special mission - to post a letter to shobhana's sister sudha. thought i may as well pick up an inidan express too. so off i go searching for what once used to be two constants in our life - a newspaper and a postbox :-) theres a bus stand across the road and that seemed like a good place to begin. if i can cross the road safely that is - these kerala buses begin their f-1 practice rounds rather early!
but since i live to tell this tale i probably did cross the road safely. and walked into morning joy. if i haven't told you this already i love the mornings, both the private and the public. i love sitting quietly in the morning dark at home and i also loving exploring the morning-life of indian towns - especially the chai shops and bus stands. they are so wonderfully alive, but in a different morning kind of way!
my newspaper vendors were there - their wares enticingly displayed on the floor. this has been another occasional joy in my life - buying the newspapers straight from the "source" - these early early morning pickup places from where the hawkers take their papers. its a sight to behold for the newspaper junkies - papers of all shapes and sizes and languages and ideologies spread out in neat bunches over the sidewalk and that sound, that very alive hum of business being done at the speed of news between the "wholesalers" and the vendors. the scale was a little smaller at the palakkad town bus stand but they were certainly there - my "friends". except that no one seemed to have the indian express! it took a few inquiries till one finally fished out a copy of the desired paper - a solitary copy hidden among the rest of the papers. almost as if he was dishing out a "hot" magazine! hmmmm, whats indian express publishing these days :-)
the search for the post box was another story in itself. i had planned my strategy carefully ("ask the shopkeepers first. they are the permanent residents of this place. they will certainly know") and sauntered in confidently. by the time my direction givers - shopkeepers, conductors, passersby - were through with me i had "rushed off madly" in every direction - "postbox? its at the corner", "its at the back", "its to the left", "its to the right", "just there", "you've come to the wrong bus stand!", "postbox? where is the postbox!" no one knew where the postbox was! it then occurred to me that like me perhaps no one there had posted a letter for years. all that remained in their minds was the memory of a postbox that once was. somewhere there. but where?!
and when i had explored every red cylindrical object in the neighborhood and finally given up and begun my sad trudge back to the station, i lifted my eyes and there it was that blessed postbox. right in front of the station! standing in solitary splendor across the road reminding me once again that the treasures that we seek in life are all right in front of us :-) i looked at it a few times, smiled at it, crossed the road, and was about to put in the letter when i decided to check the pickup time. "4 pm". "its just 630 am in the morning and the first pickup is at 4 pm?! and they don't even mention which day and which year!" "no thank you!" and thus ends another tale. happily as ever :-)
this mondays poem is a part poem. one stanza from a longer set by t.s. eliot, called the "preludes". its the original "picture-poem", an incredible painting with words. you can actually feel that you too were there that "winter's evening". there's a phrase eliot uses here that sunk deep into me from the first time i heard it -"the burnt out ends of smoky days." what an image! eliot - sheer genius! i've taken one stanza, you can read the full poem at
http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/3163/
Preludes
I
The winter's evening
settles down
With smells of steaks in passageways.
Six o'clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves across your feet
And newpapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On empty blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
t s eliot
"and then the lighting of the lamps" it was karthika yesterday and how beautiful the temple and the homes looked in chandranagar in the evening bedecked with lit earthen lamps. it fills you up that yellow glow.
life's a journey, the hours pass :-) i was at palakkad a few hours ago, i was in train and in a different state sometime later, and now i am in my office in ettimadai finishing off this monday morning mail while the students are all in classrooms that no-one (especially the second year students) really seems eager to take :-) our destinies will intersect again & soon at the canteen, where the students will ponder their fate, and i, the fate of that letter yet unposted! its been a lovely "happening" monday morning so far, with some glorious weather thrown in as a bonus. heres to a lovely "happening" week too!
much love,
d&s |
