There once lived a boy who was born into a lower middle class iyengar family that lived in a lowly place called perambur. He lived in an old house that had a tiled roof, the famous "ottu veedu" of those times in the early 80′s. The boy unfortunately had a condition called cerebral palsy which devoid him from walking normally. He did not care, he ran.
Once during a weekend most assumingly the boy carefully tip toed via the gate-less house of his and stood under the cool jasmine creeper. He was shrewd enough not to put his foot back or forward and was devising his plan of edging along the 1 foot wide platform that kissed the dirty 4 foot compound wall. There was sewer all around him and his house had a very small drainage system, which meant the first house to explode and leak sewer into small road in case of a drainage block, would be his.
As he excitedly looked at the ugly masses of human feces and other unknown and unidentified objects. His dad, a usual overtly strict iyengar fellow yelled "peeyila uzhundhu vaaranumnu kanganam kattindu irukka nee!" (you are determined to fall and wrap yourself in crap).
As the young boy moved along the platform his dad caught hold of his hands tightly and yelled again "odaadha" (don’t run), suddenly his eyes shifted to the other side of the road where he found another young boy, though much older than himself, devouring a packet of ‘biscuit thool’, something that he was denied moments ago before he left the house because he was about to visit the doctor. Biscuit thool is nothing but left over crumbles of biscuit, cake and cream in a bakery that is packed and was sold for less than Rs. 2 in those days.
The boy looked at the other kid, his legs were thin like as if the entire life juice had been sucked out of it with a straw, by the Devil. He had polio. The young boy smiled and said "nondi" (lame) and before he could realize "THHWAACK!" came a blow on his head.
Before he could lift his hand to rub his head that hurt if had been smashed with a rock, his dad retorted. "Nee maththrum enna?" (what are you?)
That moment, it dawned upon him, he was different.
The Pseudonym says:
I am the Loving it Muralidhara!!!Keep it coming… I would love to write Autobiography too. Maybe I will write school Chronicles. You Inspired me da Machan…
16th September 2008 at 2:40 am
Anonymous says:
Dear Dilip,
I am happy that seeing my stuff on Facebook inspired you to start writing about your life. Believe me Dilip, when you start writing and putting things into form of a journal or blog or whatever, you will feel 1000 times relieved..
If you have any feelings of anger, betrayal, shame, guilt, loss of love, etc… you will realize they are just getting out of your system and you are able to forgive people around you.
I don’t know if you will agree with me on this, but from my personal experience, I feel it this way. As you document your life and I did that and still do… I am a much happier, bubbly, contented, peaceful person today.
Keep it going BUDDY !! You’re the best.
With lots of love
Renu.
16th September 2008 at 7:50 am