Vivian Villa

I left Vivian Villa when I was 6 years old. Never went back there. Even to visit.

'Vivian Villa' at Ambalamukku, Trivandrum was my first home. A splendid house with a nice green front yard. A compound gate opened to a long driveway which led to a black wrought iron gate. Opposite Vivian Villa was this magnificent multi storeyed building under construction. I played hide and seek with friends inside and around the construction site. Sandhya was my best friend. She lived next door - which was at an elevation with respect to Vivian Villa, right where the long driveway started. This was Vivian Villa as I remembered it.

My parents were barely making ends meet when we lived there. My mother was still doing her PhD and my Dad was definitely not as high up in the bank as he is today. But they talk so fondly of the wonderful times at Ambalamukku. And every time I hear them talk about it, my mind goes back to the splendid house and the long driveway and the evenings that I spent at the wrought iron gate waiting for my Dad's KLK 9269 Mark 2 Ambassador to come home!

Fast forward to January 2008. I'm at Trivandrum - now Thiruvananthapuram - again. Visiting my parents who have finally made their way back to TVM after all those years! Life has been through many a journey. Nostalgia strikes and I decide, after 18 long years I want to go see Vivian Villa. I want to go see that splendid house, that lovely front yard, the majestic driveway. One evening I set off on foot to revisit the wonderful place I once called home. It was growing dark, as I turned into the lane (where Vivian Villa was the last house on the right), I broke into a light jog. I was excited. I could see Sandhya's house and my mind's compass told me to turn right.

The compound gate stood in front of me. I couldn't see very well past it. As I went closer and looked in, the view that met my eye astounded me! My 'long' driveway was about 15 metres long. The 'magnificent multi storeyed building' was a house like any other in Trivandrum. There was another house that I did not recognize, or did I? The 'black wrought iron gate' and the 'lovely green front yard' was missing. In the utter confusion of the moment, I couldn't think straight. I felt as though someone who loved and trusted me had let me down. I suddenly felt alien to all the memories I had of this wonderful first home of mine! One final scan of the place for the slightest sign of familiarity and I was running - running away from the disappointment, running away from what I had so yearned to see. I didn't speak a word about my little expedition to my parents that night. I shut out the experience from my mind and fell asleep.

Fast forward to June 2008, another long night at lab and for some reason Vivian Villa came up in my mind again. I felt resentment, I felt like a hallucinating fool!
Vivian Villa was probably demolished. I will not and don't want to ever find out. Or probably it is still standing there in a completely unrecognizable form. It was not the house that was dear to me. It was the images I had in my mind about life there that I held so close to my heart. I went there hoping to relive the memories of playing hide and seek there, to relive the evenings I waited to see my Dad’s car turn into that magnificent driveway. To relive probably the oldest memories in my mind. But what I saw I couldn’t recognize or identify with and I’m left reeling ... But marveling at the wonders of the human mind!

Achachan

There are day and events in my childhood that I remember very clearly. But you ask me to put them in chronological order and I turn up a complete sucker! Whether I got my first bike when I was 7 or 8 - i would not be able to tell you. I'd have to sweat to tell you which school I went to when I was 12 (partly because my parents moved around a lot!). I do not have the remotest memory of any conversation I had with my Mom in my early childhood. I do know that my parents loved me dearly and raised me the right way. For me my childhood is a long blur of events that strung together to mould the person that I am today. I was a happy child and I could not have asked for a more carefree childhood !

Many a time in my young adult life I have made a conscious effort to organize my childhood in my mind - Just because of the 'feel-good' feeling that it gave me - but everytime i try doing this the same blur of events flash past in my mind's eye. Thoughts of the simple beautiful childhood that i had, gives me a warm feeling inside and my effort at reconstructing it is usually interrupted by some random chore of everyday life. Now, caught up in the unforgiving world of research, in a land far from the place I call home - such efforts at self introspection are few and far between. A few months back while spending the night at work waiting for a reaction to go to completion (in my PhD chemistry lab) I found myself flirting with this usually futile exercise again! This time however the end result was quite pleasantly different ...

This time I tried to remember specific conversations from my childhood. The very first line that came to my mind was "this is how we know the earth is round... " ; I tried focussing harder "They called the great man a HALF NAKED FAKIR"; I was doing good! "Christopher Columbus first thought the earth was flat!" . " Aarum arupathum erupathum pathinaalum enthanu mone (what is 6+60+20+14 my son?) ". " If you don't stand up on the bench, I will stand up on the bench" " Mone othiri praarthikanum (you should pray a lot my son!)" . "Always take care of your watch, spectacles and wallet". " Mone ninne kaananum ( I want to see you)". " Mathacha ee paisa kondu oru shirtum pantum vangikanam (Mathew you should buy a shirt and a pant with this money)"

My grandad!! my achachan!! Every single conversation that came to mind was ones that I had had with him! And as I sat there I asked myself... WHY? My mind toiled with all the possible explanation for why almost every recollection of my childhood led me to this unique person and what my mind came up with was an explanation so simple so beautiful yet so profound! An explanation that salutes the spirit of this wonderful man, An explanation that makes my heart swell in gratitude for having had this great human being in my life...

My parents loved me. You ask my parents about me and they'll tell you - Mathachan was an angel when he was 8 ... He was a brat when he was 12 ... All he cared for was cricket when he was 14 .... He wouldn't do engineering when he was 18.. He loved chemistry with a passion... My parents grew up with me. They treated me and gave me the respect my age demanded! For them I was Mathachan the child, Mathachan the adolescent, Mathachan the wild teenager and now Mathachan the young adult.

For Achachan, I was Mathachan - his grandson. The relationship was ageless. Here was a man who loved me with his whole heart and took upon himself to teach me everything that he knew. He didn't care if I was 8 or I was 23! I was still that innocent little grandson who held his hand as he proudly paraded him around the streets of Changanassery(my home town) on his routine evening walks. He told me about Christopher Columbus when I was 8 and when I was 20 - both times with the same passion. The last time I visited him in Trivandrum (I was 24) and he still asked me what those four numbers added upto! He told me about Gandhiji and the round table conference, he gave me money to buy myself a pair of clothes, He inquired about my spectacles, watch and wallet and he told me I should pray a lot. He joked about the teacher who threatened to stand up on the bench, He did and said everything that I associated with my Achachan.

Were these the rantings of an old man or did he just think I was slow? Or was it just that he wanted me to be as innocent, attentive and loving of a grandson as I had always been with him? I think the latter... Today Achachan is 93 and I'm 25. I have seen him change from a strong fiery personality to a man who has accepted the limitations of his age. He's seen me change from a innocent little boy to a mature grown adult. But put us together today and we'll hit off just the way we did 20 years ago. Having the same conversations, sharing the same love and living in the knowledge that no matter how life changes, he will be my achachan and I - his Mathachan.

When the going gets tough ...

When effort goes unrewarded, when caliber goes unnoticed, when passion is ignored - you wonder why! why cry to be heard? why shout till you're hoarse? why beg when you're rich? why waste a tear? why not just move on ....

The answer is - a dream - a dream I nurtured. For all of five years! day in and day out, no matter what I did - I saw a dream that was a speck in the horizon - the ever nearing horizon. I dreamt of living my dream - I dreamt of reaching the horizon. Only now do I realise how wicked the horizon was being to me... The faster I ran toward it, the faster it ran away from me..
I cry to be heard .. I shout till I'm hoarse .. I beg though I'm rich .. A tear trickles down - but all it does is add a drop to the ocean between me and the cruel horizon and that innocuous speck!

When the going gets tough... it gets tougher and tougher!

The passage of agony seems endless, but hey! maybe its just a maze and the door called ecstasy is round the corner - hiding from my view, teasing me till I find the right turn that gets me there!

When you wake up from illusions

Livin in a world of illusions - I dint know where I stood among "equals"
There was a time when I thought I was the best - and complacency ruled my life
- finally I woke up, found myself nowhere near the top !
Then suddenly there are no nights in my life - I wake n fight - 'coz there's nowhere to go but up!
All this sweat and all these tears - all just for one cause - to slip back into my wonderful world of illusions - and enjoy its confluence with reality!