Vichu: 1981
It was the summer after Krishnan’s family moved away. It was memorable for the mind numbing boredom. With Krishnan leaving town, I had lost my closest friend. Actually scratch that. I’d lost my only friend. The cricket team had fallen apart after Ponnan and Alphonse went to study for various entrance tests.
My afternoon routine was to while away the time at the riverside temple with only my solitude to talk to. I’d sit at the root of the Peepal tree and dream up new projects for myself. There was one event at the end of the summer that was anything but boring. No, I’m getting ahead of myself. Wait. I’ll get to that story.
The temple was adjacent to a bridge that briefly got famous when it figured in a movie. The hero walked across the bridge in a song-sequence. The song turned out to be a major hit. Some of that fame rubbed off on the bridge. After the interest generated by the movie died down, the bridge went back to being neglected by the crowds. That suited me fine. In the winter months, young boys used to walk up the bridge to dive into the river in full flow. But the flood levels stayed high enough for such adventures only for about two months.
In the long summer days, I used to sit near the peepal tree, and would watch the leaves being swept up by the wind, swish around, and stay afloat for a long time. I used to wonder if the energy that keeps the leaves up could somehow be harnessed and stored. My physics knowledge wasn’t good enough to know what to even ask the knowledgeable folks to get the answer.
One of those afternoons, I drew a picture of a vehicle that had a battery that would be charged by the dynamo attached to its wheel to generate enough power to propel itself indefinitely. My seniors kept telling me why that was impossible. They were quite emphatic without being able to explain their answers, but I never gave up the dreams to generate “free” electricity.
A project that I did carry out successfully was a crude gramophone record player. A few months before the summer, Manohar, a boy in my class, told me that he had seen a street performer play a manually powered record player. Manohar said the man put a LP gramophone record on a spindle, rotated the record with a finger in one hand, and held a crudely built “sound box” with the other hand. The contraption generated respectable sound. I begged Karimbhai in the bicycle repair shop for a suitably sized part from a bicycle to act as the spindle, raided my grandfather’s LP record collection to borrow a few records of someone called GNB, and set out to build my own record player. I took the plastic cap of a talcum powder jar, put a needle through it, added a coil made up of tin foil to convey the reverberations to a thin paper covering the mouth of the plastic cap. Unlike the street performer in Manohar’s description, I was not able to spin the record and hold the ‘speaker’ in place at the same time. My hand jerked and scratched the first disk very badly. I persuaded the young boy next door - who was called Nami for whatever reason - to spin the wheel, while I held the base and held the needle in place. This worked better, but we still managed to occasionally scratch the records. But this produced the sound. Over time, we perfected our respective roles with Nami operating the turntable at the right speed, and me holding the sound box without the needle scratching the record much. The player started playing rich music. Nami was much younger and seemed pleased that our player made sounds he’d only heard from a radio until that point. His role was just that of an assistant. He didn’t understand when I explained my plans to build more robust players and sell them for Rs. 25 each. He had no enterprise and was easily satisfied. That made me miss Krishnan even more.
In any case, it was a doomed business venture. Amma found that I had ‘borrowed’ grandpa’s records without permission, gave me a disappointed look, and a sermon highlighting how valuable the records were, and confiscated our body of work.
When I wasn’t dreaming up projects, I used to go for long walks along the sandy river. Returning home was not enticing. Vani was very grown up, and busy with her work to pay any attention to me. Amma was as much of a drama queen as ever, and would worry aloud about my future. I hardly saw my father. The few occasions I did, he used to drop hints as to how I could be helping him with our family business.
The family business was making and selling seeval, the shavings of the betelnut. At the factory, the workers would feed betel nuts into a machine and something resembling pencil shavings would come out. They would package this up and sell it for money. I was always at a loss to understand why anyone would pay money for this. Seeval didn’t merely look like pencil shavings, but also tasted like it. People used to wrap it in Betel leaves and eat. Revolting stuff. But people's interest in the foul stuff kept money flowing into the family coffers. Appa used to tell me that we were not rich, but were very comfortable, without explaining the difference.
Despite my impression that the business was lucrative, I had no interest in participating in it. I tried sitting in Appa’s store and the factory. The work was boring. It mostly involved verifying the counts of the seeval packs going out, and making sure that the bags of betel nut delivered were weighed properly. I could not imagine doing this for the whole of my adult life. The only saving grace was the pleasant smell of rose water-infused ‘panneer’ tobacco coming from Nagu mama, the clerk. It made me want to taste the tobacco. Nagu mama told me in a confidential whisper that that would stunt my growth. ‘Look at all the dwarfs. How do you think they stopped growing?’, he’d ask with a grave expression. That put an end to my tobacco craving. After a few years, I realized that it was a well-meaning subterfuge to discourage me from picking up his vice. But his threat had been so effective that I never again wanted to try tobacco again.
My aversion to the seeval business reminded Vani of her favorite character in a novel - a guy whose family was in the fish business. He broke away from the family and placed an advertisement in the newspaper, with something like, ‘A talented young man wants a job. Any job as long as fish is not involved. Crime is not a problem. Do you want someone to drive your car? Walk your dog? Assassinate your aunt? I’m your man!’. Or words to that effect. She never told me if he ended up finding a job that way. Vani used to be busy reading and writing all the time. It seemed unfair to me that Appa would ask me to learn his business and leave her alone.
Vaxxy seeking Krusty
In any case, Vani’s story of the fish-hater gave me an unrelated idea. I’d been missing Krishnan. It occurred to me that a newspaper advertisement could help me find him.
All I knew was that Krishnan’s family had moved to Madras. If I placed an advertisement in the daily newspaper, he might respond, and we could resume our friendship, at least through postcards or phone. Phone calls were expensive those days. I could get away with using the phone from Appa’s desk when no one was around. But incoming calls were a different matter. I’d also have to be in the shop to receive the messages. If I start picking up calls, it would raise questions, as everyone knew I didn’t like doing that.
Kareembhai ran a bicycle repair/rental shop, and an adjacent grocery store. He had a phone. I thought I could persuade him to pass a message when someone phoned. The next time I was at his store, I memorized the number written on the dial.
I phoned the newspaper office to enquire about the rates. My voice was not very masculine yet. I didn’t want to expose my identity as a teenager, so I gave a woman’s name. They said they could run an advertisement in the Madras edition, I was shocked to hear that a small slot, with onerous word limits, would cost sixty rupees. That would almost wipe out my entire savings, but it had to be done. The lady gave me a reference number to use when I sent in the request.
After some trials, I decided to go with something like this:
“Vaxxy is looking for Krusty, who lived in IOB Colony, Mandirapuram, went to NHSS, and likes comics. Call phone number *** or reply to mailbox ***.”
Vaxxy was the secret nickname that Krishnan had given me. I had called him Krusty in return. If you had asked me I couldn’t have explained the reason for the secret names. It seemed to be the right thing to do.
I wiped out my piggybank, sent the money through a money-order and sent the message through an inland letter. I got a letter, saying my advertisement would be printed the following Monday.
The lady I had spoken to said that I could collect the mailbox responses in person, which would involve traveling to Madras. That didn’t seem feasible. But I promptly arranged to be at Karimbhai’s shop Monday morning. I could not summon the nerve to tell him that I used his phone number for the advertisement. I thought I could hang around for a few hours to see how things went. I stayed there for two hours, ostensibly to try out the rental bicycles, but no call came. I went home.
When I reached his shop the next morning, Karimbhai was seething. He was complaining to a customer that he had received dozens of calls since the previous day, asking for someone called Vaxxy. I rehearsed multiple lines in my head to tactfully explain the calls. In the end, I could not summon the courage. So I just let the matter drop. It would remain one of those eternal mysteries as far as Karimbhai was concerned.
The case of the Disappearing Lawyer
Now, about the interesting incident at the end of the summer. My grandfather used to sit on the thinnai, the seating area in front of the house to catch a breeze in the sultry evenings. One of those evenings, he was reading the newspaper. I was seated a few feet away, trying to repair a kite. I heard noises of a few men running and some yelling. I immediately peeked outside with interest. My grandfather, being hard of hearing, didn’t hear any of the noise, and was immersed in the news. A man came sprinting, pushed my grandfather aside, and ran inside the house. As he entered the house, he bolted the front door inside, locking us out.
Three men who were in hot pursuit, rushed behind him and tried to push the door open. One of them had a crowbar, and tried to break the door open. Thankfully, the house had been built a century ago, with a heavy door designed to keep dacoits out. The blows dented the surface of the door, but didn’t cause any significant damage.
The men talked to each other in a strange language and ran around, perhaps looking for a way to get to the back of the house. It was a row of houses that shared walls. They would have to go some hundred meters or so before getting a way to get to the back alley. It all happened fast.
Neelamegam, the gossipy neighbour next door, came up to enquire after a few minutes. He said he knew man who entered the house. ‘His name is Seshan, you know! He’s a criminal lawyer with dubious connections. Nasty business, his!’ Lowering his voice, he added that the lawyer had been involved in shady money sharking deals and he, Neelamegam, wasn't surprised at the developments. He left, shaking his head and looking delighted at having a story to tell everyone for the next week or two.
My mom was alone in the house at the time. Just as I started to wonder about her safety, she opened the front door, looking confused. I entered the house and walked the length of the house, looking for the man. My mom said she heard footsteps running to the backyard but didn’t see anyone when she emerged from the kitchen. I went to the backyard. The bathroom was closed and locked from inside. For some strange reason, I didn’t feel fear. I was the man of the house, and it was my job to investigate. I gently knocked on the door, and called out, ‘Lawyer sir, those men are gone. You can come out now!’.
There was no response. I heard some noises that sounded like the shingles being removed, some rustling, some sound of shingles cracking under weight, and then it was all quiet.
The shady lawyer had escaped through the roof.
Appa got word of the event, rushed home, and was relieved to find everyone safe. He called the police. Two poorly equipped, bored looking policemen came home and hung around for a while. We gathered around Appa and told him what we understood. All women from the neighbourhood came out to check on us and get the news firsthand. My mom was busy talking to all of them. From what I heard, she looked at it philosophically. Her belief was that nothing happens without a purpose.
Seshan would play a significant event in my life later.
Pic credit: Meta AI
