Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Postcards from the past 2

Dear,

A thousand pardons for the delay in mailing you the photos. Being computer illiterate I have to depend on the kids to fit the USB cord, download on to the computer, burn a CD and then give it for printing, wasn’t computers meant to simplify things??? Summer vacations are also not the same anymore, earlier we used to come down to our home towns, sporting tight Jeans, Lacoste T-shirts and pointed shoes, spend a leisurely month carousing the land and gorging on home made food, Nowadays it is a packed and pre-programmed schedule, squeezing in visits to 12 houses of relatives, 8/10 friends is like”mission impossible” and one has to be go to rehab- to recover from the overdose of relatives and small talk.

As I drove down to Quilandy in the wild hush of a lazy afternoon, it brought back lingering memories of a bygone era, the scenic landscape rolling by in slow motion with swaying palms and the unobtrusive Elathur River flowing silently represented an idyllic existence. As the surreal rays of the setting sun reflected off my windshield, a tinge of sadness crept over me as I departed from this pristine village. There is an inherent elegiac quality in that passage, a road much traversed in my youth many years ago. I was not the studious type, in fact I was a negative role model, with a laundry list of character defects, smoking, drinking, flirting/ womanizing, street brawls and many other transgressions, which were all well publicized.

Time flowed in a linear direction and life was about landing a big job and money people talked about money all the time. Serendipity was stronger than my will in shaping my destiny. A defiant climber by default, I had to rise from a nondescript town in Kerala to grab opportunities from the cruel world to increase inter- generational mobility. I was no stranger to tough times; my parents also struggled to find a place under the sun. I have had a chequered career and background a triangulation of 3 cultures, Ceylon, Kerala and finally Bombay with brief stints in many lands/ states. The intense emotion I felt while leaving Ceylon, the brief and early years in Calicut before departing for Bombay was the end of a phase in my life.

Leaving Calicut had a lot of positive impact on my life and career, yet it was accompanied by a sense of sorrow. The climb back to credibility was slow but steady as I focused on my work and career to shed the skin of notoriety and quirky ass passions of cocktail parties, making passes at attractive females, and shrug off the label of an alcoholic, nee-r do well, by finally seeking anchorage in marriage and domesticity. Immigration to another land/state always implies leaving behind something. I have two separate lives, what I left behind in my youth, and the new life I have built in Bombay.

Life has been a grand journey, time passes, life happens, children grow up, colleagues forget you and favors bestowed on them, careers come to an end, but life goes on. Time consumes everything, & I watch each year slide past like pearls slipping through my fingers into the sea. We can never control what happens in the external world, so sit back and enjoy each minute of the present, even if it brings unexpected challenges.

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