Living beside an angry river

 

Photos: TR Premkumar. Photos by NV Jose; A view of a house from outside; residents playing chess by the banks of the Chalakudy river 

The residents of the Moozhikulam Sala live close to nature, beside the Chalakudy River in Kerala. Then during the 2018 floods, the river water rose to a height of 25 feet inside the colony. Things have never been the same again  

By Shevlin Sebastian 

One of the first things that caught the eye at the Moozhikulam Sala (28 kms from Kochi) is that there is no gate. A few metres inside, there is a large banyan tree with overhanging branches. The mud paths abound in dry leaves. 

There is a good deal of vegetation: peanut, banana, fig, bamboo, sandalwood and cannonball trees. Because the Sala is right next to the Chalakudy river, a gentle breeze blows all the time. The cries of cicadas and the occasional cawing of a crow punctuate the silence. A dog barks when he sees strangers. Butterflies and bees circle the petals of flowers. 

TR Premkumar, 67, who grew up in Moozhikulam, was inspired by the history of the place. Maharaja Kulasekhara Varman (800-820 AD) was the ruler of the Chera kingdom. In Moozhikulam, he set up a sala or university. The university followed the Gurukula system, which focused mostly on the Vedas. The other salas that were put were in Thiruvananthapuram, Thiruvalla and Parthivapuram. 

Premkumar was a maths and physics teacher at a private college. Later, he became the manager of one of the Kochi branches of DC Books, one of Kerala’s leading publishers. One day, he read ‘Living with the Himalayan Masters’ by Swami Rama. 

“Swami Rama said the more possessions you can give up, and live simply, the better it is for you,” said Premkumar. “You will experience joy. It is only then that you will see nature in all its glory. That affected me. It was a turning point in my life.” Soon, Premkumar gave up his chain-smoking habit and stopped eating non-vegetarian food and imbibing alcohol. 

He came up with the concept of a colony where people could live in close connection with nature, beside the Chalakudy River. He located a two-acre plot. Premkumar put a one-page advertisement about the eco-friendly project in the Malayalam Weekly of ‘The New Indian Express’ group in November 2005. Buyers purchased all 52 plots within a month. 

“People became enamoured to live close to nature,” said Premkumar. 

The residents belong mostly to the middle class. Most of them are those who would often visit the DC bookstore. “They are art and culturally-inclined people,” said Premkumar. Around 70 men, women and children now live in the colony.

About six families have been there from the beginning. 

One of them is Pradeep Kumar, a freelance designer. Asked about the pleasures of living in the colony, Pradeep said, “I get to breathe pure air, especially in the early mornings. There is a beautiful silence mixed with the cries of birds. The neighbours are nice and friendly. There is no sound of vehicles.”  

However, many single-room houses are empty. The owners live in other places. But they come on the weekends or once a month to get a respite from their work pressures.

On a Saturday evening, a couple of men are playing chess on the steps leading to the river. 

“Is this the impact of India’s gold medal wins in the Chess Olympiad?” a visitor said. 

One of them, in a blue T-shirt and Bermuda shorts, smiled and said, “No, we always play chess whenever we have free time.”   

Today, the Sala comprises 23 ‘naalukettu’ houses, with an area of 1089 sq. ft., with three bedrooms and 29 one-bedroom houses with an area of 230 sq. ft. “It is like a studio apartment,” he said. “Two people can live comfortably. It is good for artists, writers, and those who have retired.” Interestingly, there are no walls between the houses.   

The houses are made of burnt brick and mud, in the Laurie Baker style. 

British-born Baker (1917-2007) was renowned for using local materials to make houses in Kerala. “There is an air pocket between the bricks,” said Premkumar. “This feature keeps the houses cool.”

There is water in the well throughout the year. Next to it, they have installed a 25,000-litre tank. So every house receives piped water. The people have a carbon-neutral kitchen. That means they do not cook the food. They eat the food raw, including the vegetables. To make it easy to digest, they smash it using the grinder. “After that, you will never get the feeling it is raw,” said Premkumar. “Believe me, it has a more delicious flavour than when you cook it.”

At a nearby patch of land, the residents grew vegetables, like brinjals, cucumber, onions, cauliflower, cabbage, potatoes and tomatoes. And all kinds of bananas. They do not use pesticides or chemicals. But now, because of erratic rainfall, it has been difficult to grow vegetables.    

On asked how he has changed as a man, after being in close contact with nature. Premkumar said, “I love nature and I respect it. The problem is that man has lost touch with nature because of lifestyle and attitudinal changes. We want to exploit it as much as possible. This causes enormous damage to the ecosystem.”

Animals live in close contact with nature. That is why nature cares about them. Premkumar mentioned that not a single animal died during the landslides that have afflicted Kerala in recent times. “They always receive a warning beforehand, because they are in tune with nature,” Premkumar said. “Before the tsunami happened, many animals escaped to higher ground. And that was the case with the recent landslide in Wayanad. The animals that died were the ones that man had domesticated and kept tied up.”

The devastation caused by flooding 

Life changed for Premkumar and the other residents following the massive flooding that afflicted Kerala in 2018. The waters from the Chalakudy river overflowed the banks and reached a height of 25 feet inside the colony. Only the tips of the roofs were visible. Owing to red alerts issued by the Meteorological Department, all the residents had left for distant places or the houses of relatives. 

“The flood destroyed all the furniture, fridge, TV, and other items. I lost my library of 2500 rare books,” said Premkumar. The next year, water again entered the colony. 

After that, in 2020 and 2021, there was a red alert because the river was almost overflowing the banks. So the people had to leave even though eventually the water did not enter the colony. “In July, this year, water entered the house at floor level,” said Premkumar.   

Pradeep said the residents are yet to recover from the shock of 2018. “But we have accepted that this danger of flooding will be ever-present,” he said. 

The lack of a first floor in all the houses has become a problem. There is no safe place to store anything. 

Premkumar admitted that he no longer enjoyed the rain like he did as a child. “There is always a fear now,” he said. “The romance of the rains is gone.”  

Some residents want to leave, but the price has crashed. So, they are stuck here. There is no guarantee that flooding will not take place in the future. So prospective buyers are reluctant to take the risk.  

After 2018, farming has become a problem because of the unpredictable changes in the weather. “The rain has become unpredictable,” said Premkumar. “When it is supposed to rain, it doesn’t and vice versa.” 

It is a man-made disaster, asserts Premkumar. In 2018, the 58 dams in Kerala released their water simultaneously. “Till now, the government has put no proper safety measures in place,” he said. “But there is one blessing. Because the Moozhikulam Sala is at sea level, there will be no landslides, like in Wayanad.”  

Premkumar lives with his wife Sudhamani, who retired from the High Court as an office superintendent. The couple has two children. Their eldest son Vineeth is a finance manager at Apollo Hospital in Bangalore. The second son, Vivek, is a professional Carnatic singer based in Chennai. Both sons are married. 

(An edited version was published in The Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)

A pen as sharp as a sword

 

Photos: Kiran Nagarkar: Photo by Tulsi Vatsal; Book cover; Author Salil Tripathi. Photo by Udayan Tripathi

In ‘Asides, Tirades, Meditations’ — Selected Essays, Kiran Nagarkar, one of the notable writers of post-Independence India, writes with an electric style on a host of topics   

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Author Salil Tripathi grew up in an apartment near Kemp’s Corner where Chaitra, an advertising agency, had an office. His mother would translate Chaitra’s advertising copy into Gujarati. Now and then his mother would meet the celebrated author Kiran Nagarkar, who also worked there. When Tripathi was in his twenties, he was introduced to Nagarkar. They began a lifelong friendship. 

After his studies abroad, Tripathi joined the Indian Post newspaper as an assistant editor. He offered Nagarkar an opportunity to write a column. The celebrated author became a film critic for foreign films. That is probably how Nagarkar became a columnist for an English-language newspaper. 

Tripathi recounted this in his introduction to the book, ‘Asides, Tirades, Meditations—Selected Essays’ by Nagarkar (Bloomsbury). 

Tripathi did mention that in 2018, three women journalists accused Nagarkar of behaving inappropriately. He denied the allegations. The next year, Nagarkar died of a cerebral haemorrhage. He was 77.  

Tripathi said, “I admired him as a gifted writer, a champion of freedoms, a friend who saw through the clouds clearly, who warned us about the seductive peril of majoritarianism.” 

There are 36 essays in the 317-page book, clubbed under the headings, ‘Writing’, ‘Cinema’ and ‘On Society and Politics’.  

In the first essay, ‘Clueless: An Occasional Writer’s Journey,’ Nagarkar states, ‘You can dictate to your characters. You can bind them hand and foot, you can take almost all decisions for them, you can make sure that they grow up the way you want them to, but the chances are that you will find in the end that they are not flesh-and-blood people but puppets and marionettes.’ 

This is probably the drawback of too many writers. But how to make characters come alive seems to be a gift from the Gods. Not everybody can do it.   

Nagarkar also confirms the important role played by the subconscious in creative work. ‘While there is no gainsaying the primary contribution of conscious thought and planning, it is the subconscious processes of the mind and that strange chemical laboratory called “gestation” whereby at times things seem to fall into place by themselves and trickier problems get resolved.’ 

It was interesting to note that Nagarkar studied Marathi for the first four years of his primary education. After that, his parents enrolled him in an English-medium school. Yet, he emerged as a major English writer. 

Nagarkar gained fame for his novels, including ‘Saat Sakkam Trechalis’ (tr. Seven Sixes Are Forty Three) (1974), ‘Ravan and Eddie’ (1994), and ‘Cuckold’ (1997). 

For ‘Cuckold’, he won the 2001 Sahitya Akademi Award in 2001. His books were very popular in Germany. In 2012, he received the Order of Merit from Germany. Nagarkar was also a dramatist and screenwriter.

Perception abounds in his essays. In an essay regarding libraries, Nagarkar writes, ‘The most extensive and underrated library in the world, especially in the poorer countries, however, is the institution of the grandmother…she is the mother of all libraries, the largest archive of the oral tradition. In India, she is the repository of the stories from the epics, from the Panchatantra and mythology. She is the one who transmits oral history from generation to generation and is the fount of traditional wisdom.’ 

And he also recalled interesting encounters and conversations. Once he met a friend’s Japanese fiancée. She told Nagarkar, “I know nothing about India, except the four things that I learnt at school.” 

“And what are they?” asked Nagarkar. 

The woman said, “You Indians eat with your right hand, wash your hind parts with your left. You burn your women and practise untouchability.” 

‘A brief, succinct and aphoristic, cultural, political and sociological history of India. A body blow,’ wrote Nagarkar.       

In the essay, ‘Shiva’s Blue Throat: A Persona; Vision of the Artist’s Role’, Nagarkar compared the writing style of Nobel Laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez with Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie. 

‘Rushdie’s joie de vivre, exuberance and deliberate punning are irrepressible,’ wrote Nagarkar. ‘His language is brilliant, flamboyant and endlessly playful ... He is a virtuoso trapeze artist whose words are always flying and caught in mid-air, doing the most incredible twists and turns. How can anyone fail to be carried away by his masterful performance? But neither can we forget that it is a performance.’

As for Marquez, Nagarkar said the language doesn’t bring attention to itself. ‘What strikes you from the very start is the richness and fecundity of his imagery, the almost infinite variety of the stories within stories he has to tell. And yet what you remember most are his characters and their fate.’ 

Other subjects include memories of his childhood, ageing, pretentious art films, star power in Bollywood, the city of Bombay, climate change, and ‘the fine art of intolerance.’                                      

The book concludes with an afterword by prize-winning novelist Nayantara Sahgal. They met in 2104 and immediately became fast friends. 

Nagarkar’s style is direct, clear and straightforward. These are easy-to-read essays. He always has an original viewpoint. There are many insights that are sprinkled all across the essays. Insights that make you pause and reflect and finally, get enriched by. 

‘Asides, Tirades, Meditations’ is an engaging read. However, there is no mention of when and where these essays were published. Overall, this is a book worth buying. If you are a serious reader, you will not be disappointed.

(Published in Scroll.com)

Heart-breaking and disturbing

 

Captions: Book cover; Author Sanam Sutirath Wazir

Sanam Sutirath Wazir’s ‘The Kaurs of 1984 — the Untold, Unheard Stories of Sikh Women’ is a razor-sharp look at the extraordinary devastation that women suffered after the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984

By Shevlin Sebastian

On June 4, 1984, Rachpal Singh, the secretary of militant leader Sant Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, was in a room in the Golden Temple. He was with his wife Pritam and their 18-day-old son. The Army was shooting into the Temple during Operation Bluestar. 

Pritam said, “A flash of light would come in from the space below the doors and blind us for a few seconds, followed by the deafening sounds of bombs. I could hear the sound of tank treads moving outside our room, proceeding towards the Akal Takht (the chief centre of religious authority among the Sikhs).”  

At 12.15 am on June 6, a bullet hit her baby’s back before hitting Pritam on the chest. As Rachpal bent over his wife and son, a bullet hit him on the head. He died instantly. Pritam lay in a pool of blood, with her dead husband beside her and her dead son lying on her chest. 

Manjeet Singh, the then press secretary of the Akali Dal, saw a young man and his infant son killed. The mother picked up the son and placed him on his father’s chest. “It’s been more than three decades now, but whenever I close my eyes, that scene comes back to me,” said Manjeet.  

Author Sanam Sutirath Wazir focuses on the suffering of Sikh women in the book, ‘The Kaurs of 1984 - the untold, unheard stories of Sikh women’. Many of whom were rape victims during the 1984 cataclysm that shook Punjab, and the riots that took place in Delhi and other places. 

The Sikh psyche was shattered because of the army’s widespread damage to the Golden Temple. ‘Over 350 bullets riddled the dome of the Golden Temple,’ wrote Wazir. ‘One bullet pierced the cushion on which the Guru Granth Sahib was placed, pushing through as many as eighty-two pages of the book itself. Most of the items in the toshakhana (a storehouse for valuables) were destroyed….all the handwritten hukamnamas (orders), penned by different Sikh gurus across the ages, were lost as well.’ 

Wazir writes with painstaking details about the damage to the Golden Temple and the human rights violations by the Army and the security agencies that took place thereafter. Even women and children were not spared. 

No surprises, there was a blowback. On October 31, 1984, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was shot dead by her Sikh guards, Beant Singh and Satwant Singh. Immediately, in Delhi, mobs, mainly orchestrated by the Congress Party, laid siege to the Sikh community. 

At Block 32 in Trilokpuri, East Delhi, local leader Rampal Saroj, accompanied by a group of men, asked resident Darshan Kaur where her husband Ram Singh was. She said he had gone out with his brother. 

The men did not believe her. They broke down the main door and barged into the house. Ram Singh was hiding in the kitchen. ‘They dragged him out by his hair,’ wrote Wazir. ‘They placed a quilt and tyre over his head, doused him in oil and then set him ablaze. Ram Singh was nearly burnt to death; he later succumbed to his injuries.’ In the end, all the Sikh men who were present in Block 32 on that day were killed. There were 275 widows across 180 homes.  

The men committed rape against elderly, middle-aged women, and teenage girls. Darshan said a young girl of 15 returned, naked and bruised. She had been raped many times, by some as old as her grandfather.  

Chapter by chapter Wazir tells harrowing tales about what happened to the Sikh women, in places like Sultanpuri, Raj Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar. Their lives were destroyed. Very few have recovered. As one woman, Satwant Kaur, said, “Those monsters had scarred me for life.”

Astoundingly, many women recalled that the rioters used white powder on the victims. Wazir said that it could have been white phosphorus. The powder burns human flesh and catches fire when exposed to the air.

The violence spread beyond Delhi. In Hondh Chillar, in the Rewari district in Haryana, a mass grave of Sikhs was discovered in 2010. 

However, India has not stepped back from this destructive route. Since 1984, according to a Google search, there have been over 70 riots in different parts of India. The latest was the Haldwani riots in Uttarakhand on February 9, 2024. 

Wazir also focuses on women who became militants and became part of pro-Khalistan groups as well as the lives of widows in refugee camps. 

This book is a very valuable document. It heightens awareness of the suffering that takes place. Or as feminist publisher Urvashi Butalia said on the cover, the book is ‘graphic, disturbing and searing.’ 

We need to read it, get appalled and vow to ourselves that as a people, we should never allow such events to happen again.

(An edited version was published in The Sunday Magazine, The New Indian Express, South India and Delhi)

Awakening our sensitivity

 

Photos: Pramod Thomas and his family; Pramod's friend, the journalist Jobin Augustine, who passed away in May, 2012. A condolence meeting was held at the Ernakulam Press Club

Journalist Pramod Thomas focuses on the everyday moments of life, as well as the tragedies that afflict society in his book of poems

By Shevlin Sebastian 

Pramod Thomas was my former colleague in The New Indian Express, Kochi. He was and remains an ace business journalist. Today, he works for an UK-based media group. 

But what nobody will realise when you meet him, with his focused, professional attitude, is that he is a sensitive poet. At spare moments, which I am sure, is rare since he has a wife and two daughters, Pramod writes poems. This is his way of battling stress and the lack of meaning in life that afflicts everybody now and then.  

In 2017, he published his first book of poetry, ‘A Shoe Named Revolution’. Now, he has published his second book, ‘Biography of a Couch Potato’. It comes as no surprise that he has dedicated it to his two daughters, Ayaana and Ahaana. 

It is also dedicated to ‘those who find comfort in the quiet moments and beauty in the ordinary; To the ones who see poetry in everyday life — in the sunrise, the rain, a stranger’s smile or a fleeting thought. May these poems be a companion on your journey, offering solace, reflection, and a sense of belonging.’  

When you realise how conflict (Ukraine/Gaza/Lebanon) has been dominating the news for over two years, the first poem, ‘Eulogy of the Unborn’, is about war:

‘Do not stare at me, for I am dead

Don’t cry for me, 

Cry for my child, unborn. 

Her eyes shattered 

In the rubble,   

Only I can see a rainbow,

A colourless one though.’ 

The book comprises 21 poems. 

One poem, ‘Blood Butterfly’, draws inspiration from a 13-year-old girl in Tamil Nadu who tragically lost her life during Cyclone Gaja. Her family forced her to stay alone in a barn because she was having her periods. 

Here is the concluding verse: 

‘While trying to please gods, 

We become less human. 

Forgive us, 

In the name of a zillion unborn. 

Now, we have blood on our hands.’

Pramod dedicated another poem, ‘Echoes of a Lost Spring’, to his journalist friend, Jobin Augustine, 28, who passed away in May, 2012. A sub-editor with the Madhyamam Daily newspaper in Kochi, Jobin fell from a private bus, got crushed under its wheels, and died. He was on his way to his home at Ramapuram.    

The poem, ‘A Poetic Flower’ is dedicated to the Kerala poet, A Ayyappan. Pramod is a fan of his work. Ayyappan was found unconscious on October 21, 2010, in front of a theatre in Thiruvananthapuram. 

The local people informed the police, who took the poet to the government hospital. Nobody, including the police, had recognised him. A bachelor, Ayyappan was 61 when he died. People knew him as the ‘Icon of Anarchism’ of Malayalam poetry.  

Pramod writes: 

‘The street was not deserted

There were a few people,

But none recognised the poet; 

They mistook him for a drunkard, 

Considering him a bad omen.’ 

Pramod concludes the poem by saying: 

‘In a city far away, many awaited the poet,

Eager to honour him for his poems, 

An event was ready to welcome him,

Ears eager to listen to his verses,

But life had other plans.’ 

‘The City of Sins’ focuses on the rape and murder of a 31-year-old trainee doctor at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in Kolkata on August 9, 2024. 

‘Kolkata, hang your head in shame, 

Retreat to your ugly thoughts, and end yourself. 

How can you raise your head now? 

There is blood on your hands, 

Your dark streets can never be the same again.’ 

At the end of the poem, Pramod states: ‘Sexual violence against women is a widespread problem in India — an average of nearly 90 rapes a day was reported in 2022 across the country.’

In the title poem, ‘Biography of a Couch Potato’, Pramod says: 

‘There is no endgame in this dull drama,

You live the same life every day, year after year. 

When you’re glued to the screen, 

Your comfort zone embraces you,

And there’s no going back.’  

However, the book is not all gloom and doom. 

Pramod writes about love too. 

‘There is no boundary to my love for you;

I am connected to you, 

Like a train to its track, 

A thunder to the cloud. 

And a chalk to the blackboard. 

You are the last drop of my rain, 

The final drop in my blood bank,

The last atom in my body,

The last prisoner in the world’s last prison.’

One gets the feeling his wife Stephena is going to be moved to read this. 

Other poems include dealing with the suffering of a writer who has received rejection, the birth of a child to a gay couple, which is overseen by a lesbian nurse, American Vice President Kamala Harris, wokeism, the Wayanad landslide tragedy, a Filipino woman who donned a mermaid suit and performed in a large aquarium at Kochi, and the biography of a stone.

The poems reveal Pramod’s sensitivity to human suffering and emotional pain. He writes from his heart. And so it affects us who read these poems. It makes us pause in our hectic daily life and activates the sensitive aspects of our being. In short, these poems humanise us.    

‘Couch Potato’ is nominated for the 21st Century Emily Dickinson Award.