The big divide

The lazy chair keeps taking me into the past….

As I mentioned earlier, after finishing the fifth standard – in today’s language, after graduating from the primary school – we all had to go to a different school. We were four boys, if you remember the Parippu Vada episode, going together to the new school. There were three girls  also coming to the same school from our village. They were our classmates in the primary school also.

On the first day, as we were walking, I just exchanged pleasentries with them as we were meeting after two months of long vacation.  They would just giggle, act shy and wouldn't talk. It was Mukundan, I think, enlightened us that from sixth standard onwards, girls and boys should not talk to each other, as we had become big children. We did discuss the issue for a couple of days because the situation disturbed us - especially, as we did not know why. We didn't come to any conclusion, but bowed to the inevitable.

Even in the class, the seating arrangements were such that girls and boys sat in two separate sections.

I tried to ask my aunts and amma as to why we couldn't talk to girls anymore. Nobody would give us a real satisfactory answer. 'It's like that !' they would say. Or, 'we had never asked such questions.’ ‘Why do you want to know? Elders are telling, you just listen and obey!’ some of them would say. I even asked that when I was always allowed to talk to aunts and all other female members at home why I couldn't talk to some girl outside.

'After you grow up to a big Nambudiri, you can talk to as many girls outside the home as you want - why, you may even marry a few of them!', Grandma would say and laugh indulgently.

‘When will I grow up to a big Nambudiri?’ I would ask.

‘Don’t be so impatient! Another six or seven birthdays, and who knows how many girls you are going to charm into…’, some of the aunts would tease.

My birthdays were big affairs when Grandpa was alive, especially before my Upanayanam, as I was the eldest son in the next generation. I would go to the temple where there would be special Puja performed for me. The Naivedyam – the offering to the God - that day would be ‘Nei Payasam’ (Cooked rice sweetened with jaggery and mixed with dry coconut pieces fried in ghee. There would be, in addition, a liberal dose of ghee poured in and things like cardamom etc. added.)

On this day, the food would be served in a plantain leaf, not in brass plates as was usually done. For the morning breakfast, my brother would sit next to me on the right side. The person sitting on the right side was also important on a birthday, though I did not know what the significance was. Except for my birthdays, I would be the right-side-boy and after my brother grew up to 2 or three years he would fill the role.

The feast in the afternoon would be very elaborate with all the Keralite dishes like Kalan, Olan, Erisseri etc and another Payasam. (We used to call it Idichu Pizhinha Payasam – meaning ‘crushed and squeezed payasam’). This was because many coconuts were crushed and milk squeezed out of them and rice was cooked in this milk with lots of jaggery added for sweetening. 

People from the village would be given lunch.

But those days I noticed that the birthdays of girls were not celebrated with such pomp. Just a special Puja, a jaggery payasam which was the Naivedyam – that was all. No feast.

My uncle tried to enlighten me about the reason for this. But whatever reason he could give, I was not able to understand this big divide, leave alone justify it.