My first conversation with Anees was on the seventh of January 2017 and when he booked my place on the 8th of January ,probably I can look back at it as a birthday gift. When Anees came at the end of March to stay at Russet, little did I expect that it was going to lead to much more .That ‘much more” is the flight I am about to take in September 2017 to relive the story of a wonderful experience that I continue to live through to this day.
It’s always been an oddity of mine that whenever I meet someone who hails from Kerala, my memories of 33 years ago come flooding back to me. Then out of my mouth comes out the Malayalam words as if to confirm to that someone that I once lived there Three decades ago,in 1985, I was part of an international youth exchange program between India and Canada. As a 19 year old, together with thirteen other young people from both the countries ,we had just completed our stay in Canada. After a few restful days in the capital ,I travelled with my mates for four days in a train from New Delhi to Trivandrum.
We finally arrived. Its hard to forget certain things like the great welcome given to us by the people of Kerala..They were lined up on both sides of the street, mostly men in sparkling clean white dhotis and the children with flowers in their plaited hairs. The garlands of fresh flowers hung around our necks and tea parties happened from the house of the village Sarpanch to the Governors residence. For the first time I must have felt like a superstar. The group photos(of straight faces) with the important people in the village were captured with an ancient Kodak box cameras and a black cloth over it, made us like like someone from 1930s .It was a hilarious experience.
The welcome tea parties finally ended after two days and I finally sat in the van heading off to live in a little village, Anad, in Trivandrum, My Canadian counterpart, Cathy and I were to live with Mr and Mrs Pillai. They were our billeting family. I was worried, if I would fit into what I assumed was a traditional conservation family.I met Regi and Giri ,the sons of my host parents.When I met all of them in their home, I remembered standing in this beautiful courtyard with a well ,the kitchen separated from the main house and everything was so neat and clean. The first smell I got was that of coconut oil. When I was introduced to my host parents ,I did our Namaste. We were warned never to shake hands, it was not done .
The days that followed saw me eating traditional breakfast of “pottu” idlis, sambhar, dosas iddiappam, neyapam .I would get up in the morning and follow Acchan to the rubber plantation and be back with the bucketful of rubber sap only to mould them into sheets and dry them over the fireplace. The first few days began with sign language to communicate and as a teen I assumed it was understood. Then Amma started to teach me Malayalam, starting at the breakfast table and I also picked it up from the local shopkeeper, the fellows at my work placements where I was attached for a while a furniture shop. Malayalam was starting to feel good in the tongue and together with my body language,I was starting to enjoy speaking it. It was just perfect. In fact in the entire team we felt so happy just uttering as much Malayalam throughout the day especially when our work in building the dispensary for Anad village had begun.Peels of laughter would be the highlight of our day. Together we built a dispensary. The evenings I would walk through the narrow rice field paths to get back home making sure I did not fall or it would be news in the village.”Anne fell in the rice fields”..The weekends in the village were sometimes spent in seeing a Malayalee movie with our brothers,Giri Ana and Regi Ana or hanging out in the local market drinking tea in tiny little cups.
Soon the Anad building project was over. My tender hands had hardened over the weeks of dealing with cement, sand and bricks. Drinking coconut water and having lunches packed by Amma under the shade of the rubber trees was the only break I looked forward to. The dispensary was inaugurated in a grand way and names were etched on black marble fixed to the wall for posterity. It was time to say goodbye, the only word which I could never utter in Malayalam.
Its now 2017 , thirty three years have gone by, this was where I can truly say,I saw my calling. The love and affection given to me by my host family my Amma my Acchan , the people of Anad village ,not to forget Mr Potti, the village Panchayat chief was unforgettable .The entire experience shaped my choice of a career in development and now hosting in Airbnb. The end of my stay in Anad village of Kerala saw all traditional barriers broken, I hugged my adopted parents Amma and Acchan and shook my billeting brothers hands so hard, I think that moment will be forever etched in my memory.
The years following my saying goodbye to my Amma and Acchan in January 1986 started to fade into a memory save for the little piece of address that I had memorized and the few photographs clicked over Christmas 1985 at Kerala. Then Anees arrived at Russet as a guest of Airbnb at the end of March 2017 like it was meant to be.I think of the song by Dinah Washington” What a difference a day makes”. The one day that Anees spent at my homestay opened up a chapter of my life that I was almost ready to close. One last try, I must have thought unknowingly and it was perhaps meant to be. Anees and I spent a couple of hours over tea as I told him of that year 1985.Then Anees left Shillong and asked me to give the address of the house and host family in Kerala.I thought it would never happen, he would forget about it soon. one fine day I see a message on whatsapp, that he had found my billeting parents and asked me to send any picture.Oh I must have turned my cupboard upside down to search for the photographs of Amma and Acchan. When I found it,I sent it over to Annes. He came back with the reply that it was the right family and right house and it was acchan and amma alright. I felt a strange feeling of numbness and took me a while to recover.We texted back and forth and finally I was connected to the granddaughter of Acchan .She was not born when I was there. She sent me pictures of the family and informed me that Amma had passed away two years ago. I am flying to Trivandrum soon to relive every moment, to see my adopted family in Kerala and I just can’t wait. Thank you Anees.You made it happen.
