It was before the 80's and after I was born (that gives it 4 years), that I have my first memories of Sivamama. O T Sivaraman Nambiar for his colleagues in Kerala; O T Shivaram for his colleagues in the rest of India; Siva-mmama for me.
In the traditional hamlet of Thiruvannoor, the first address that I remember living at, there used to be a temple pond. I have memories of small boys running along the 6 foot high ledge and do a plunge towards the pool, splashing water in the faces of happy onlookers. Sheer moments of joy. I am told Shivammama was the one who used to take me there on those walks. In the extreme ends of my memory, I remember his room in the Thiruvannoor house - a cot, a study table, and a row of books. Which actually summed up the man - working professional, part time student ambitious about higher studies and a voracious reader.
In the traditional hamlet of Thiruvannoor, the first address that I remember living at, there used to be a temple pond. I have memories of small boys running along the 6 foot high ledge and do a plunge towards the pool, splashing water in the faces of happy onlookers. Sheer moments of joy. I am told Shivammama was the one who used to take me there on those walks. In the extreme ends of my memory, I remember his room in the Thiruvannoor house - a cot, a study table, and a row of books. Which actually summed up the man - working professional, part time student ambitious about higher studies and a voracious reader.
His mother (my grandmother) would tell me about how Shivammama got miraculously cured from a bout of polio as a young child. Part providence, part Ammoomma's faith and part destiny. He has been on the move ever since. Kannur to Kozhikkode Guruvayoorappan College - where he graduated in Chemistry and had his first brush with writing fiction. Calicut to Ernakulam as a professional in the F.A.C.T, Alwaye and then onto Kerala Soaps and Oils.
As a street smart personal products sales man; he traveled across South India as far as distribution networks reached, competing with some of the big-wigs of the global industry at that time. May be it was because of his quick wit, his very warm smile and the sense of being earthly genuine, may be hundred odd people from all over the country made an earnest attempt to travel to a corner coastal town, that is Calicut to attend his wedding to Sobha-ammayi in Nov 1 1980.
He had his life split between Calicut and where his markets were; all across India; just as he had his self split between the rigours and tact of a street-smart marketing professional and the romance within, of a writer waiting to explode. On those stints at Calicut, he would take me to school in his Bajaj scooter [Yes I was one of the very few in class who got a lift to school on rare days like these - the rest, like me walked, or took the public bus system or the school bus system] In those days of Ambassador and Fiat; cars were a rarity; let alone people who got dropped to schools in a car. On the weekend nights as a bachelor, he would sprawl himself on the cool red oxide floor and listen to Vividh Bharati or other Radio song shows in our old Murphy portable radio and fall asleep.
He has that incredible gift of falling asleep where and when he wills; be it a crowded day train or a peaceful Sunday afternoon; and also the gift of getting up in the wee hours of morning to put pen on paper; thus giving vent to literary ideas drumming within. Getting up that early in the morning was not new for him, for sometime in the 80's; despite his gruelling work schedule, he had worked his way to top the MBA course at Osmania University
As I stepped into college and as he moved into Cochin as one of the marketing forces behind the Spices Board operations in the city; I got to know Shivammama better. The power distance between the uncle and the nephew was broken; and I started reading between his conversations that he would place with a wink of his already narrow eyes - to decipher tongue-in-cheek humour meant only for the select few. More and more people in niche circles started looking forward to that humour - be it in management circles or on social occasions - and a leadership office bearer position in the Kerala Management Association provided the platform for that.
Now as he travels through the world on official work; he realises the richness of his experience - back-room business battles won and lost, stories of ordinary people who achieved their dreams, what goes on behind a front page article on the leading business dailies and is already putting pen on paper. When the output is ready, I don't have to tell you its arrival.
He had his life split between Calicut and where his markets were; all across India; just as he had his self split between the rigours and tact of a street-smart marketing professional and the romance within, of a writer waiting to explode. On those stints at Calicut, he would take me to school in his Bajaj scooter [Yes I was one of the very few in class who got a lift to school on rare days like these - the rest, like me walked, or took the public bus system or the school bus system] In those days of Ambassador and Fiat; cars were a rarity; let alone people who got dropped to schools in a car. On the weekend nights as a bachelor, he would sprawl himself on the cool red oxide floor and listen to Vividh Bharati or other Radio song shows in our old Murphy portable radio and fall asleep.
He has that incredible gift of falling asleep where and when he wills; be it a crowded day train or a peaceful Sunday afternoon; and also the gift of getting up in the wee hours of morning to put pen on paper; thus giving vent to literary ideas drumming within. Getting up that early in the morning was not new for him, for sometime in the 80's; despite his gruelling work schedule, he had worked his way to top the MBA course at Osmania University
As I stepped into college and as he moved into Cochin as one of the marketing forces behind the Spices Board operations in the city; I got to know Shivammama better. The power distance between the uncle and the nephew was broken; and I started reading between his conversations that he would place with a wink of his already narrow eyes - to decipher tongue-in-cheek humour meant only for the select few. More and more people in niche circles started looking forward to that humour - be it in management circles or on social occasions - and a leadership office bearer position in the Kerala Management Association provided the platform for that.
Now as he travels through the world on official work; he realises the richness of his experience - back-room business battles won and lost, stories of ordinary people who achieved their dreams, what goes on behind a front page article on the leading business dailies and is already putting pen on paper. When the output is ready, I don't have to tell you its arrival.
It will announce itself.
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