Mathew Thomas

Mathew and I never ever spoke in all 7 years in our Presentation School stint. I don't think we were in the same sections ever. But Mathew Thomas became an instant star in my mind; when he was one of the few boys selected to do ball dance in primary school at the Presentation school annual day. I have no idea who he danced with. But I lived in an era or may be in my own mindset where little boys considered it un-cool to be seen talking to girls; despite wanting to; for the fear of being teased. In that scenario; dancing!; on stage!!; with 10 other girls!!!; with 1000 odd people watching!!!! (Oh My God!) would be enough incident for me to run away from home.
Already he was the star roller-skater in school and sometimes he won prizes that said he did skating for 12 hours non-stop. (wow! how did he do it.. but then.. didn't he have to....? may be there is a trick to it... ) random thoughts crossed my mind while I stood at the assembly while Mathew and sister Achamma brought back trophies from the REC Calicut Wheels competition or other events for very many years ; from the time I could remember. He inspired me to buy roller skates, and I inspired my brother to buy roller skates. I could not inspire myself to fall and hurt my knees. My brother started rolling on and would eat and sleep with them; till one day he inherited mine that was so unused that the ball bearings had got rusty.
May be it was eighth standard may be it was ninth; Mathew just shot up in height and had a rapid movement backwards in where he stood in the school assembly. Maybe that also gave him the reason to take permission to go to school in a bicycle. BSA - SLR - Maroon colour. With almost 90% of the route from Silver Hills to home being common; we started connecting. he showed me his cottage-looking house at Golf Link Road at Chevayoor. I have never been inside, but it looked lovely from the outside and Mathew talked about cocoa and pepper getting cultivated in plenty in his backyard and I used to visualised a huge playground full of black seeds and brown seeds that smelt like chocolate. Then he moved to Hill View Colony, where Praveen already stayed. I don't know the house number; but you drive straight into the colony, skip the first intersection and look for the last house on the left; that is his house. Keeping in touch wasn't an issue - in the five digit telephone exchanges that we had, I subtract 10 from my home phone number, it was Mathews. If I added 10, it was Calicut Medical College Ladies Hostel. Both came handy at different points in time. The first, to co-ordinate start times from home on bicycles, the latter to co-ordinate meeting times outside homes.
Then the usual suspects got rounded up again at Ouseph sir's house and Nambisan Uncle's house and as explained earlier in Anil P's write up; Ouseph sir; going by Mathew's maths marks; predicted Mathew's taking up engineering after school. and he did.
Post that, I met Mathew once in a cinema hall? not sure.. or was it at the railway station booking counter? anyway, he was straight out of a Beatles album - long flowing hair, printed shirts and very faded jeans. He visits once in a while and would take a mid-night bus that would take him to Kothamangalam at 6 in the morning! That was quick. He had evolved in life, like how all college goers evolve eventually. If not during first year, they evolve in the second or third year. By final year, one is actually so evolved; that sometimes it takes a warden or a hostel raid to put to back to ground reality.

Mathew moved to Pune, I moved to Lucknow. E-mails and messengers were being put to proper use those days, unlike the days of maniacally forwarded jokes. mattkanjickal and ashrk connected as online entities with yellow faces that had smileys that winked, in a language we had never ever spoken to each other before - even in the language class - English.

After a long break of may be 5 years, I heard from him again when his junior announced his arrival. I hope someday he reads this; and asks his dad "where was your cottage in Golf Link Road?". A different structure stands where his colonial cottage stood, but am sure he will feel the walls and rooms strongly enough to paint the picture for a young son to dream about.

Biju MV

Every kindergarten goers' diary has some essential details of parents, address, blood group etc; and it usually has some space for "Best friends". I know what my younger brother had written; as we found his diary in the attic few years ago. I don't have printed proof for an act I put down in paper in 1980, but am sure Biju MV was one of them.
My mother recollects an instance when two 7 year old's ran and thumped their chests into one another (like how tennis doubles partners do nowadays to express solidarity) at S M Street one holiday evening; at sheer sight of each other. Biju MV...Bijuyembee.. Bijumbee... my mother figured out the connect when his son said he had a great friend named Bijumbee at school. The chest-bumping act just proved the relationship.
Skipping a year or two in between Biju and I had stints in same schools in same years and have travelled similar paths. Here is one such path. One day the school got over early and after long conversations in the school playground, about the girls in class we hated and giving them secret pseudo-names; Biju and I walked all the way from Presentation School to my house 1.5 kilometers away; played cricket for a while; hit two huge sixes; lost all the tennis balls we had at my home; and then we went down the hill 2 kilometers away to Biju's house. After playing cricket in his veranda and answering some questions his father asked two eight year old's; it was time for me to leave. "You know there is another secret way to your house?"; it was 6 pm, there was still light enough to last 30 minutes more; but I was late by more than 1 hour of my scheduled arrival from school and had not left a word at home; so disciplinary action was a given. But the opportunity to walk through a secret way (where no man had walked before, as I was told) was too good to resist for an eight year old, even if it takes a little longer. I was home at 6:45 pm I think that day, after Biju duly showed me through the secret passage - it was the latest I was out without letting anyone know. Amma believed in nipping deviant behavior in the bud. On rare occasions when she did that; the hibiscus plant's stick also is nipped off leaves and buds. I remember this to-date; meaning; it was a good lesson learnt. Neither of us told each other what happened at our respective houses on that day.

This was the time when Biju was not yet the sports day celebrity he was to later become, in Presentation and Silver Hills. And when he did realise and believe that he had wings in his feet; he was the star of the "Joy" house ["Peace" and "Love" being the other houses students were divided into]. At the end of the day when the prizes were given away, a sense of pride travelled within me as he came back and stood with ME or sat with ME , before he went on to receive another one.

In class 8, Biju joined Silver Hills. we were school mates again. I had moved in two years ago. This was a new Biju. The induction into teenage had changed both me and him. The legs still had the wings; the cheeky smile was still there; but a spirit of brazen adventure has set in. There was a 4pm bus that would just refuse to stop by the bus stop, just to avoid a sea of blue and white uniforms crowding in on subsidised student concessions. One day Biju took it head-on by standing on the middle of the road as the bus turned the corner ans sped towards the bus stop. 50 odd students watched the big green vehicle advance towards a spunky 13-year old exuding attitude. The bus honked in an effort to intimidate the boy; who stood still. The students had their eyes closed and the some of us had hands in our heads and eyes popping out. It was too late to even attempt a rescue; to risk getting crushed under a multi-tonner zooming in at 60kmph. The bus screeched to a halt. May be there was a 6 inch gap between the front fender and the boy. Passengers jolted by the brake looked out to see what was happening and hoped not to see the worst. A minute later, thirty odd students led by their new hero was already in the bus.
Another instance: the same bus slowed down to an almost halt to let off a passenger and sped out again. The sports hero in the boy took over; he ran to catch up with the bus enough to get a hand on to the ladder behind. And as students and passers-by looked on with their mouths open; the bus sped away with a student taking a free ride hanging onto a ladder behind.

After stints at tuition classes (Ouseph sir and Nambisan Uncle); I met Biju may be midway through college. we both may have been 20 or 21 then. Biju was trading pups I heard; and had a motorbike of his own. We connected again at a level we had not; for more than 10 years may be. We talked about college, women in college we had crushes at, plans into the future; and other random things men (ahem, yes men of 20 or 21) generally tend to talk.

And as we had had done many many years ago, at the end of it all; he dropped me home; in his bike, donning sun-glasses and all. No secret passages as before, but through the main road in front of school. We were grown-up people; and there were no hibiscus treatment this time :). Yes, we had come back the proverbial full circle.

Then in 2007 may be after 10 years, a Minnesotta bridge collapse got us connected again. Nisha chechi, who is in the US, called up to check on Biju who resides not far away from the bridge; and as luck would have it; she passed on my e-mail to Biju. We are in touch; through internet - a medium that feels strange to connect through English, to a child hood friend - but at least we are; and am happy for that.

Anil P

We, the boys of Kannur have an attitude. An attitude to have an accent that can be deciphered only from Ponnani and north of it. Valluvanad will do ok, but Travancore will suffer to make sense. So sometime in 1980 or 81 when a four year old, with tears in his eyes asked around "n'dammene-kkandinaa"; "n'dammene-kkandinaa"; not many of the mothers who came to pick up their young brats and beauties got what the kid was really after. Till my grandma came into scene to pick me up from school. "n'dammene-kkandinaa"; "n'dammene-kkandinaa"; the kid went again. "Illalo mone, ndamma aediyaa poyineee?". "Nee ende koodey vanno" She had left Kannur in 1970 and had been in Kochi and in Calicut (at the time of this event), seamlessly integrating the nuances of the Malayali accent. But she wasn't to leave an opportunity to connect with a little boy who spoke her native accent or the boy stranded in school. That day Anil P came home till his mother came back from work. That was my first initiation with Anil P, whom I would be with till standard 5. From that day till we moved to another rented house 1 kilometer away, Anil would stop by in the morning to check if I was ready to go to school.
I moved schools in standard 5; Anil moved school and his house to the other side of Chevayoor. But we still met; at the Bazaar or the Post Office occasionally till Ouseph Sir decided to put us in the same tuition batch in 10th standard (or was in 9th?). " Anil, marks parayoo, Malayathinu ethra kitteee? Englishino?" [Ouseph sir was part Malayalam Vidwaan and part Economist. Economist for the reason that he would ask for your overall performance in school after every term examination and would make a reasonably good estimate of what we would end up getting in the Final examination]. He was going around the table and it was Anil's turn now to communicate his marks in all the 12 papers one wrote for SSLC. Anil would do it and write it down at the back of his tuition class copy immediately. He had to, as his exam scores always had 3 versions to it - The version he told his mother; the version he told Ouseph sir and then, the reality.

Even after he moved to central kerala to do his Bachelors and Master in Occupational Therapy, we would still meet at the same places near Chevayoor, when on end year breaks.
Talked to him over phone, a year ago, when he was going through a situation of personal distress. Even then his "Nee Ippo aediyaa?", made me switch to the best malabarese I wait for to talk to someone to.

Last month my brother showed me a familiar face in orkut and asked me "Is this your friend Anil?".. There was a moustache and the expanded version of the initial "P"; but the man still remains, the classmate who came home clutching my grandma's finger the other day.