Of Wallets and Bullets

I lost my wallet last Monday, the 17th.

More precisely, it was stolen from my person as I went to temple in the morning, it being the first day of the new year according to the Malayalam calendar.

It had nearly half my month's pay, driving license, identification card at the hospital, and my two ATM cards.

It hurt.

It hurt that I had lost the money, that I'd now have to go through the laborious process of getting another set of documents issued as well as preventing misuse of the original.

But what hurt most was the dent in self-image. The realization that some common crook could pinch it off me and I didn't even know it: That the apparently efficient and competent professional could be outwitted so completely by a professional of another kind. That hurt.

There was not much to do, retrieving a wallet lost in a sea of perhaps a thousand being what the old adage 'needle in a haystack' is exactly about.

'Hope' is a strong feeling. Sometimes, it is all that stands between man and madness. In such hope, for gaining a degree of apparent control over the situation if nothing else, for retrieving a bit of that lost self-esteem, we tend to do something – anything – that might be useful; often, in the face of overwhelming odds and reason that tells us otherwise.

So I go to the police station, report the theft, get a receipt for the same that says my driving license is stolen, and then – wait.

I need not have bothered.

But something did happen. Life went on. It was not as much of a catastrophe as I'd thought at first that it would turn out to be. It hurt still, the actual loss as well as the feeling of being outwitted, but fortunately – and this is important - there was no pressing engagement that I needed the money for.

There was a sense of Deja Vu, though. There have been other occasions too in my life, when something that I thought would hurt deeply, turned out to be not that bad to have happened, after all. It was the fearful anticipation that was harder to bear than the actual event when it happened.

The converse has been true too. Something one anticipates to be infinitely pleasing, turning out to be just one more good thing to have happened. Here I would remember how getting into Medical College turned out to be a mixed bag.

Then there were the times, those things that happened, that brought so much happiness that one could never have thought possible beforehand. Case in point my buying an old, second-hand Royal Enfield motorcycle that leaked oil from everywhere. Life has never been the same after that.

And finally, some things in life, you never know how much pain and hurt they will cause, until the day when finally lost. Ask anyone who's been in love and lost it.

So, it turns out there really is no telling how much something would please or hurt until we actually get there. Turns out it may not be a very good idea to plan your entire life ahead of you, for who knows how we might happen to not really like what we had planned for ourselves, or conversely, how we might actually like something we didn't quite bank upon.

I guess there is some merit to living under the stars after all.

The end of an era.

(This happened way back in 2004. As a mark of respect to the person mentioned below, I choose to make this my first post.
Described as written on a rainy afternoon in september, 2004. Most of this is copied verbatim from that year's personal diary. I first thought I would make a new note, but then realized that, with time, this too has become just another memory and I'd be better off going back to what I first wrote down about it)


Today morning, mother informed me that an elderly lady in the neighbourhood, who was particularly fond of myself and my brother, and was rehallly like a godmother to our whole family, had passed away few days back. She said this casually, and without any sense of urgency, along with news of everything else that had happened in my hometown since my last visit. She didn't feel it necessary to inform me immediately of the demise, for indeed it was not a spectacular event at all. An old lady in her eighties passing away in her sleep. Just like that. But that was the end of a whole lot of things for me.

We used to call her as "sarammoomma". In fact, everybody who ever knew her that I know of, called her by that name. That was all there was that was needed. The name "sarammoomma". In that way I never got to know her real name when I was a kid, and I never learned it later on. "ammoomma" means an old lady or a grandmother, "sar" for 'sir' because she used to be the one people would take their children to, to have their first schooling, or to ward off evil luck. The people believed she had a goodness in her that could ward off evil luck, and sending their children to her, they believed, made the best investment for their children's character.

For as long as I can remember, "sarammoomma" had always been the same. Things changed continually all around while we were growing up. The primary school where we studied might have closed for the christmas week, and we would return, only to find the previously dull white-coloured walls now in refreshing pink. And that they had constructed new lavatories. Seperate for boys and girls! The changes became more profound when I went away to study in far off places and became a monthly ,or at times even yearly, visitor. Whole buildings might have disappeared, and new bilanes carved out of old trails. Suffice to say, I would be surprised if I did not find anything new or different since my last visit. But in the middle of all that chaos, there would be sarammoomma, always the same, smelling of her sweet herbal oils, giving me the news about a lot of people I didn't know, racing off in the evenings to be in time for the evening ritual at the temple, always present at all special occassions with those she considered dear - and there were quite a few of them. My memories of the goddess temple near our house will never be complete without sarammoomma in the front line, directing everybody including the priest, and nobody, not even the priest, would dare question her authority in temple matters.

There was a time, a few years back, when I had returned home after a year or so and was so pleasently surprised to find her fighting fit - and not one bit changed. A couple of visits later, and always my enquiries to my mother about sarammoomma's health having been positively reassured, I had sort of accepted that sarammoomma would somehow stay like that for a long time to come. So perhaps that's why I couldn't accept an old and ailing lady in her eighties passing away in her sleep: because she was sarammoomma, and that meant a lot.

That was the snapping up of an umbilical link to a childhood I now realize is never going to come back. And when I say that, I mean not just for me.

I realize its a childhood that my children would only be able to guess at.

I dont think we would ever again have a simple, uneducated old lady who, by sheer force of her goodness, would have the love and respect of one and all. Or that people, without caring about identities, would want their children to learn their first alphabet from her.

Loss of innocence has been one defining trait of moving into adulthood.