മിഷ - വായനയിലെ ഒരു റഷ്യൻ നൊസ്റ്റാൾജിയ

വായന ഒരു  സ്വകാര്യ സഞ്ചാരമാണ് . തനിയെ പുതിയ കാഴ്ചകൾ കാണാനും പുതിയ ആളുകളെ പരിചയപ്പെടാനുമുള്ള അവസരം .

എന്റെ ചെറുപ്പകാലത്തു റഷ്യയിൽ പ്രസിദ്ധീകരിച്ച ഒരു മാസിക വീട്ടിൽ വരുത്താറുണ്ടായിരുന്നു - മിഷ. മുഖചിത്രത്തിലെ സുന്ദരൻ  കരടിയുടെ പേരായിരുന്നു മിഷ .നിറയെ കുട്ടി കഥകളും വര്ണചിത്രങ്ങളും ഉള്ള ഒരു മാസികാ വലിപ്പമുള്ള പുസ്തകം. എല്ലാ മാസവും പോസ്റ്റിൽ എനിക്കു മാത്രമായി വരുന്ന സമ്മാനപ്പൊതിക്യ്കായി ഞാൻ കാത്തിരുന്നിരുന്നു.

മിഷ ഓരോ പതിപ്പിലും പുതിയ കാഴ്ചകളും അറിവുകളുമായി വന്നു. യു.എസ്.എസ് .ആർ  ഇലെ പല രാജ്യങ്ങളിലെയും നാടോടിക്കഥകളിലൂടെ ഞാൻ അന്ന് വരെ  കാണാത്ത മായാലോകം സൃഷ്ടിച്ചു .കുസൃതി ചോദ്യങ്ങളും പദപ്രശ്നങ്ങളും തന്നു ചിന്തിപ്പിച്ചു.ശാസ് ത്രത്തിലെ പുതിയ കണ്ടുപിടിത്തങ്ങളെ  പറ്റി  അറിവ് പകർന്നു . എന്നാൽ എന്റെ ഏറ്റവും ഇഷ്ട പ്പെട്ട പേജ് ഇതൊന്നുമായിരുന്നില്ല. അതിലെ "ലെറ്റർ ടു പെൻ  ഫ്രണ്ട് " എന്ന പേജായിരുന്നു.. ലോകത്തിന്റെ പല ഭാഗത്തുള്ളവർ ഈ മാസിക വഴി തൂലികാ സുഹൃത്തുക്കളാകുന്നത് എനിക്ക് വലിയ കൗതുകമായിരുന്നു എനിക്കും ഒരു തൂലിക സുഹൃത്തു വേണമെന്നു അമ്മയോട് ആഗ്രഹം പ്രകടിപ്പിച്ചെങ്കിലും കുറച്ചു കൂടെ വലുതായിട്ടു മതി എന്നായിരുന്നു കിട്ടിയ ഉത്തരം.

വർഷങ്ങൾ കടന്നു പോയി . 1991  ആയി. അമ്മയുടെയും അച്ഛന്റെയും സമ്മതം വാങ്ങിയ  ശേഷം മിഷയിലെ  ഒരു അഡ്രസിലേക്കു കത്തെഴുതാൻ തീരുമാനിച്ചു. എന്നെ കുറിച്ച് ഒരു ആമുഖവും തൂലിക സുഹൃത്താവാനുള്ള ആഗ്രഹവും  അറിയിച്ചു മാസികയ്ക്കു അയച്ച് കൊടുക്കാൻ ഒരു കത്ത് തയ്യാറാക്കി, മിഷയുടെ അടുത്ത ലക്കം വരൻ അക്ഷമയോടെ കാത്തിരിക്കുയായിരുന്നു ഞാൻ, എന്നാൽ ആ മാസം മിഷ വന്നില്ല . അടുത്ത  മാസവും വന്നില്ല.

ആയിടക്കാണ് യു. എസ്.എസ്.ആർ തകർന്നതും വിഭജിക്കപ്പെട്ടതും. പിന്നീടാണ് ഞാൻ അറിഞ്ഞത് ഇതിനു മുൻപ് കിട്ടിയത് മിഷയുടെ അവസാനത്തെ പതിപ്പായിരുന്നു എന്ന്. അത് പുനരാരംഭിക്കുമെന്നു എനിക്കൊരു നേരിയ പ്രതീക്ഷ ഉണ്ടായിരുന്നെങ്കിലും, മാസങ്ങൾ കഴിഞ്ഞിട്ടും വരാതായപ്പോൾ ഞങ്ങളും സുബ്സ്ക്രിപ്ഷൻ നിർത്തി. തൂലിക സുഹൃത്താവാനുള്ള എന്റെ മോഹം അങ്ങനെ പൂവണിഞ്ഞില്ലെങ്കിലും ആ കത്ത് എന്റെ മേശ വലിപ്പിൽ ഒരു പാട് നാൾ ഞാൻ സൂക്ഷിച്ചിരുന്നു..

ഇപ്പോൾ എന്റെ സഹപ്രവർത്തകിരിൽ വലിയ ഒരു സംഖ്യ ബെലറൂസിൽ  ആണ് . റഷ്യൻ പേരുകളോട് സാമ്യമുള്ള സെർഗെയ്,ഡിമ, ദിമിറ്ററി തുടങ്ങിയ പേരുകൾ കേൾക്കുമ്പോൾ ഒരു അസാധാരണമായ പരിചയം തോന്നാറുണ്ട്‌ . മിഷയിലെ കഥാപാത്രങ്ങളുടെയും  എഴുത്തുകാരുടെയും പേരുകൾ മനസ്സിലെവിടെയോ താങ്ങി നില്പുള്ളത് കൊണ്ടാവാം അതെന്നു
ഈ അടുത്ത് എന്റെ ഒരു ഫേസ്ബുക് സുഹൃത്ത് "ഈ മാസിക ആരെങ്കിലും വായിച്ചുട്ടുണ്ടോ" എന്ന തലക്കെട്ടോടെ നൊസ്റ്റാൾജിയ ഉണർത്തുന്ന കുറച്ചു ചിത്രങ്ങൾ പോസ്റ്റ് ചെയ്തപ്പോളാണ് ഞാൻ മനസിലാക്കിയത്.

ഇന്ന് വായന ദിനമാണെന്നു അറിഞ്ഞപ്പോൾ എന്റെ ബാല്യത്തിൽ ഞാൻ ഏറെ ഇഷ്ടപെട്ട ഈ മാസികയെ കുറിച്ച് എഴുതാനൊരു ആഗ്രഹം തോന്നി.

ഈ വായനാദിനം നിങ്ങൾ നിധി പോലെ സൂക്ഷിച്ച പുസ്തകങ്ങളെ ഓർക്കാനുള്ള ഒരു സന്ദര്ഭമാവട്ടെ. ഇനിയും സ്വകാര്യ സഞ്ചാരങ്ങൾക്കു ടിക്കറ്റുമായി പുതിയ പുതിയ പുസ്തങ്ങൾ നിങ്ങളുടെ കയ്യിലെത്തട്ടെ. ഹാപ്പി ജേർണി !

പി.എസ് : ഞൻ വർഷങ്ങൾക്കു ശേഷം മലയാളത്തിൽ എഴുതുന്ന ബ്ലോഗ് പോസ്റ്റ് കൂടിയാണിത് . ട്രാൻസിലിറ്റെറേഷൻ ശീലമായിട്ടില്ലാത്തതുകൊണ്ടു വരുന്ന അക്ഷരതെറ്റുകൾ ക്ഷമിക്കുക.

Monsoon Memories - A Thunderstorm Saga

"Sun , it has come . Finally..". Her eyes were shining in excitement.
I looked up from my book and smiled
"Perfect. And it is Friday too".
"Did you ask if it is available?" I asked , slightly doubtful now.
"It is bound to be. If we don't get it today , some one else will and we won't get it for a week."
"Let's go now then. ". I said , discarding my Famous Five on the wicker chair in the porch.

Thunder rumbled in the distance.
"Amma , I'm going out with Deeps. We will be back soon. ".
"Don't get wet." she called out . "It looks like a thunderstorm is on its way."
"Don't worry Amma , we 'll be back in no time.". I called out, starting to get ready.

We looked for our black umbrellas , but could only find one. The other remained stubbornly out of sight. "Fine , let's just go with one then." I said as I put on my Verlon sandals. We started walking. A cool breeze was blowing . The rain had left the ground wet with an aroma of freshness that made me happy.We walked faster than usual , taking the shortest route possible to reach our destination. We made it just in time before the shop closed.

"I was about to close the store , but here, I have placed it in a plastic bag , take good care as it is the only copy I have."  He said as he pulled down the shutters and got on his bike to go home before the rain started.

As soon as we started on our way back , it started drizzling. Suddenly with the sound of exploding fireworks, thunder boomed , and a streak of lightening seemed to hit a tree  nearby. Rain was falling by the buckets and the roads were flooding. Walking through puddles and water filled potholes, our return journey was slow. And then the wind decided to play naughty and take our umbrella away. Now completely wet , we tried to chase down the umbrella which had overturned and was collecting water inside like a huge bowl. Deeps covered the plastic bag with her dupatta while I chased the umbrella that the wind was moving away from us.

"Got it . "I said as I caught up with the flying umbrella and desperately tried to put it  back in shape. We were almost home now. "Let us make a run for it , We are wet anyway". She said , and I agreed.

Photo Courtsey (http://www.kerala-holidays-and-hotels.com/images/Kerala-Monsoon.jpg)

We dashed down the mud road, into our houses , completely drenched , right into my Amma and Valiyamma (aunt) who immediately started scolding us for our escapade in the rain. But we knew that no scolding could take away the happiness of the possession in the plastic bag that
we had so jealously guarded. "Let's go change into something dry first .We'll watch it when the rain stops. " Deeps said. Her words were drowned by the bang of the next thunder bolt . Electric sparks flew from the electric post nearby and then all went dark. "The transformer was hit. It will probably be a day before it gets repaired and power is restored."  Our hearts sank as we heard this oft heard proclamation from my uncle who had gone out with his torch to investigate.

 We looked sadly at each other. For all the trouble we had gone to get the video cassette of Baazigar , we wouldn't be able to watch it after all..

In the candlelight , we sat on the verandah , staring at the dark moonless sky playing Antakshari as there was nothing else to do.

"Oh Mera ...Baazigar O.. Baazigar Tu hai Bada Jadugar". I sang  ."Your turn , sing with Ja".

N.B : This post tried to picture a typical monsoon incident in my childhood.  While all of it may not have happened in one single incident , it happend some time and chasing umbrellas , getting wet in thunderstorms , and playing Antakshari during power outages were part of my childhood monsoon memories in Kerala. Hope you like it.

N.B: This  was written as an entry for discussion topic Monsoon Memories in Darlings Of Venus

Lunch Nostalgia

I went up the familiar vendor in the cafeteria and stood in line , thinking about the meeting I had to rush to afterwards. 'Two soft tacos as usual' . I said 'and No meat' ,I added as an afterthought. I looked around and found an empty table for myself.  As I looked out of the fourth floor window into the snow covered grounds, I was struck by a wave of nostalgia .

I remembered the school lunches , where it was a race as to who would finish eating first and rush out to play catch catch , police and thief, run and touch the coconut tree and so on.

I remembered the lunch breaks in high school and 12th grade where we would gather around a cycle shed , post lunch , gossiping , and planning mischief until the rendezvous point had to be abandoned because of an allegation that we punctured the tyre of a teacher's son's bike.

In to my mind came the lunch times in college , where we would go out to the canteen to buy a vada or sit for hours at stretch at the Indian coffee house with just a coffee or a lime juice. And the awesome times we had at birthday treats where you gorged like you'd never seen food before and then with out batting an eyelid gave the name of the rival college , when some disgruntled restaurant owners asked us where we were from.

At Infosys , my first company , we had a small gang of friends who always had lunch together despite being in different projects and located all over the huge sprawling campus. As more people got busy with personal lives , the number in the gang dwindled , but the ones who remained followed the request acknowledge mechanism using emails and missed calls to have lunch together wasting minimum time.

As life took me through different jobs and different places , lunches became more of a time of introspection . A time to be with myself in my busy schedule. No missed calls told me that it was time to have food any more. My current routine was to rush to the canteen , usually minutes before they closed , get my usual food and find an empty table overlooking the window.

Wistfully , I longed for those lunch times when there was laughter and fun and jokes on the table alongside food. And friends to share them with.  I was jolted back into reality by the phone of the person at a nearby table and as I rushed through the rest of  my meal , I made a mental note to myself to call some of my friends from school soon.

I hope this time , it will not buried once again in the continuous monotony of life.

My old 3310

As I was lazily snoozing the alarm on my iPhone in half woken slumber , a picture came to my mind.-My first cell phone , the Nokia 3310. It was big and blue and my constant companion for a good 6 years.It was back in 2003. India was a land where mobile phones were not so much in vogue as it is now. Incoming was also charged at around Rs 5 per min and even those select few blessed with the latest gadgetry hardly ever answered calls unless it was urgent.Then TRAI made incoming calls free. It was then that my mother, who wanted to keep tabs on her teenage daughter in college persuaded my dad to get me a cell phone. A small sleek (by the standards of the time) Nokia 3310. I was the least happy of the lot. Not only did I not want frequent calls from my mom asking where I was , but the fact was that being the scatter brain that I was , I was pretty confident that I would lose it somewhere in the course of the month.

But soon , for the first time in life , people started looking for me in hostel. I became an overnight celebrity as there were very few in the girls hostel who had cell phones .Hostel mates with boyfriends queued up to use my cell phone and in 2 years , the phone was witness of hundreds of hours of sugar coated puppy love.By the last year of college , cell phones became cheaper and more common and the use of my cell phone diminished considerably. It was then that I realised the power of the composer in the phone. I spent many fun hours trying desperately to create some new ring tones with not much success.

Later in 2004 when I got engaged and moved to Bangalore for my first job, the phone became a symbol of my new status as I was almost always on call with my fiance.Later the phone would also see a large number of international calls as my fiance moved to US and I emptied my pockets constantly to make expensive international calls.As the mobile world changed around ,me with people opting for sleeker and newer phones, I was looked at with disdain for holding on to my old phone.Do you use it to throw at stray dogs to keep them away was a common refrain I heard in those days. But I held on .. I had to change batteries three times and kept the phone which woke me up faithfully every day and kept me company all day long.

Everything has a life and life cycle and that was what I found out in 2006 , when I tried in vain to get the phone to charge up . It stubbornly refused to do so even after changing the battery and the charger and that was when I realised that it was the end of a long and eventful comradeship.

I got a Samsung 2310 after that and then a Nokia 3100 ,and now finally an IPhone.As I am gently touching the touch screen of the iPhone , I think of all those text messages hammered down into the hard keyboard of 3310. How times have changed.

Old anecdote from college hostel

Ever since I started my blog at infy long ago, I had wanted to jot down small anecdotes of different people I had met in different stages of my life and one person who I always wanted to write about before she disappeared from my memory forever was our engineering college hostel and its warden (Nighty Thalla).

Hajira Bivi was one person who you couldn't forget easily. She was almost always dressed in a night gown with a shawl covering her part of her hair..and falling lazily around her rake thin shoulders, haunting the stairs and corridors of the hostel with a sour expression most of the time.The name was coined by would be romeos stalking the hostel who invariably got her at her angriest sour faced expressions.

In all the time that I studied for engineering , Cochin University never had hostels for BTech students , and we were all left to the mercy of private hostel owners who charged exorbitant rates for jam packed rooms and meager meals.But with its apartment converted structure and sweet talking owner, the suburban hostel had seemed like one of the better evils of the lot at first glance.

The initial honey moon period soon ran out and soon I began to find that vegetarian food just meant no non vegetarian (albeit the occasional bug in the food) and not necessarily any of nutritious stuff that we were supposed to get. Hajira warden who was super sweet initially started finding fault with us for no reason and soon , she would start stalking the staircases at night to catch people who were awake late night and report them to the hostel owner. Soon , we found that people who got along well with her seldom got reported while people who got her ire , got reported for minor matters like reaching 2 mins late after the 6:00 PM curfew. At 6:00 PM , she would wait at the hostel gates to see who were late and woe betide anyone who got caught.

During this time , somehow she started telling a few of us about herself, how this job was the only way she could support her family and this endeared her to us in-spite of all her faults. After all those were part of her job.But then some strange things began to happen. Things began to disappear. Small things like audio cassette tapes at first, but then things like watches , even money.These missing things were seldom heard of afterwards , until some one saw all of them in a bag in her room. Sometimes, long after something disappeared, she would return the things to its rightful owner citing that she found it somewhere. Many of the hostelites secretly thought that she might be a kleptomaniac who takes things and then returns them  after months.But she was sweet in many ways , and on one occasion , even let me and three of my friends in at 6:30 pm when we had a true emergency.

Soon afterwards, she was removed from her warden post supposedly for some misappropriation and we had a new dragon of a warden. We thought that was the last that we would hear about her , but that was not the case.During that time, yours truly and some of her friends decided to move into a rented house and almost paid the advance , but for some reason, the house owners backed off from giving us the apartment at the last minute. Later we found that a character assassination had been made and by none other than our Nighty Thalla..which prevented the house owners from renting it to us. She was very much there in the neighborhood and was hoping that we would join the new hostel that she had just started .

Then the story of the egg black magic or "Motta matnthravadam" happened. and it seemed to me at that time one of the funniest stories of the time. One evening , our new warden came running to our room and said , "You know , I 've known it all along. This place is jinxed". We thought she was being a bit too silly , but were eager to hear the story. "I went to the church priest and he confirmed ." She continued. It seemed that the from the day she joined for the new post , she was having a head ache and illnesses. When she finally had it checked by a priest, he told her that she had been a victim of ,hmm what else other than "motta manthravadam" by the old warden.. The idea of our Biwi casting a spell on the new warden was so funny that it was the topic of hostel dinners for weeks.But black magic or not , she could do nothing much to influence many people to join her hostel and soon I heard that she had left for her home town permanently.

Some times, I have wondered what became of her, and though we have cursed her a good many times while we were at the hostel, in my heart of hearts , I wish her well.

Snowy Dreams..

When I was a child, I had  always wanted to see snow. It was an elusive dream for me.White snow covered himalayan valleys and swiss alps were scenic views seen only in the hindi movie songs.When my cousins had gone to Shimla or darjeeling and recounted having taken snow in their hands, I could only look on with pure green envy. Once , my parents had planned a Shimla trip too in a december, but for some reason , it never materiaized and we went to calcutta instead, and that year, due to some climatic variations , we could not travel to darjeeling. Thus my snow hopes were dashed yet again.

Later , when I got married , my husband was working in Albany ,NY and I visited the place in october.This time , I was sure that I could experience 2 seasons that I had hitherto never seen in the tropical cities of kerala-Fall and Winter-colors and snow..The fall colors were superb that year , but alas , my husband's company snowstormed my snow dreams as they sent us back to bangalore 1 week before the first snow of the season.

Several different stints of onsite and offshore later , now, I find myself staring with utter displeasure out of an office in minneapolis into the snow covered pavements. I have to walk to the bus station in that snow(!!) and wait for my husband at a snow covered bus stop(!!). I would probably have jumped with joy at the prospect of going out last winter when I saw snow for the first time. But as they say , familiarity breeds contempt and not a  day now passes when we don't complain , how difficult it is to go out in the snow and how we wish we could have the tropical warmth of kerala for a day...

Memories-An old poem

In a old dusty cupboards,
Forgotten memories lay
The remnants of a distant past,
All packed out of way

With a distant scent of nostaligia,
I opened the attic door.
Oh! what would I find there
In that antique store

Old albums and photos rare,
half destroyed by damp
Books that once I never kept down,
Now with dusty book worm stamp

Old dolls with broken limbs
And dresses worn and torn,
Those well dressed toys of yore,
Thrown away in scorn

I scanvenged through the rubble ,
remembering the days old,
The hand made greetings cards,
The badge of secret society bold

Letters that the postman brought,
postcards and inlands blue,
Satin ribbons and knitting,
threads of every hue,

Hobbies started , abandoned,
Playthings I outgrew,
All were stored and safe
Stacked out of view

As I put everything back,
It brought back a smile
These memories of mine,
Would stay with me a while