Some Thoughts

The nightmares of my childhood days were the encounter with Soman chettan and his pet dog….

I am very sure that Soman chettan [ Sottan] brought the street dog home just to frighten me.. I was very much afraid of dogs, in fact I was afraid of everything and everyone, in those days.. I was so insecure that it was easy for me to cry..

The dog would always be chained at the work- area near the kitchen. Just as Sottan see me coming back from school, he would remove the dog’s chain and say, “go catch Ganga”. The dog would chase me and I would be running all around the house crying at the top of my voice.. No one came to my rescue but Malathi valliamma would get furious and shout at Sottan.. This came to an end on the day I fell on the hot frying pan in which coffee beans were fried and kept aside to cool.. I can still get the aroma of that freshly pounded coffee…. though that burnt mark is still on my leg….

Valliamma ran after Sottan with a burning wood from the kitchen until he locked himself in Valliachan’s office room.

There was no end to Sottan playing pranks on me….We didn’t know we were adding tension in Valliamma’s life..He tried to teach the parrot to call Gangamma which he knew I didn’t like….but thank God, the parrot could only say Hema….

One day a thermometer broke, Sottan collected the mercury that fell, on a piece of paper. Then he held it under the sun and he could kill ants by moving the paper with mercury on them..That day I felt he is a real genius.

His artistic talents came out as a surprise to all, or at least me who watched him making sculptures for the first time at a very young age. The well in the house was being cleaned. From the bottom, after removing all the water, came out white clay type soil. The people who cleaned dumped it near the well. Sottan started making sculptures of animals and humans out of them.. I watched him doing so in admiration. But he spoiled all the fun when he made an ugly face and wrote my name on it with charcoal.

The next day Sottan found a few of his sculptures destroyed, and I’m not sure whether he noticed the mark of small feet on his faceless art..It was a sweet revenge..

Today I’m so happy that he is a renowned artist and teaching sculpture in a University.