An old friend swims away

The wobbly jamboree swarmed in to nibble at anything that was dropped into the algae-laden water. Anything. Pebbles, dead insects, leaves. Even spit. Particularly spit. Our mucus was their favourite.  

Within weeks of the first showers, they were omniscient like the moisture, like the blood-red kunnikkuru – millions of Cadbury Gems-like seeds scattered across the landscape.

She and her friends appeared out of nowhere even as the intense monsoon air cafuned me, when the fine, incessant drizzle played mist in my part of the world. Hitherto dead and muddy water bodies sprang forth with life every June. And when the ponds and canals filled up, she would slip into the ancient lanes and pebbled paths with the gurgling overflow.

For years we were companions. Many were the damp, lazy afternoons of my boyhood and teens 

when I watched over her, tried to hold her, as she frolicked without a care.

We never got introduced though.

Not when I sneaked out of home with twine, hook and earthworms dug up from the backyard of my elderly abode, just to meet her. Not when a cousin named her Thuppaloothi – broadly, spit-eater – for me, just to avoid elaborate explanations. Not when my friends called her Sooli. Not even when she was the star resident of my aquarium.  

Yes, I was in love with her. How could I not be? Pale ochre, with an unmistakable black and red strips

running across her lithe body. For a long time I was convinced that the ethereal one had descended from the skies with the rains. Just like the abrupt profusion of foliage – the medicinal communist paccha, the leathery and ferocious-looking chena-ila, the shy thottaavaadi and the sensuous thumba.

So enamoured was I that once, asked to buy sugar from the corner grocer for the evening tea, I spent three hours leching at her. Indeed, I almost had her in my palms that day, only to be startled by my furious grandpa’s booming voice and that ominous cane.

Thuppaloothi was never alone. The Kannanchaathan was a loner. But he was the smartest too. He would jump out of the water and land at another spot, leaving predators baffled. Paddy fields and temple ponds were home to a variety of Parals and Blaappys. Packs of catfish – Muzhu, Kadu and Etta – were the most slippery, with slithering bodies and stings.

 

Schools of goldfish-like tiny ones indicated the presence of the mighty mother Vraal right underneath. She was the bigger boys’ favourite catch.

As others of my age dived from ever higher jackfruit branches, their fall broken by climbers and creepers, for me, it was the smaller drains and tanks. ‘What lies beneath’ held the allure for me. I felt lifting that veil of mystery by going underwater would spoil it. Truth be told, I was just pathologically scared of chest-deep waters.

Often I would be dipping my palms into the very gutter that would have someone peeing into it just a few metres away. Let’s believe the water flowed in the direction that left no disgust.
 

But that was my world. My own world. Of Kumblakottans, cuckoos, cashew apples and bicycles hired for Rs 2 an hour.

Today, the neighbourhood pond lies unused and lifeless. Bathrooms are the new attorneys of modesty. No more careless frolicking – neither us, nor her. Many of her companions vanishing, Thuppaloothi too seems to be in her last lap.

A few years back, when she was tagged on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, I finally got her name. Denison’s Barb, the freshwater fish species, is among the biggest conservation challenges of the Western Ghats.

They tell me the mistiming monsoon still brings down its version of the mist on the undulating landscapes of my hiraeth. But it misses its progeny.

A monsoon sad and lonely.
 

Thuppaloothi
Born: In my boyhood

Died: Before I do

Dilip Kumar: Missed Opportunity

Dilip Kumar’s “The Substance And The Shadow: An Autobiography” is underwhelming.

He may be a great actor. But the book is plain boring. It may be either due to his advanced age, wherein he couldn’t recall much. However, I suspect he chose to keep it that way. It is a please-all venture with major lacunae, bad proof-reading and certainly conceited in parts.

The discontinuity in the narrative is palpable and some of the most important parts of the 92-year-old icon’s life are missing. Even where he chooses to reveal uncomfortable episodes, he keeps them obscure and confusing, maintaining a facade of decency.

The man obviously takes immense pride in his being a virile Pathan -- a package that supposedly comes with in-built dignity, machismo, fearlessness and good looks, besides of course the inescapable sense of honour. Yusufsaab almost has a fetish for his “manhood” (he just can’t stop describing his body hair).

However, his Pathan self-image comes across as jarring when he passes unguarded comments on other communities, be it Bengalis, Tamilians or the British.

The biggest gap in the book involves some of the giants of the era completely missing from his narrative. The third pillar of the matinee triumvirate, Dev Anand, has little more than a mention here and a picture there. The singing icons Mohammed Rafi, Talat Mehmood and Mukesh, who played a humongous role in Yusufsaab’s popularity are not even named.

He makes no comment on the period and upheaval of the partition, despite the fact that he paints an extensive picture of his hometown Peshawar, where he spent his childhood. Important characters in his early life – his grandmother, his home – disappear mid-way.

No mention of the bloody riots that plagued Mumbai at the time he was already a rising star. No insights on what post-partition India felt like for Muslims with roots in Pakistan.

However, there are some three chapters on one topic – his wife, Saira Banu. He is clearly enamoured. Beyond a point it becomes outright boring.

The second part of the book has a series of write-ups about him by famous personalities and others close to him. They all sound the same – like the Gandhi family ‘yes-men’. Can’t blame them; after all, they can’t be critical of him in his own autobiography, can they? 

There's so much more one would expect out of an autobiography of India's premier movie legend. What a wasted opportunity.