A pair of gigantic breasts, exposed to the sun. Sexuality and heat exuded from the statue to have a tete-a-tete with the intense radiation emanating from the sun. The air shimmered and our malayaliness cowered. Nobody knew why they had put a big naked woman's statue nearby the Sankhumugham beach and people did their best to ignore it publicly. Only ninja-like private glances were allowed.
Acha, Dende aa prathimakku thuniyilla. Athentha angane kidakane?Mukham entha angane?
Dad, the statue isn't clothed. Why is it lying like that?Why is the face like that?
Mone, beachil poyi kalicho
Son, you can go play in the beach.
Achaa...
Dad...
Shaluvee, avane beachilottu kondu poye.
Shalu, take him to the beach.
People liked Sankhumugham much better during those times when Indian Coffee House, with pride and boredom, used to serve coffee on the beach. Indian Coffee House has disappeared. A sign of changing times. The same reason why our lonely Attar uncle walking along the beach rubbing scent from his small scent bottles onto the back of people's palms find his wares not getting sold much. Attar uncle in that typical lungi, grey-haired and speaking very little.
The toy seller makes a circle out of brightly and differently coloured luminescent sticks. So, that he can sit inside and try his best to attract a new and modern generation to things of the past. There must be a dad out there, who takes his kids to the beach daily evening for a walk together to spend time together instead of spending it only on taking them early morning to the tuition centres. IIT-JEE. PMT. AIIMS. KVPY. Success Guaranteed. 100%. The coloured luminescent sticks in circles and the tuition centres...
Da, How do you people know him? Did you all study in the same school?
We studied in Trivandrum. Someone knows somebody knows someone else.
Navy Blue. Dark Red. Light Blue. Vacuum. Ties and ties. Stories usually with similar rebellious and preparatory strains, at a stage when rebellion and preparations meant a lot.
The wind picks up at the beach and the ordinary, bland-faced, people dip their ordinary feet in the salty-and-more-muddy-than-Kovalam waves. Foam and feet. Feet and foam. Children screaming in delight. And, the aged with ice-creaming expressions. The sound of the waves drowns away all the luggage you brought there. And, the approaching dusk made a grandma look at grandpa nearby, all romance and all, out of the corner of her eyes. Dusk and windswept, wet as well as frilly hair and nose-rings. Mothers of all romance.
Curly haired freakans in eye-blasting bermudas and gone on all weedy at the sea. New values and new meanings and new ways. So, well represented by their presence as by the absence of their generations preceding them. Trapped in air-conditioned offices somewhere. The horses on the beach available on rent, had thick cardboards covering its eyes, on the sides. It could only see straight ahead, just like our absent generation.
Salted and cut raw mangos. Cut, boiled and spicy kadala-tomato-cucumber and roasted peanuts. Strong chai at the thattukadas(dhabas) nearby. Vazhakappam. Ulli vada. Dosa, small and thick with chutney and omelettes. The poetry of food.
And, you just sit and look at the horizon. As brightness turns to orangeness and redness and greyness and darkness. Time creeps backward and forward as memories mix with contemplation of future. The music eventually starts, as someone sings through a mic, with a bucket nearby for monetary contribution.
The drone of an airplane is heard from the background of an airbus taking off from the airport nearby. The airport, whose good-smooth surrounding roads lend itself to good-smooth driving for people who want to go in good-smooth circles in their good-smooth vehicles living a good-smooth life.
Our holy, naked vixen exuding oodles of sexuality will eventually fall like Ozymandias into disrepair. The visits back will lessen. The roots will eventually shrivel. And, we'll also fall with her as we learn to ignore and move forward. This slow world of heart-felt abstracts.
