04-25-2007, 07:47 AM
more..
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Most of my friends, like me were, children of middle class or lower middle class parents who were first generation of students to attend the new public schools. The parents usually had small plots of land just adequate to sustain the family and were aware that the school education was vital to bring in the additional income in the years ahead. The public school, where children of all sects were taught in one class in close proximity, was considered as polluted. Most of us had to lay out our school clothes in a secluded corner of the house and take a cleansing bath after returning from school. True, in our class, there were boys who were very sharp and scored high ranking in oral and written tests. But they were either Iyyengar or Smartha boys and communion with them was strictly taboo in our Kanimbele group.Â
The gossip with which we were usually engaged was about girls and ladies in our neighborhood and their alleged sex life. Elderly boys among us talked of masturbation and once I was a witness to its demonstration too. That was my introduction to sex education of the morbid type. The other most popular item of conversation was about ghosts and devils and their evil deeds against humans. In the night none of us dare walk alone in certain streets or in front of certain houses for they had been identified in our gossip as the most infected. Mohini was one of the devils coming up very often in our discussions. This devil was said to appear in the form of a beautiful lady to lure young boys to purgatory. The usual recommended antidote for ghosts and devils, according to my friends, was to show them oneâs sacred thread and oneâs knot of hair (juttu or shendy). I had not yet acquired my sacred thread and so felt more vulnerable to attacks from ghosts. When I told Padmavathi my fear of ghosts and my lack of the sacred thread as an antidote, she advised me that till such time as I got my sacred thread, I should loudly utter the name of Lord Vayu and Lord Bhima, which would strike instant terror in all types of ghosts and devils.
There was an occasion when the sacred thread was of my friends was of little use to them or to me, in a face to face encounter with sheer fright. We had started playing football in the evenings in the mangrove adjacent to the tank. An old used tennis ball served us as the football and we would have a great time shouting and chasing the ball. Neighboring the mangrove was a Muslim suburb and a few young boys from there would always watch us intently. They were perhaps jealous of our tennis ball. One evening, in midst of our play, half a dozen of the Muslim boys rushed in to our play area, shouting loudly, words which none of us could understand. Our captain, a lad five years older than me and a high school student, was the first to run out of the field. Soon rest of us followed and we lost the ball to the bullies. Some of us lost faith in the power of the sacred thread that evening for it did not scare the raiders away. Next evening when we met at the corner of the tank street the incident and the effectiveness of the sacred thread was discussed from various points of view. Finally, we agreed that we had done the best under the circumstances for, if we had stayed and put up a fight, we would have made physical contact with the Muslims and thus polluted ourselves beyond redemption. We stopped playing there for few more weeks and started the game with a new ball. This time, we had a group of high school boys from our neighborhood to police the field for us. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Most of my friends, like me were, children of middle class or lower middle class parents who were first generation of students to attend the new public schools. The parents usually had small plots of land just adequate to sustain the family and were aware that the school education was vital to bring in the additional income in the years ahead. The public school, where children of all sects were taught in one class in close proximity, was considered as polluted. Most of us had to lay out our school clothes in a secluded corner of the house and take a cleansing bath after returning from school. True, in our class, there were boys who were very sharp and scored high ranking in oral and written tests. But they were either Iyyengar or Smartha boys and communion with them was strictly taboo in our Kanimbele group.Â
The gossip with which we were usually engaged was about girls and ladies in our neighborhood and their alleged sex life. Elderly boys among us talked of masturbation and once I was a witness to its demonstration too. That was my introduction to sex education of the morbid type. The other most popular item of conversation was about ghosts and devils and their evil deeds against humans. In the night none of us dare walk alone in certain streets or in front of certain houses for they had been identified in our gossip as the most infected. Mohini was one of the devils coming up very often in our discussions. This devil was said to appear in the form of a beautiful lady to lure young boys to purgatory. The usual recommended antidote for ghosts and devils, according to my friends, was to show them oneâs sacred thread and oneâs knot of hair (juttu or shendy). I had not yet acquired my sacred thread and so felt more vulnerable to attacks from ghosts. When I told Padmavathi my fear of ghosts and my lack of the sacred thread as an antidote, she advised me that till such time as I got my sacred thread, I should loudly utter the name of Lord Vayu and Lord Bhima, which would strike instant terror in all types of ghosts and devils.
There was an occasion when the sacred thread was of my friends was of little use to them or to me, in a face to face encounter with sheer fright. We had started playing football in the evenings in the mangrove adjacent to the tank. An old used tennis ball served us as the football and we would have a great time shouting and chasing the ball. Neighboring the mangrove was a Muslim suburb and a few young boys from there would always watch us intently. They were perhaps jealous of our tennis ball. One evening, in midst of our play, half a dozen of the Muslim boys rushed in to our play area, shouting loudly, words which none of us could understand. Our captain, a lad five years older than me and a high school student, was the first to run out of the field. Soon rest of us followed and we lost the ball to the bullies. Some of us lost faith in the power of the sacred thread that evening for it did not scare the raiders away. Next evening when we met at the corner of the tank street the incident and the effectiveness of the sacred thread was discussed from various points of view. Finally, we agreed that we had done the best under the circumstances for, if we had stayed and put up a fight, we would have made physical contact with the Muslims and thus polluted ourselves beyond redemption. We stopped playing there for few more weeks and started the game with a new ball. This time, we had a group of high school boys from our neighborhood to police the field for us. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->