My maternal grandfather was a versatile personality. He was into agriculture, he ran a wholesale grocery store, a textile shop and also managed a kopra (dry coconut) business. The house in which we stayed, in a village by the side of the river Achankovil in Alapuzha dist. in Kerala, was itself in the middle of around 2 acres of land full of coconut trees, various vegetables, tapiocca and plantains. Also, he had 3 other stretches of coconut farms. He used to buy coconuts from small-time farmers in addition to those which he got from his own land. He also cultivated paddy and other crops like pepper, sesame etc. The only thing that my grandma used to buy from outside was fish, rest of the things which were necessary for running a house were all available from the land itself and the grocery items she used to fetch from our grocery shop. Grandma used to tell us stories about how grandpa reached such heights through sheer hard work and willful planning from a very meager beginning of about 10 cents of land which he inherited from his parents. He was a very active man and used to physically work with those he used to employ for various jobs in his farms and paddy fields. Not only that, he insisted us children also to lend them a hand during our free time. I used to enjoy working with them, whereas my elder brother hated it.

Grandpa had an assistant by name Raghavan, who used to look after the various processes through which coconuts were transformed in to kopras, like removing the husk covering, breaking the coconuts, drying them etc. We used to call him Raghavankotharan (kotharan means elder brother). He was around 45-50 years of age then and was lean, but physically very fit. He used to stay in a small thatched building, a little behind our house, where the kopras used to be stored prior to being taken to the main market in Alapuzha in kettuvallam (big boat mainly used for carrying goods). He used to stay for days or sometimes even weeks in that shed. Whenever he was on duty he used to have food from our house. I used to enjoy watching him eating his food, mixing the rice with buttermilk curry, sambar or fish curry, making them into balls and throwing them into his mouth followed by a pinch of other dishes or pickles. I used to try to imitate him while eating my lunch/ dinner. But, most of the time I ended up getting bashing from my mother for throwing the rice all over my face and spilling it on the dining table.

Raghavankotharan had an uncanny knack of telling lies.  At nights we (my brothers & cousins and me) used to visit his warehouse to listen to his instant made-up stories, which were beyond our wildest imaginations. We always managed to drag him into some kind of situation, where he would start his narration.

I remember one night one of my cousins asked him, “Have you gone to Ceylone?”

“Yes, yes”, he replied.

“Okay, then tell us something about your trip, please.”

“In Ceylon one of the must-see places is Ravana’s palace. It is such a huge building that it took me one whole week to go around the whole palace. Acres and acres of gardens, umpteen number of swimming pools, fruits and vegetables farms etc. You name a tree, it is there. I myself counted more than 50 varieties of Mango trees alone.” He started.

“Did you see any pictures of Ravana and his family there?” my cousin became curious.

“No, there were no pictures, but they had kept on display the swords, bows & arrows and other weapons he had used, his dresses, his ornaments etc. for the public to see.”

“Is it?” my cousin mockingly asked him.

“And you won’t believe, the gold ring which he used to wear on his middle-finger was also on display and is so big that we can wear it like a bangle.”

Once when Raghavankotharan hadn’t reported for work for almost a week, grandpa sent a man to his house to enquire. His house was around 5 km from our house. The man returned after around an hour and told that he met Raghavankotharan at a teashop near his house and that he was mourning the death of his youngest son who died of jaundice 3 days back. Grandpa immediately arranged to send some rice, grocery items and vegetables to his house.

A week after Raghavankotharan’s rejoining duty, I was sitting with my grandpa in his grocery shop when he suddenly pointed to a small boy approaching us and asked me, “Isn’t that Raghavan’s youngest son who he told had died?”

He had come to our house a couple of times earlier and I immediately recongnised him.

When the boy came near the shop, my grandfather asked him, “Aren’t you the youngest son of Raghavan?”

The boy smiled at us innocently and said “Yes, I came to see him to get some money”.

I was asked to fetch Raghavankotharan immediately.

When he came, grandpa rebuked, “How could you tell looking at the face of such a boy which is shining like a star, that he is dead?”

Raghavankotharan’s immediate reply was, “It is his younger one who died, not him”.

“No, I’m the youngest, I did not die”, the boy stepped in front and anoounced boldly.

Raghavankotharan started slapping the boy left and right and grandpa had to intervene to save the kid from getting hurt.

Whenever I go to my ancestral house, all those incidents come rushing back to my mind which makes me feel nostalgic. Eventhough all these happened almost 25-30 years back, all those characters are still so vivid in my mind that I can still feel their presence when I go there. The whole house used to be full of people buzzing with activities. As children, we used to find the days shorter for our various adventures, especially during school holidays.

During school holidays, usually our days would begin with an elaborate bath in the river followed by a visit to the Devi Temple on the other side of the river. Then we would have our breakfast, we children formed the first batch, followed by the elder ones and then the ladies. Every morning Grandpa used to ask each of us to read aloud a stanza from the main page of the Malayalam newspaper, Mathrubhumi. The time between breakfast and lunch would be spent in the parambu (backyard) or in the textile/ grocery shop.  In between we helped ourselves to one or two glasses of sambharam (butter milk with ginger, salt, kadipatha and green chillies added for flavour). After lunch, we usually played hide and seek inside the house and other buildings connected to it. In the evening we would be served tea and some snacks (like vada, fried bananas, eleyappam, unniyappam etc.). After snacks we would be busy with our outdoor games (gilli-danda, chor-police, etc). Before sunset, we go for yet another bath in the river followed by Namajapam or a visit to the Devi Temple for Deeparathana. Then we all (including grandpa and other elder members of the family) used to gather around the radio (the old type with wooden cabinet and 2 big knobs for volume control and tuning) to listen to the Malayalam news at 7.30 pm. By around 8 pm we would have our dinner followed by a glass of cow’s milk specially prepared by grandma. She used to put rava in the milk and boil it before serving it to us. Its taste is still fresh in my mouth. By 9 we would all be on bed, listening to “Ningal Awasyapetta Ganangal” (songs you requested), on the radio.

Now-a-days my daughter frequently pesters me to narrate such old stories to her on bed. Even now, in our house no occasion is complete without discussions about Raghavnkotharan’s famous stories and lies during Onam and other gatherings.