Seasons in the Sun

It was almost 5.45AM on a monday morning. Oh,man you don’t know the aftermaths of getting up this much late! – murmuring myself I gropped in the darkness for the tube-light switch. Quickly got ready and pulled out bike from the shed. Slammed on the kicker cursing its starting problem .By the time I reached the kalari(martial-arts school),they already had started the 'vandanachuvadu'-the starting-prayer steps.I did 'pranam'(wishing the instructor) but late coming was something plainly unfair for the strict rules of an orthodox kalari .I tried to explain that I was caught by some work in the office late in night the previous day, but ISMA-Indian School of Martial Arts has many votaries. Punishment was to take a 25 rounds up and down on a steep slope nearby.

'Retracing the roots' was started a long back than somebody would think it is. In fact it was either un-documented or sometimes written-but-not-published. I was madly in search for finding out the perfect co-ordination of mind and body so that over a period of time I structure to be a compact piece of human being .I landed to a career where people at last turn out to creatures who do over-thinking and less living and that worried me.what is the use of becoming a bulky, plumy and intelligent person?I felt like I was captured by a group of people who possess good brains, good money but with unresolved life-problems. Some of them finds it difficult even to bend for picking up a fallen pen!!. I want to preserve all that I could do with my body when I was a boy- I want to hide myself under a cot, I want to climb up on the trees ,I want to run fast,I want to eat anything that I want..and all.These thoughts became my preoccupation for being embarked on to Kalarippayattu arena.Then it became rather an obsession than interest.

Well, after telling all this to my roomies(they were 5 brilliant engineers), their face froze in an expression of incredulity for a second or two before they burst out laughing: -) . For some days it became as a cliché for my room-mates and none of them accompanied me to ISMA. They even thought that I am crazy and my interest won’t last long. One guy who knows me for a long time commented that his friend was intractable . Rather he confided to me about my rampant idealism of juggling roles between profession and tradition. Later this big time movie buff amazed me by marrying his colleague-guessing now why he couldn't find time those days. Everybody has a reason to do what they do/they do not do.

At kalari (the practice ground of kalarippyattu) where views melt and learning started, I came to realization that I was amidst the people that I always wanted to be with.Balakrishnan Nair was a great guru not only to martial arts but he could spiritually throttle a disciple’s mind. Under his training I not only experienced the feeling of being good physique but I found my-self illuminating the neural-roots(believe me I could feel it!!) so that my thoughts ultimately became n-times faster and clearer .Of-course speed of mind is complimentary to step out meythari(bare-hand-fight). Only he can perform the 'chuvadukal'(leg movements) who is clear in concepts.Once the neurons are cleansed ,you feel the gap between your mind and your body is filled,hence you do what you wanted to do with your body. When the days passed I started realizing thoughts of my pre-generations also. Just imagine, your brain is inherited from your father /mother ,so the thoughts they ensemble when they were young might be residing in your brain. You can argue with me that thoughts are not something which 'exist or sediment' just like that. But can I ask you what is matter-energy relationship proposed by Einstein. Seeing ‘thoughts’ as an energy pattern, they can be converted to matter. A group of such matters combined will become 'genes'. Everybody knows that the gene can pass behaviors(behavior-pattern is the result of what you ‘think’ in a particular real-life scenario) Well that is what my understanding & explanation of how I got plugged into my forefather's thoughts.Though I am not a biologist I am clear about what happens inside me.

Those were the days of hard-core practice which exhausted me to such a level that,I used to glut two mugs of fresh-juice to reinstate. The inexplicable experience of being reincarnated.

'Experts don’t advertise themselves’ and that is what I have to say about Guru Balachandran master at Dharmikam(kalari-ashram). I was fortunate enough to start by giving Dakshina to Guru’s guru. And way back in bangalore I deeply regret of the exotic life that I have lost.Retracing those roots I see a large turn that I have taken. Don’t know whether I shall be able to cross-back that turn at some point of time in future. But I wish I could.

Being the owner of a bike which was accessible to anyone anytime, I could nurture good friendship with the seniors. They taught me ,cared me like a younger brother .I was one among them. With a tint of sadness I bid them adieu… -Season In the sun from Westlife -hearing those lines reminds me of them.
"good bye to you my trusted friend....Together we climbed hills n' trees...I was the black sheep of the family....We had joy ,we had fun we had season in the sun but the hills that we climbed were just seasons out of time"

Memorabilia

The drama was rehearsed at the terrace of our school building located beside a lush green rice-field. This was for two reasons.

One- We didn’t have a room to conduct rehearsals at our small higher secondary school building .

Two-There was no staircase to the terrace. So anybody who wanted to see the rehearsal had to climb on the slippery wall, then take the next step to the roof of the toilet ,then third step to sunshade of the main building and finally need to roll over to the terrace. For that reason the presence of others were limited and helped us not to lose the suspense of the drama.

We worked hard for our first time ever stage show, rehearsed for long hours(Ofcourse we started off all for the sole purpose of bunking the classes ;-)).We got nobody for that single female character as none of the 6 queens who were our classmates were not interested. That was how we sat down to edit out some part of the script.

Finally we landed up on the stage for the school day. None of us had a background in any kind of stage programs. Everybody looked each other as if they had just landed up on an unknown planet.

Nobody remembers the dialogues!! what next??

This was something which was plainly unfair for the audience. The show had gone for a toss!!.

But soon I realized that there was no shortage of real talent in our team. We proceeded to try and sort out the complicated set of circumstances, we managed to place ourselves in.

Everybody started-off with their own self-made dialogues. After a few hiccups my team eventually got adjusted with… but we never knew how to stop the drama…it went on and on. The battle was far from lost, but one can imagine what happened to the pulsating play written by revolutionary Malayalam author N.N.Pillai. We made a plan during the interval to start the car and park it very close to the stage.

“why?”

“Boss, do you really think that the audience would be quiet all the time by seeing all this!! as soon as the drama finishes off or before somebody from the audience puts hands on us, we need to save our little @s#* out of this place.”

At the end of the play, to our surprise ,the audience including teachers, friends and parents gathered around us to commend on our performance. They said, they never felt like ,we had unusually stuck up somewhere. Thanks to the terrace, that nobody knew what the real drama was all about. Rather than the why and wherefores, it is still mystic that who can author a drama better ?N.N.Pillai or our drama team?? But at the end of the day we were sure about one thing... if the author came to know about our performance(of his drama) he wouldn’t have thought twice to kill himself…after murdering us.

As the bottom line I should say about my teenage friends that, it was not bad they struggled (that too without being endorsed by any teachers) and the way they have behaved in difficult moments that we lived on the stage. ..N’ when I look back now .........................
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life...
Ain't no use in complainin'
When you got a job to do
......I knew that it was now or never
Those were the best days of my life
Back in the summer of '69...
Man we were killin' time
We were young and restless
We needed to unwind…
I guess nothin' can last forever - forever, no...
...And now the times are changin'
Look at everything that's come and gone
Sometimes when I play that old six string
I think about ya'n wonder what went wrong
......I knew that it was now or never
Those were the best days of my life…..