Run away Uncles and Aunties

I spent my last weekend in a very unusual way, breaking my usual weekend routine of newspaper + movie + good food + music class + baby sit + sleeeeeppp.

I had a rare chance to spend with one of my grand father’s (I call him Aiyya), whom I regard with great respect. He has come back home from UK for medical reasons. In fact I can say that he was my role model from my child hood days.

We are not very closely related, but his family (Aiyya & Aaya) was very close to us and I can still remember how all the kids and adolescents use to enjoy their company. We use to go out for movie; eat in a hotel (which was a very rare luxury at that time) and learn some new game with cards and play it throughout the night every time they were in India. Aiyya has a good sense of humour, and there was always fun and laughter around him. He has worked hard to build up his fortune and in later years had helped a lot of needy people in his home town through his trust. I can go on and say lot more about him. In precise Aiyya was a combination of smartness, intelligence, fun and compassion.

I was feeling dull about the monotonous IT job that makes me feel nowhere, and the daily mediocre with which I go about doing it. That remarkable weekend, the music class also got cancelled and I had pretty much time to while away. I decided to pay visit to Aiyya’s place.

His daughter (Akka) also had come from UK to pay a visit, and another uncle and his wife (Maama and Maami) who were also close to us. Their home looked like a festive place. Aiyya nevertheless with so much pain due to the treatment, was chatting with everyone and talked about the visitor’s interests and family matters much to my admiration.

Over tea time, everyone started talking about their college/ school life and some memorable events in their life. Slowly the talk turned towards incidents where they tried to run away from home due to some of child hood’s grave issue as it might look like at that age.

Maami was saying that she ran away to a nearby park because her father refused to buy an ice-cream and how everyone was panicked for the whole day before finding her. Maama said, it was nothing close to what he did during his school days. After a transfer from Tamil medium to English medium school in Madurai during his 9th, not able to withstand the pressure from his peers, he chose to abstain from school for around ten days. (Of course without the knowledge of his brother who was his guardian) This happened for sometime before he was caught red-handed, and received nice thrashings from his brother. His ego got upper hand and our happy-go maama decided to run away (along with two other mischievous friends). After whiling away some time he and his two friends got very hungry and without any money they could only manage with temple prasadhams. In between, maama’s brother who was big shot in the town was cracking the whole house and city with search parties. The three young friends decided to start for big Chennai city and boarded a train at Madurai station. A search party was searching in the same station, and our maama decided to dodge them by hiding in the compartment very low. Another guy was watching this for some time and decided to catch hold of this young lad (probably if that happened, he would have been deported to some city for begging or spent all his life in low cost labour). Now Maama saw this and got frightened, and he did not have any other option other than to come out of the train and return back to safety. Luckily the search party also saw him at the same time and took him back home.

Should I say that no one else questioned him on his behaviour and he was pampered and turned to be an apple of everyone’s eye after that incident. So what happened to his new school? He said, later his brother calmly discussed with him about his problem and he went to another Tamil medium school and studied and lived happily ever after. So a run away uncle is manager in a prestigious bank now?? There was hell lot of laughter and a pleasant butterfly feeling in everyone’s stomach.

Aiyya who was lying in bed and listening to all this chatter said that he had also run away from his home but his’ was a more of a strategic planning and that lasted for a week We all got shocked including akka who was not aware that a so disciplined Pa, had his own share of mischief as well during his childhood. Aiyya started narrating his big event.

At that time he had just written his PUC exams (something that is equivalent to 12th now) and was waiting for his results. His father, a tyrant has told Aiyya that if he fails he would rather have him killed. We all were staring at Aiyya with wonder and asked him in unison so did he fail??(For us such a thought seemed to be impossible, because he is a known meritorious student during his MBBS course). Aiyya said, unfortunately he failed. He was very afraid of his father then, and decided to run away without any cash but a gold stead in his ear as back up. He explained during that time, young lads used to wear gold stead and that was a normal custom. So he boarded a train (without a ticket as expected) first to Dindugul, a small town in Tamil Nadu, and was looking for something to eat after a long starving. One of the pavement shop owner tried to snatch his treasure (a small gold stead). Aiyya got panicked and escaped from him and boarded train (not back to his home as we expected, but to Trichy. He did not have food or place to sleep by after reaching Trichy. He decided his luck to join at beeda shop inside a theatre after watching a movie and told the shop keeper that he was an orphan. Luckily the shop owner was a man good at heart, and seeing a so young orphan looking very hungry, he decided to take him in, and gave him food and shelter and Aiyya has to help him make beeda from the next day. Aiyya deposited his gold stead with the owner for safekeeping.
This prospect of living in trichy and working in a theatre looked better for Aiyya than facing his pa, and so this continued for ten days.

Meanwhile, aiyya’s family got much tensed and couldn’t find him anywhere. They resorted to put a “Boy missing” advertisement in all papers with Aiyya’s enlarged photo. By chance one of aiyya’s family friends, in Trichy came to that theatre during this time. When he saw this young guy (looking exactly like a Hindu) working in Muslim beeda shop, he enquired about him. Aiyya intelligently said that he was relative of shop keeper’s and he was there to help him with errands. Now the family friend really doubted about the validity and instead called Aiyya’s family and made sure that it’s the missing boy. He gave some good advice in stern voice and informed aiyya’s family and shop keeper about his doings. He was taken back home and received well with all tears. I should also say this – the shop keeper as well scolded him for lying that he was an orphan and gave him the stead back.

All of us asked Aiyya, so how did he face his father then? Nobody wanted him to run away again and so nobody asked him any questions. But he said it was his turning point. Experience of living at low for a week away from family’s protection made him realize and he took to his studies seriously after that.

Akka commented that, if that family friend did not find him then, he would have worked there in the theatre and probably became a beeda shop owner later. Everyone laughed, and we all felt happy when Aiyya started laughing as well.

I observed all this chatter and told everyone that our generation looks more intelligent and I haven’t found doing such run away incidents during our time. Aiyya commented, that we never had liberty and freedom of speech like how the today’s youngsters and really should thank our parents for that

It was a wisdom thought amidst laughter. Aiyya said, life can always turn miserable, but it’s what we leave to next generation that matters. Among tears I nodded yes, and prayed silently that a human so gentle should get well soon.