page 3 ( 66 ) Some thoughts after Std IX

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     After the final examination of Std IX,  I was in  great confidence that I could attain a high score in the examinations.  But at the same time, I was sad because the atmosphere in my house was totally against me.  I wondered why didn't the women labourers  in Puthiyaveettil house question my mother about her laziness - not going to work outside.  Instead, they questioned me for not working inside the house, without any investigations, to pull me down to the lowest level.  Now, I feel that they might have thought that I would become a maid servant or a woman labourer  in one of the rich families  in our village.  Because of that, what happened ?  I didn't talk to any of those women labourers who made such a comment about me and I never looked at their faces also.  Therefore, I was always unfit in my village.  

     In Puthiyaveettil house, Gomathy would come just before 08.00 a.m., to help in the household works.  She would work in both families - in Johney's & in Varghese's houses.  No one would command her to do works.  She knew what to do & when to do  different jobs.  She was unmarried and lived with her father in a small house.  Another speciality was that she was very lean.  Near to her house, her brother lived in a house  with his wife and four children - two boys and two girls.  All of them were elder to me.  On the way to L P School, after passing through my grandparents &  uncle Yacob's house, I would go through a rubber plantation & reach a mudroad.  Then, just opposite the mudroad, I could see Gomathy's father sitting in the front verandah, in a bench.   While entering the narrow path through which we went to L P School, I could see Gomathy's brother's daughters doing household works everytime.  But the boys were not to be seen there.  It created a bad opinion about that family in my childhood itself.  When I was in High School, Gomathy's brother's wife,would come near our house in the Puthiyaveettil house's land, to mew grass and gather firewood.  Then my mother would explain her sorrows to that woman.  Then she would give advice to my mother that my mother should always make me work in  the household activities.  Otherwise, I would fail in my husband's house.  When I heard those words, I had only hatred towards that woman and my mother.  

     Whatever changes happened when I was in Std VIIIth & IXth !  In 1987, the election to Kerala Legislative Assembly was taken place and E K Nayanar became the Chief Minister of Kerala.  I think it was during that election campaign that Rajiv Gandhi came all over Kerala.  It was evening time.  There was announcement that Rajiv Gandhi would go through the road in front of our house.  As our house was in a lonely place, a policeman was standing opposite to our house on the road leading to Puthiyaveettil house.  Finally, when he came, it was dark.  All of us climbed down the steps and waited there.  He was inside the car, waving his hands slowly.
     The Peruman train accident in which the Banglore Thiruvananthapuram Island Express derailed on the Peruman bridge over the Ashtamudi lake in Kollam district, killing 105 people on 8th July, 1988, happened when I was in Std IX, I think.   I still remember the agonies of the people who  suffered in that accident which I read from the newspaper and how much pain I experienced.

     Everyone talked about "Kerala Model Development", at that time.   The land reforms of the communist party, the social uplifting of almost all castes & the money sent by many persons worked in Gulf created a sudden change in Kerala's economy.  Not only that, Kerala is a tourist destination also.  Though the Kerala Model was a reality, nowadays it is seen that it was  only a temporary phenomenon.

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