Chapter 2

The pain of spanking

My father shifted from one rented house to another frequently like the cat changing its hiding places to take care of its kittens. The reason behind this must have been some misunderstandings. My temperamental father was not a believer in give and take and so never depended on the landlord's generosity. If anything displeased him, soon he would take his belongings and rush to find a new place.

When members of the family started increasing in number , the income from the betel shop was not enough to support the family. So my father started a small hotel at Kawadiyar by the name �Sivavilasam Hotel." The residents of Pandit Colony and Jawahar Nagar were regular visitors to our hotel to buy eatables and there were manual labourers, officials and teachers.

We attended the Salvation Army school near our residence. When the school bell rang, we would start running to the school. My latecoming was excused because I was good in studies and the teachers were friendly with my father. Many teachers of the school visited our hotel for tea and snacks and had a good idea about our family circumstances.

Everyone in the family worked in the hotel. The situation of our family was the same as the farming families of Central Travancore which had migrated to the Malabar. In order to 3 get free labour, the mothers gave birth to more children. A healthy young boy will have a spade on his shoulder by the time he is 15. Thereafter, his sole refuge is the earth and its produce. The only difference for us was that we had the opportunity to go to school.

My mother had 10 children, of which one was still-born. Of the five boys and four girls, one girl died before she was three years old. It was a great challenge for my father to provide for the 11-member family comprising our mother, eight siblings and my uncle. That was why as adolescents, I and my siblings, serving as his right and left hands, helped my father in running the hotel. To begin with I was the only helper for him. There was a gap of almost two years between my younger brothers and sisters.

Despite getting up very early in the morning by 4 a.m., I had to work till the school bell rang. A lot of arduous work will be waiting for us when we return from the school like grinding rice and blackgram for 'dosa' (pancake) on grindstone, pounding rice in mortars for 'puttu' (a cylindrical steamed rice cake), fetching water from a distant public tap on the Kuravankonam Road etc. My blind paternal uncle who was under my father's care was living with us. He also would join us in our daily chores.

My duty included going to Chala market on a rented cycle. 100 banana leaves cost two rupees. (These are used to serve food in hotels and at feasts. After food is eaten from the large leaf, it can be very easily disposed of). Vegetables for Rs 10 would be enough for 100 meals. Peddling the cycle with the heavy load all the way was a real adventure. Because of its heavy weight I had to push the cycle while climbing up a slope. If the bundle was not tied properly, the entire baggage would fall down giving me more problems.

The teachers and classmates knew very well the challenge undertaken by young Velayudhan of performing two duties together � that of working and studying. But his father pretended not to know this reality. If I was late from school or went to play with friends, I would be tied to a desk and beaten black and blue. The pain of the spanking burns in my mind even now. This is the pain of a child denied his childhood.

When I say this, it reminds me of a paragraph from V.T.'s (V.T. Bhattathiripad known as V.T. was a writer and a social reformer of Kerala in the 20th century) autobiography �Kanneerum Kinavum" (Tears and Dreams). He had written about himself a tender child being forced to get up very early in the morning and perform daily pooja (worship), how he was severely punished even for silly mistakes: In early mornings, after ritual bathing and wearing annulets and a nominal undergarments, I would be pushed to the priestly duties. Three hundred and thirty six suryanamaskar (bowing to the sun in a difficult bodily posture) for long of life, 101 difficult obeisance, 1,008 panchakshara (a five-worded) invocation to 4 gain wisdom, and in addition 108 special obeisance in order not to be depraved before Dakshinamoorthy (a Hindu god) � this is the list thrust on a five-year-old boy as part of daily worship. I need not have to stress that all these were beyond the capabilities of a weakling like me. To perform the �eatham muttal", a special worship sitting cross-legged and cross-handed (holding the opposite earlobes) bowing to the ground and rising up in tandem, undoubtedly, was a great punishment. By the count of 50, pain will trickle in to the spine, legs waver and blood will clot on aching elbows as the hands hit the ground in force. Because of intense pain, I would try to cheat on the number prescribed . My father would easily find out that I would be in a rage and a fierce combat will follow between me and my father. Once angry, nothing will mellow him down. Merciless thrashing will stop only when five or six canes were broken. Even the pillars on the verandah would have felt pity on me seeing me running out of the worship quarter crying aloud and with the blood-red stripes all over my body from neck down to the foot. The nature of punishment my father accorded was so terrible. My mother was of the opinion that it is mere violence beating children so cruelly. But she did not have the courage to protest ....."

Helpless and silent, my mother too could only weep hiding behind the doors. When it becomes unbearable, she would intervene, but she would also get a share of the beatings. My mother was a mere slave of my father in all aspects having no opinion of her own. A woman who obeyed all the orders she was totally subservient to my father. Working incessantly mother had become like a lean goat. My mother's horrible looks were worse than the mother portrayed in Madhavikutty's (a famous writer in Malayalam) �Kolaadu" (The Goat). If father could not get me, his anger would pour on my younger brothers. They too had the taste of his heavy hands frequently with or without any reason. However, my sisters were spared from such ruthless beatings. Being girls they were always behind the screen of 'Sivavilasam' hotel.

All these beatings would have been okay for me, had I done anything wrong. Even though there were eight younger siblings for me, being the eldest, my father always targeted me to quench his anger.

If the Sivavilasam hotel on Kuravankonam Road was a means of livelihood for my father, it was more a torture-chamber for me. I would bow my head and be speechless and keep aloof when my friends used to talk about their fathers. For them, father means sweetness of affection, the fondness expressed in giving them toys like balls and dolls, and a support when they fall and a safe refuge and assurance in moments of darkness. For me? It was a hot elixir of caning from the master who comes to put a heavy yoke on my neck.

I cannot forget that incident which gave me pain more than his physical torture. It was when I was in the high school. One day, my father burnt all my text books put together in a heap. When I saw the fire swallowing the books which I loved so much my soul was burning in me. All this because one teacher who had visited our shop to have tea told my father that Velayudhan had not scored high marks in the exams.

I was very sad that my father had such a hardened heart. Why did not my father think that the circumstances were not conducive for his son's education? Even otherwise, how can a half-starved child excel in his studies? I did not have the wisdom to think of the real intentions behind father's such illogical acts. But I understood the reason when I grew up. His intention must have been to stop my studies. I was the only one in the family that was grown up enough to do some physical work. When it was difficult for my father to earn enough to support the family all alone, he might have thought that. If I gave up my studies, he would get one more helping hand full time.

Along with my studies, I had tried to help my father as much as possible. I remember another experience of that time. A family at Kuravankonam supported one of my younger sisters in her studies. She stayed with them and helped them in small household chores. I too visited that house occasionally. When I pluck jackfruit or mangoes for them, they would give me some food or a small amount. On holidays I was deputed to carry food for the master of the house who was a superintendent of the Central Jail at Poojappura. I used to walk all the way from Kuravankonam to Poojappura and also walk back the distance. I used such small earnings to go for films or buy sweets.

Our father was not a drunkard but it was a habit with him to get angry with us. In fact, he was generous and had great patience. How many of our customers would eat at our hotel on credit and never pay the amount! He had excused all of them. He served food for the poor and hungry without charging them anything. But I still did not know why such a great soul punished us so cruelly. I could solve this puzzle only when I learnt the bitter truths of life.

I can guess now how our father used to struggle to meet the expenses of his children's food, dress, schooling and medication apart from the house rent. A bag of rice cost six rupees then. My fees in school was also six rupees. So one can imagine how much will it come for school fees alone for his nine children. Education for the children was unaffordable for the poor in society, until public education was thrown open free by the E.M.S. government in 1957. Then what can we say about a poor hotelier with nine children? He might have lost his balance due to the great pressure on him when he was unable to make both 6 ends meet. No doubt, the dreadful cane beatings were the result of this accumulated mental tension.

When my friends were preparing for the public exam in the 10th class I was busy with the work in the tea shop. I did not get any special consideration as a boy who had to appear for such an important examination. The problem that I could not get time even to open the books made me really sad. But there was nobody to see my plight. It was from my distant memory that I had to regurgitate my lessons and appear for the examination as it was the acid test of my life.