the transistor - short story - subramanian a

7/31/2019 The Transistor - Short story - Subramanian A

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25/11/1992 03/12/1992

My wifes grandfather, P H Sankara Iyer, was a brilliant schoolteacher. He served his years at Kottakkal Rajas High School andwas one of the founding pillars of that school. After serving as aMathematics and English teacher, he moved on to his hamletPanamanna South to lead a peaceful, retired life.

He very much belonged to the old school of thought. He wasbrilliant and quick and made no compromises as a teacher. His

The Transistor


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thoughts worked like quick silver and were very alert in picking upany error made by the student. In a way, he was indeed a terrorfor his students.

His body language would suggest that he knew no rest. He madevery quick paces and spoke in a stammering manner that wassuggestive of crowded thoughts. Thoughts lined up at a pace thatbeat their deliverance. The stammering carried an element of breathlessness and he would often make a sound of the clasp of the lips.

As a boy and student, he had literally charged across the fields formiles and miles to reach his school and the nearest town. Those

were the days when the hamlet did not have any road. The poorforefathers of the hamlet had very well spent their nights underthe dimness of hurricane lantern. They knew the length andbreath of their hamlet by the feel of their feet. They woke upbefore the Sun was due in the East. A ploughmans call, therustle of wind and a singular foot-step animated the air of thathamlet. By twilight, silence would draw its blanket upon thehamlet. A singular chirp, the distant bark of a dog, the broken

notes of a song sung by a wayward drunkard would break thestillness of the air. The rustle of the leaves could be otherwiseheard.

During the rainy season, the orchestra of frogs could be heardfrom the fields. The voice of the gushing waters in the distanthills would make a rumbling effect on the sleeping ears. From acattle shed, a cow might express her annoyance of a thunder-bolt. Otherwise, the soft tapings of her tail on the floor could bevisibly heard.

It was to this air that the grand old teacher finally retired to spendthe rest of his life. It was his native village, which did not changeeither in geography or by way of life style during his professionalyears at Kottakkal.


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He owned a few paddy lands. Some lands were by the side of ahill. He devoted his time on these lands. He wound up histeacher days and took up the role of an agriculturist. He gotconfined to those native winds and streams.

It was becoming dusk. Twilight was setting in. He became avictim of rheumatism which robbed off his moving world to withinfour walls. It was a different world of oil baths and Kruschen Salt.

The free wandering lion had been caught in a cage by a wild trickof Nature.

But the lion did not give up the battle too easily. A lion neverdoes. Illness could not restrict his sharp intellect and his tongue.

Always around him, he maintained the aura of a teacher. Asboys, we could not escape from the eyes of this old teacher.During vacation days, my wife and her sister had strict regimeunder his nose. He would ask English grammar and demand toread lessons aloud. He was very sensitive to sound and so wouldeasily pick up errors while reading. He would even pick up apunctuation miss. So, all students of the neighborhood wished toavoid his eyes but he would pick up everybody from the moving

shadows just by looking at the wall.He saw the world through a little window. He could not gathermuch about the world because the window offered him a viewonly up to a compound wall. For him, it was the edge of the livingworld. Sometimes, after an oil bath in the evening, he would betaken out and made to sit on the verandah of the adjoiningancestral house. He could view the living world up to the edge of the paddy fields and yonder hills that outlined the hamlet. Hewould listen to the whistle of the wind. He would return to his oldnave days. He would send a piercing glace unto the skies. Therest of the world was lost beyond the horizon. Nevertheless, hecould feel the hues of the seasons by the odors that the windcarried from the fields and the hay stacks. Sometimes, his eyeswould follow a woodpecker hammering a coconut tree. The world


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had changed much but within the viewing distance, the expansionof time was rather slow.

I do not know what a four walled room could offer in a positive

manner to a person who was for long confined to the smell andwhiteness of it, denying the distant captivating vales and dales.He saw the moving world in the form of shadows that appearedon the Northern wall.

At night, he would quite often be seen as scanning every inch of the floor and wall with his torch. It suggested that he had abroken sleep. For him, the day and night brought in the samescenario of life. Long confinement can really deter the spirits of

any man. When man apparently loses faith in his future, when hebegins to smell death just beyond the four walls, he knows only topush off his time in a restless manner, in a mechanical way. Suchfrustrations can go beyond ordinary definitions.

It was during this period that his son brought home an HMVtransistor. He was a research scholar at Bangalore. This radioprovided the ill-fated man a breath of life and a window unto theworld, beyond rills and hills of the hamlet, to reach the continents.In those days in my hamlet, a transistor was a rarity. He could forthe first time hear the voice of the world after a long time.

This indeed made the difference. He lived for the voices thatcame out of that tiny electronic box and re-scheduled his life. Hewould invariably listen to the world news, listen to music and feela fresh air after skits and radio dramas. I still can rememberthose evenings of 1969 when I used to share the transistor with

him and his grandchildren. My chief interest was those filmsongs. I was a boy of twelve who was spending the summervacation in that hamlet in my ancestral house. Our houses werelocated in the same compound within a space of a few fences anda small ground. In fact, he was related to our family on mypaternal side.


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After the 7.35 Malayalam news at night he would undoubtedlyhave his supper. Always the same combination of a few dishesserved his supper. For tiffin, he always shifted between the two Dosai and Iddli.

Beyond the four walls and the world of wireless voices, he sharedhis world occasionally with one of his old friends who used to callon him on certain evenings. He was also a retired school teacherand probably both of them were classmates as well. Those hoursrevitalized his spirits. From his old friend, he came to know of thepulses of the hamlet and changing tides of life. Exchange of thoughts, feelings and sharing our memories always revitalize ournerves. We would once again become young and fresh. Ourmental batteries would automatically get re-charged. We need itnow and again. Actually, the pleasantness of a light conversationis that we are sharing our intimacy with life. Man cannot escapefrom his memories.

In 1974 he left his hamlet once and for all to live with his eldestson at Bhopal. He knew that he would never return to the oldconfinement. Only at the time of departure could he feel about

the gravity of bondage that he had unconsciously developed forthe environment over the years. For a decade or more, he hadbecome the living part of that hall. His wife had endured thesituation with all piety and patience. She had never even for onceblamed the gods for the situation. Indeed, she had a noble heartto serve her husband even without a murmur. She was thepersonification of endurance and patience.

Crossing the fields and hills for the last time, he sent out a painfulglance towards the reducing scenes of his hamlet. Everythingreduced to a flashback and a bundle of memories as he crossedthe local library building and entered the panchayat road wherean old banyan tree embraced the landscape. A wind whistled andleaves rustled. That was a departing song.


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And the train carried him to another world. Everything reduced tointerplay of shadows as the train sped along the forest line of Walayar. Beyond the dim outline of the Western Ghat at night, hesaw the stars receding in the Western horizon. One more night

was sinking.

In a couple of years he returned to the mother earth. He passedaway in Bhopal.

I have often wondered about this man and his long exile as apatient. Atleast thrice, a doctor was summoned from the nearbytown.

The old house is still there in a dilapidated condition, in singularsurroundings. Thorny bushes fill the grounds. The hiss of snakesis not an unfamiliar note these days. One day, history will be re-written when future generations may build their sighs and hopesupon these very grounds. History is built upon the very junks of history. Men fade upon the endless passage of time nameless tobe part of a civilization, as an effect upon the long corridor of anera.

And what has now prompted me to write about a man whosesufferings the ordinary world may listen but only as a passingnote?

Recently, I was also confined to four walls for several days due tosevere jaundice. Those were sleepless nights and restless days.I became a victim of certain recurring impressions about life,death and about my own childhood days. Those were momentsof frustration. For more than ten days, this was the situation. Mydigestive system was even poor for any fruit juice. Vomiting andloose motion took their toll but somehow or other I did not reachany hospital. A local doctor would call upon me and under hiscare; I finally came out of the woods.


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When I was a bit well, the transistor came to my rescue in myloneliness. I began to discover the real joy behind the world of voices after several years. In the world of television and Star Plusnetwork, I had much neglected my transistor. It was lying in a

corner in a sinking stage. Fortunately, the spiders had not chosenthe inside of that electronic box as their secure places!

This transistor finally came to my rescue. It bridged my roomacross the world. Radio Ceylon Malayalam program was a longforgotten chapter. I was thrilled to hear old and familiar voices of Karunakaran and Sarojini Sivalingam. They brought me back my1970s.

And I remembered about the old HMV transistor and long exile of my wifes grandfather. I decided to pen on him.

The world that a radio can bring is really wonderful. It brings youa lively and multifarious world. It is a companion in yourboredom. It also provides a chance for the return of the native.

Long live the dream child of Marconi!.

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the transistor - short story - subramanian a

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