Markazhi
I waddled towards the nhattupura ..others were engaged in discussions.. I stepped into the veranda and entered into the classroom..The space lay infinite and there emerged Kunhamina with her chiming silver anklets,moving her legs disconsolstely under the bench..the primordial dampness smell canopied in the room. There was Appukkili with his dragonfly..
I smiled at them smiled upon his twenty-two children, and they smiled back too. The caliphs and queens, until smiles filled the seedling house. Vavar, Noor Jahan, Unniparathy, Kinnari, Kuruvu, Chathan, Parekkada,
sharing the memory of that framed vision with his twenty pupils who sat before me with peevish faces.
”Come outside,its getting late ,Mohanan shouted,
..Everything was mopped in a slow movememt,,we are nothing ,less than nothing.
.”The seedling house became a compartment in a train, and he the lone and imprisoned traveller. Dark wastes lay on either side; from them fleeting signs spoke to Ravi—a solitary firefly, a plodding lantern. The wheels moved along the track with soft, deceptive thuds. Then he heard the far rush of another track racing towards his own, the sorrow of another, futilely seeking comfort. The rails met for one moment, tumultuously, to part again. To race away into the many-mysteried night.”
.Let’s walk towards Allah Pitcha mullah’s madrassa..as we walked .. the dragonflies hovered around the open space. the memories of the predecessors in the golden the slanted beam of light. Where must have Appukkili gone? the innocent hunter of dragonflies!!!Memories of the dead, the dead pining for miraculous reprieves. We walked beneath the canopy of gaudy little wings. Khasak lay dreaming all around us.
The dragon flies are the ecological indicators .they suggest the presence of pure water..
”This is the Pallikkulam.” Aboukka introduced. It was fully covered with weeds and water hyacinths..The blue water was visible as an unusual occurrence.The weeds dominated with power and abundance. .One or two common moorhens waded on the surface. The inky blue water drowned in the green closely knitted mesh of weeds..
It is Arabikkulam of khasak .Mymoona had her bath in it.”Maimoona stood in waist-deep water, bathing, splashing in the clear waters of the Araby tank..Maimoona was a horse that nobody could tame. Maimoona bathed alone, bare-breasted, and watched the soap bubbles wink red and blue. ”
I walked on, along the mud path that had once borne Ravi’s footprints. My eyes were searching for the pretty Mymoona.,the hourie of khasak’!’Maimoona walked with power and abundance, sleeves rolled up to bare her arms, revealing the translucent skin beneath which the blue veins were a gorgeous filigree”, ”It was a season of Mymoona, when I used to chant the sentences of Khasak four times a day…Hari recalled.
‘
”It was The twelfth mosque but it is renovated..in the novel , Vijayan describes like this,” Mosque of the King, was the most recent of the ruins. Its walls and roof covered with picturesque disfigurement, the mosque sported the look of the gloomy well-being of an antique. It’s the pond were Mymoona had her bath.”
The tank and the Mosque of the King on the rise over it were haunted. In the wars of a different age, the Arabs had put deserters and infidels to the sword and flung their dismembered bodies into the tank. Even now the’ kabandhas’ were believed to return to the tank in the dense night and at desolate noontide.”” Aboukka continued .
The madrasa building was also remained refreshed in green and cream coloured paint.. The renovated structures failed to trigger the mysterious aesthetics of the ageless monument.
My friend..Appakkutty Ravuthar used to weave stories about his connection with Vijayan. Vijayan used to have Jaunt along with ,,Allah Pitcha. and him. when Madichikunnamkulam starts to overflow, Kuppandis female buffaloes descend into muddy water. Seeing this Kuppandi dives into the pond and sinks. Vijayan gazes upon the surface of the water like a child..”
”In the thirteenth mosque,
Allah-Pitcha led the prayers in the mosque..he was the sage.. he was taught them stories of scriptures..
The mullahs of Khasak were a line of foundlings, all the mullahs were adopted in unusual circumstances. Aboukka added. when Allah-Pitcha came uponKhaliyar on the slopes of Chetali, he thought his own search for a successor had ended” Aboukka added,
”Allah-Pitcha mullah died of cancer at last on the feast day of the ancesto..what a lucky man is he !!!..”
He led us towards the house..it was a tiled house with two or three rooms and asbestos sheets were used extend the eves..Mohan,Hari and prakasan took photographs in front of his house..the gate was designed with branches of thorny bamboo branches closely arranged on a wooden frame,
”The mullah stepped out of the mosque, leaning on his stick. His way home lay past the school. He crossed the yard and paused awhile at the gate of the mosque. He thought of the stranger in the seedling house with sympathy and love. Innocent wayfarer, what bond of karma brings you here?”
what karmic bond has brought me here? What purpose, what meticulous pre-determination? Then came a gust of wind which threw open the window behind him.
we thanked Aboukka ,meet again..Insha Allah..was the simple replay .
We sat on a culvert near the canal ridge road..the sun had set..the wind was rumbling through the palyara fronds.. Thasrak is an organic world of transactions “”infinite touch of the raindrop. The grass around let out a new sprout. The tender blades continued to sprout from within the hair follicles. Up above, the monsoon shrank to the size of a thumb.”..not the most monument s.the edifices.the terrain alone .Thasrak envelopes it’s hedge dragons .it’s Palmyra
.it’s dragon flies..with its edenic innocence perhaps..
The palmyras forms the main vegetative back drop of the story..They are cannonised as characters ..The rotting palmyra fronds of the thatch flapped in the monsoon winds, and lightning filled with cold blue fire..That draws us through the medium of time and reminding the passing of time .The day warmed, the palm winds were blowing.
Kesus saga goes like this
”The wind was on the palms of Khasak”He turned to watch the tapper walk away, and said a prayer to save this man of honour from relapsing into hallucination. In the grove, Kuppu climbed his favoured palm, the queen among his black mistresses; he sat astride the stem of a frond, contemplating nothingness; the wind spun the mountain mists around him, And so ended the epic of the toddy-tapper, an epic from other times, when flying serpents rested on palm tops during their mysterious journeys
”
The tapper made an offering of sweet toddy to please these visitants. He left flowers at the foot of the palm for the clan’s well-being. In those times the tapper did not have to climb, the palm bent down for him. It was when a tapper’s woman lost her innocence that the palm ceased to bend it was the call of the wind-swept palms that resounded in the night.
Kallu..a character fancied the palms as big black giantesses tossing their locks in the wind.
.Khasak is a mysterious n unique place woven with the myths and collective we feeling..the mysterious chetali mala .the palmyrafronds..the verdant green fields,the wind…the eastern pass…the identity of the habitat is reflected upon the native who has been living in the area for a long time..the cultures of Tamilnadu migrated Muslims and the primitive settlers got imprinted upon the vast stretch see of Thasrak..
!all of us remained silent .sat on the culvert slab..
The sunset filled the seedling house with the warmth of a sensuous fever. All human beings carry a map to f our familiar land Scape in our memories ..that may be individually..and may be collectively.
.certain topgraphical features of the terrain bear pre eminent cultural significance..Thasrak may be such a unique space..what karmic bond has brought me here? What purpose, what meticulous pre-determination? Then came a gust of wind ..the terrain enhances the theme..the human quest.
We visited Thasrak years..later..Allah-pitcha mollakkas house has been rebuild..the asbestos sheet has been transformed into cement roof..the nhattupua has been woken up into the spring of renovations..the silouttes Palmyra’s are being mopped gradually from the sunset horizon…of Thasrak.
I was there to witness the twilight when the setting sun enveloped the Victoria college found with theatrical conventions to recreate the experience of the legend of khasak.That was an incredible experience chilling our existence.
.This is the first time that the drama by Deepan Sivaraman, which won much critical acclaim, is being staged in Palakkad.its 205-minute-long theatre version would be staged in Palakkad during a three-day literary festival beginning April 29.
Torch bearing journey of generations broke all the stage conventions..the endless quest of khasakians..
Outside, the night lay inebriated with its vastness. The wind was on the palms of Khasak.
Beyond the reaches of the village late wayfarers waved their fibre torches, pulses of flame and ember, they continued their journey to bleak emptiness.
Courtesy to my friends Mohan .Prakasan,Hari who accompanied me.
Markazhi
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