Thursday, April 26, 2018

Looking up Appachi Ammavan - Lekha's uncle.

We're up half an hour earlier than our usual time, went through the chores and by a quarter to 8, had driven off to Lekha's sister, Letha's house. After a quick breakfast of Upma, bananas and coffee, we'd gone by an auto rickshaw to the state road transport corporation bus stand. I learnt a new thing today and probably it would be of interest to many of you.

We'd made a beeline for the low floor air conditioned bus to Thiruvananthapuram coming from Kollam. While checking up at the Enquiry Counter, the answer given was that it would arrive shortly. When the coach was nowhere in sight even after half an hour, Lekha's query was provided with the answer that he had never told that it would arrive. He went a step further to say that we might as well wait for the bus coming from Kottayam, headed for the airport. That we're finally able to board a coach that had come from there was another matter altogether but it did not head for the airport. 

I shall continue on this aspect later as I go chronologically through the day's events. We'd got down at Palayam and headed straight for Dr. Govindan's Hospital. Ammavan had a tube connected to his left nostril through which food, in liquid form, was being given. His memory had gone, temporarily, for a toss and he wasn't able to comprehend what was going on because the Sodium level in his system was fluctuating. So he didn't register our presence, at all, though his eyes were open and he kept muttering a lot.

Appachi, then, went on to tell Lekha that he'd got their Innova overhauled recently to make a family trip to our place at Guruvayur and had said that he was fond of me, among the outsiders who've come into the family! Quite sweet of him!! In between, I'd run an errand to the market, nearby, to buy some fruits and food for Lekha's aunt. We left about an hour later and all the three of us were crestfallen that he couldn't speak to us! He's all of 90 years and the infirmity is showing.

O God, please let him leave the hospital soon so that he makes that trip to Guruvayur to be amid us, as he'd wanted!

We reached the Thampanoor bus station and had a quick lunch of Biriyani. And then, went in search of information regarding the low floor bus and again it was the same lackadaisical response from everyone. It was, then, that I realised that we're asking the guys at the KSRTC while the low floor, high definition buses were manned by an elite staff, picked out off them, and the entire paraphernalia came under what's known as the KURTC(Kerala Urban Road Transport Corporation). Wonder whether it's professional rivalry or an inferiority complex, prevalent among them, that exposed us to reactions that weren't understandable? 

We, finally, hopped on to a super fast express and bore the heat as it lapped up the 72 km and were back at Raj Nivas by a half past 4.


Tailpiece.

Smack opposite Dr. Govindan's Hospital is the Holy Angels' Convent, my alma mater, where I'd studied the half of the third and the fourth classes after my parents had returned from Bombay. I took in the playground - though shrunken - and the chapel but almost all of the old buildings that existed in the early '60s have been demolished and new multi-storeyed buildings have sprung up in their place! A look at the compound took me down memory lane - Sister Anna, our class teacher, Girija Thampi(I'd a crush on her), Sydney Stephen, Udayashankar, Mary Ann, Valsala, Wilson T Paul - a few of my classmates - came into focus albeit for a short while! Wonder where they are now?  

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