My architect friend and well known alternative modern
structural designer, Lijo Jose, after reading my ‘Finding a Muslim Friend in
You’ that I had written in December 2008, addressing my long lost friend,
Najeev Vahid, in the wake of the Hindu-Muslim strife immediately after the
Mumbai Terrorist Attack, asks me what happened after my happy meeting with him
a day before (3rd September 2014) in my home at Vakkom where he came
to meet me with another close friend, Syam Mohammed Raice, who works in Dubai. Immediately
after that happy union I re-posted my old blog in the facebook and it was the
reason for why Lijo asked me that question.
A long, enduring and warm hug is what Najeeb gives me as he
steps out of the brand new white Scorpio of Syam. I suddenly imagine a scene
from one of the popular generic movies of Mohanlal. Rich, powerful and stately
Mohanlal comes with Siddique to meet their school time friend, a struggling
writer, Sreeraman, who lives in their childhood village. The reunion is filled
with unspoken words. I need not tell you who are Mohanlal, Siddique and
Sreeraman here. But I have to say, I see
Siddique in Najeeb. They tell me that they have been driving around in the
village at night waiting for me to come back from Trivandrum where I went for a
drive with Shibu Natesan. I am late and it is quite late. Syam’s mobile phone rings
and Najeeb comments that the call is from the Home Department and is a final
warning call to Syam. Najeeb is still in
his irreverent best.
(Syam Mohammed Raice's white Scorpio)
Najeeb looks the same. If you wear a khaki shorts and a
cream color shirt you could straight away go and attend the classes in Vakkom High
School, I tell him. That was the color of our uniform. He has not changed at
all. Except for a little darkening around his eyes and close cropped hair that
hides his otherwise curly hair, he looks the same. He squeezes by back and
shoulders and he feels the same. I warn him not to beat me with his rough
palms. He had this habit of beating my thighs where baby fat was refusing to
fade during the high school days, with his strong and rough palms. I used to
cringe when he did that. I heard you had escaped from Dubai to London, I tell
him. He glowers at me and clenches his first. Suddenly he becomes Mammootty. I
hear him saying the famous dialogue of Chanthu in Vadakkan Veeragatha. “Chanthu,
the one who used reed needle instead of iron needle. Chanthu, the one who
bribed the blacksmith. Chanthu, the one who gave a faulty sword to his friend.
What else the gossip mongers say?” Najeeb does not ask this, instead he punches
me softly on my stomach and asks, what else I have heard about his mythical
escape from Dubai to London. I smile into the darkness.
I apologize to Syam as I am not talking to him that much
because Najeeb has taken over the scene of reunion. He is in his irreverent
best. Slangs fly thick and fast from his mouth. Each time he utters a word that
could be eminently beeped out and gleefully stored in our memory, he looks around
in the darkness to see whether some elders have listened to his harangue. Old
village boys in us have not died out yet. They are still careful. They still
respect the elders around though irreverence is the underlying theme. Najeeb
and Syam wear white dhoti and they have adequately double folded it above their
knees. I wear a saffron lungi and a white kurta. Najeeb asks me whether it is
my ‘usual’ dress. I tell him that it is my dress for the night, may be for the
time being. Syam is not surprised at my dress code as he has seen my various
avtars in facebook. Syam is an ardent fan of Kerala Transport Corporation. He
always posts the pictures of Transport buses, picking them from the site of a
group of IT professionals who spend their money to even rebuild and conserve
the bodies of some of the old transport buses. We all carefully protect something
from our past; it could be busts or buses. Syam wears a white shirt with lines
and Najeeb wears an olive green shirt with white vertical stripes.
(Syam Mohammed Raice in Dubai)
Najeeb tells me that he had a struggling period in London
and now finally he has found his foothold. He has two children, a fourteen year
old son and seven year old daughter (am I right there?). They must be speaking
very accented English, I muse. Yes, says Najeeb. But they speak to me in
Malayalam, he adds. Also he adds that they speak to his wife (their mother)
also in Malayalam. “Otherwise there will be bloodbath,” he says with twinkling
eyes. Najeeb’s accent too has not changed. His accent, like his body remains
unchanged. Vakkom seems to have this blessing of making its people to be
original in their manners and language. If we are bad we are bad to the core,
and we are good we are the best. But when it comes to language, we are
puritans. We do not mimic any accent though some of us thanks to habit spice up
our talks with some broken English sentences in between. Najeeb when he swears
positively looks up and takes the name of Allah, let his name be praised. He remains
the same even in that aspect.
Out of curiosity I ask them how they thought I was at
Vakkom. They were moving around in their huge SUV making many necks turn even
if it was night and there at the SN Junction they found Sunil Lal, our beloved friend
(I have devoted one full chapter to him in my To My Children Series’. “We found
a snake at the junction, with it hood open and shaking,” Najeeb tells with a
laugh. In our village the drunken yet standing ones we call, snakes (paambu). “Which
one was that snake?” I ask, though I know the answer because I have just seen
him while passing the junction a few minutes before with Shibu as he comes to
drop me at the gate. “Sunil Lal, who else that could be?” Najeeb says. Sunil Lal,
the moment he saw them had told them about my presence in the village. In
village things travel fast than facebook virals. The other day I had seen a
woman at the bus stop. I suddenly had a feeling that I knew her. I went and
asked her whether she was so and so. She was just getting into bus and I too
was taking the same bus to a nearby town. Once she settled down, she came to
the edge of her seat and asked me whether I was the same Johny who used to live
at Vakkom. I said yes. She told me that he came to know about my presence in
the village another friend who had told her about meeting me quite accidently
when I went to see the flooding of backwaters almost a week back. Friends
remember me and I remember them, that is a good feeling.
It is time to go as Syam’s mobile screen glows again. One
more warning call for Syam, Najeeb says. How will you escape the wrath of your
wife today, I ask Syam. “I am going to take Najeeb with me as a shield,” Syam
laughs. Najeeb’s family is in London. So he decides to go with Syam ‘specially
for protecting him from his wife’s wrath.’ We all laugh. When shall we meet
again? The question manifests amidst us. They are all leaving in a week’s time
to Dubai and London respectively. “I may come to Dubai in December,” I just
tell them. “You are my guest,” Syam says. “You just need to let me know, I will
fly down to Dubai from London for two days,” Najeeb assures. My head reels and
I am overwhelmed by their love. I am an avadhootan, the one who without home or
money. They are people who have gained things in their lives their hard work
and determination. I say thanks to them for visiting me. And the words sound
hollow as Najeeb gives me a warm hug again and squeezes my hands. In that half
an hour we remember so many friends who have left the village for building up
their career and life. “Amongst us you and Kamaneesh became big,” Najeeb says. “No”
I say. “We have become more refined
human beings,” I want to add. But I remain silent in humility. The white
Scorpio takes a turn and with a boom it goes and fades into future, only to
reemerge in another ‘present’.
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