We had a bit of trouble locating Vinayaka Nagar.Several of the bylanes in our locality had recently been re-tarred, renovated and renamed, and once we had located it, I realized with amusement that, it was the road which led to our school, the same road through which we cycled every morning, right from my fifth grade to my twelfth. House-number Ninety-four, we were told. We had to meet the old man who stayed there, we were told, offer him financial help, and an admission to the old-age home nearby, on behalf of our charity organization, Jyotis.
Finding Nintey-four was easier, and took us just under five minutes. It would have been even easier, if I had known that it was NCG's house. But, what I saw stunned me. The house looked like a ghost of what it was ten years back. The bricks on the walls were chopped at the edges, with cracks running criss-cross, covered by green, sticky moss all over. The old electric post beside the house, which used to present a striking, stark, ugly contrast to the spotless cleanliness of the walls, now seemed to blend seamlessly with the dirt which covered them. The post, in comparison, now looked cleaner and better groomed. The granite name board, which read " N.C.G.Panicker ", swung from a screw at it's one end, like a disoriented pendulum, with a hole at the free end where the other screw which had held it against the wall.
It took a while for NCG to answer our knocks at the gate. And when he did, it gave me an even bigger shock. Everything about him had changed. As the three of us sat with him on the run-down verandah, NCG recited ruefully about how he had lost his job as an insurance agent and all of his wealth in unending litigation, over a property dispute, with a construction firm. Even the house and property was under mortgage, he said.
I observed him, making sure that there were no signs of recognition on my face. He seemed to have degenerated, as his house had. His skin had sagged, and hung like loose sausages from his neck and cheekbones. The once-black, perfectly manicured sideburns and moustache had grayed and were overgrown, merging with his long and untidy beard. Only one thing had withstood change; the ever-present scowl on his face. It was with this trademark scowl, that we saw him for the first time, at a Resident’s Association function, while we were still in our school-going years.
My friend Naveen and me, had watched intently as NCG sat by our side, during the function, reading his magazine ( His initials were printed on the cover of the magazine, in clumsy, roundish letters).He had been comparing the results of a lucky draw, and both of us stole surreptitious glances into the magazine and the paper-bit which he held in his hand. As he compared the numbers, his scowling eyes moved from the paper-bit to the magazine, and back again. He realized that he had lost the draw, and angrily crumpled up the paper bit, and threw it to the ground. The violent reaction tickled our funny bones, and though I managed not to laugh, Naveen couldn't, and first let out a loud squeal, and then a giggle.NCG's quick fiery glare, blood-shot eyes from beneath the thick eye-brows and sideburns, had then subdued us into silence.
As I noticed my mates from Jyotis trying to convince NCG about the nobleness of our intentions, and into accepting our help and joining the old-age home, I remembered how our paths had crossed once again, while we were still in school.
Both of us used to play a game, while on our way back home; we would pick pebbles and aim them, five in a batch, one by one, onto the dirty post adjacent to NCG's squeaky clean walls. The post was squarer, and a good two-inch wider than the usual electric posts, making it a perfectly aimable target. None of us had a particularly good aim, and on average, atleast two out of every five missed the post, eventually creating a spotted design on NCG's super-clean walls, stretching his wafer-thin patience to its limits.
Getting proactive, NCG soon started a daily-evening vigil on his verandah, with his scowling eyes fixed at us, bringing our game to an abrupt end. He just glared, never uttering a word to us, and the one who talked, as if on his behalf, was the lady who stayed next door, in a curious mix of English and Malayalam. We had assumed then, that she was NCG's wife. “By chance, Aarude enkilum thalayil kondalo*?” she had asked, sounding concerned. The heavily accented English words struck a jarring note, followed by her rustic, local Malayalam. We instantly nick-named her By-chance.
Christening NCG took us a bit longer. I contributed Country for C and Goose for G, but we needed something catchy for N. It was then, that Naveen, the founder of the stone-throwing game, seething with anger at his game's sudden demise, finally came out with his masterpiece. NumbSkull for N. Thus, our bitter enemy stood baptized. NumbSkull Country Goose.
Mr Numbskull Country Goose and Miss By-chance. The nicknames stayed, and the names became a big joke among all our schoolmates who stayed nearby. We laughed behind their backs, invented funny rhymes about them, leaving them puzzled and irritated. We would regret our prank, sooner than we imagined, on a rainy June evening.
The rains had come lashing down, catching us off-guard, on the way back from school. We had no umbrellas, and as we stood, bedraggled, struggling to get our feet out of the way of the brick and logs which came hurtling down the slope along with the gushing water, we saw Miss.By-chance running towards us with an umbrella. NCG watched from his compound. We had gone in, along with her, and had a tea which warmed our shivering insides, thanked them and left, once the rain had subsided. We felt guilty and our relationship then grew better. Though NCG still scowled and never talked, By-chance gave us an occasional smile, and our paths rarely crossed.
I had been lost in my thought for quite some time, when I realized something. It was the first time, since I first saw NCG, that I ever heard him talk. I started listening, as his frowning face surprisingly softened, and eyes grew tender. He was talking about his sister, whom, he said he had lost to cancer. It took a while for me to realize that he was talking about By-chance. For us, she might have been his wife, or his servant, but it had never occured to us that, she was his sister.By then he had decided, after his hour-long conversation with my Jyotis colleagues, to join our old-age home, and had started to fill in the admission paper.
I stood by the side, watching him filling the papers, when he stunned me, still looking down into the paper, by asking where Naveen was now. I hadn’t expected the least that he would recognize me, was wonderstruck that he still remembered us. I let him know our present whereabouts, to which he nodded in acknowledgement, still looking into papers. At the end, as he was about to fill in his full name, which I watched curiously. I even half expected him to write Numbskull Country Goose Panicker, as I watched him fill in his name.
As I stood beside him, peering into his papers, he wrote, in his clumsy, roundish letters, which like him, appeared to have withered with age as well – ' Naledathu Chandra Gopan Panicker '.
PS:
By-chance's dialogue meant :- * what if the stone hits someone on the head? "
