THE SECOND ELDER

This is about my second uncle. I assume I have previously conveyed to you about my initial veteran who studied in England. This is my second elder from the mother’s side and a most adventurous character in his youth, a nation wrestler and a lifelong bachelor. He never espoused till he faded in his eighties. The workouts he did in his youth could be inferred from his body even towards the tip of his life, though his last days were spent as a paralytic patient. The physician who is my old confrere too mentioned about his blood samples that they are the most perfect. Generally, he was a very humble person wishing all and sundry in his everyday strides to the township. He sojourned in our dwelling for fourteen years after his retirement since he had no immediate family as he was not married. He used to take Ayurvedic tonics which he received free from the government ayurvedic dispensary in the municipality. The lady doc was well identified to him as he was a regular. Whenever he told her, he addressed as’ amma’, which means mother in our language. My uncle’s family had coconut kernel business and they will take loads of kernels, dried in the hot sun in carts and deliver it to middlemen in Alleppey who would later transfer the goods to the big exporters. This was big business and the house was justly rich because of it. Coconut oil is extracted in the oil mills from these dried kernels by crushing them. The scrap portion will go to one side which the is feed for cattle and the pure coconut oil will go to the other side of the machine. From one side the pure coconut oil is collected and later bottled. My uncle’s trade was only up to the point of handing over the dried kernels to the middlemen in the Alleppey port, which was a big trade center in that era…. In his youth, he was an adventurer and had to live in exile for two years because of his association with a lady who probably had many lovers and he was one of them. The woman had a mate and he was killed by a personage and my second elder happened to be one of the principal suspects. After the said incident he was chased by law and he went exile.It is said that he would appear somedays at the crown of night from nowhere to see his father to whom he was greatly attached. The dad and the squandering son occupied adjacent seats in a shady niche of the house and, there were many sentiments- freighted moments, and the father asked the son to tell the truth- If he had perpetrated that heinous offense, confess it holding the canonical manual which the family estimated. The son keeping the scripture in hand told his father with tears in the eyes that, though he had had intimate relations with the aforesaid lady .had not committed it and some other man is the offender. My mother, a petite girl was a spectator to this emotion-packed scene.And the father trusted him and they prayed together and had their meal and the uncle departed. Sometimes he would live with little food, as he was living in forests and desolate stations getting food from nature, mostly as. Then after the food, they departed. This uncle later stayed in various hidden spots of the South, sometimes in forests and uplands and had consequently diverse assignments and had many anecdotes to narrate to kids. In the cycles to come, he was an impressive companion to others and having had intimate fellowships with various kinds of people, he comprehended people’s moods. After the said case, when he was in exile, he went to the leading advocate in the realm who consented to take his case and the family supported him to meet the charges of the solicitor who was not only a lawyer but a great social figure of the pre-independent eras, and he won the case. And my uncle came out free from concern. From there, he worked as a boat master and a newspaper agent and also did various sundry jobs and had many adventuresome tales to recount to everybody he met. He was a great friend. And how he met a man-eater over a bonfire at night in a forest and mistook it for a lady is the most compelling account I ever heard in my lifetime, straight from a human being and I will speak about it on a different instant.
–[Taken from a work of fiction, which is in process].