There lived two men, Muthu and Mani in our native place.
Muthu’s parents had a solid house, sold by Rama Swami in one of his satalite estates.
This place situated over an elevated side of a vast paddy field area, between Nadavaramba and Kallamkunnu.
Swami had built it with the best variety of stones and teak wood.
We the so called ‘last batch’ of children, knew about the past ownership of this windage type strong house, only later, as we grew up, gradually.
As that family was related to us, we used to visit their house occassionally, walking through the pedestrian way over the narrow boundaries, that divided different owners’ ‘Kandams’ (paddy growing plots) of the paddy fields.
Muthu did not have a job to earn money, hence remained in his house for full time though occassionally visited us at our house, say about a kilometre away, mainly for the purpose of dictating “Tarpana Mantras” to our father (a monthly ritual for the departed Souls, on Amavasya day) as he knew certain essential priestly mantras.
Muthu was dark and very hefty, unlike his father a pious gentleman, lean and very fair, who was working with a reputed company.
Muthu was a drop out from the military; as he couldn’t withstand the most regures sort of induction training given by the forces to the fresh ricruits.
Whenever Muthu comes to our house, he rests till the evening, after having dinner etc, with us.
While laying down in the after noon, he used to talk about many a topic, and would act like yawning, sounding “haaavooo”, very frequently!
Muthu’s above mentioned nephew, Mani was physically like a junior version of him, in the prime of youth, say above our age group.
He was also averse of working anywhere, even at home, rather than doing certain household work atleast, and hence gradually turned a desperate fellow, roaming hither and thither!
In turn, this guy became a bit instable minded!
He used to run away from home and literally would run on the road!
Sometimes, known people would pick him up forcefully and drop in his home.
Meanwhile, Muthu too developed a kind of doubtful behaviour, say suspiciously looking at unusual places like the “pottakkinar” (an abandoned well), on the way to our house etc!
Ultimately, our friends like neighbours etc cautioned us against him, guessing about his ulterior motives!
But we were never afraid of any sort of animosity, if at all, from anybody since the nonchalant posture and our belief in our Kula Guru Dev, Hanumanji.
Gradually Muthu stopped coming to our house and this made us to conform with what the neighbours and even one of our employees had predicted, observing Muthu’s suspicious movements!
According to our employee, ‘Muthampran’ (Muthu) was sighted near our above mentioned abandoned well and also he droped something into that!
‘Kalichelly’, our mother’s assistant, warned us against ‘Muthampran’ as she felt that, he was doing some ‘Mantravad’ against us!
Ultimately the matter was somewhat confirmed; especially the ‘Lakshya and Lakshana’ (aim and symptom) of Muthu were such!
Also someone told us, as to Muthu droped a cat’s head into that well and to substantiate his (the informer’s) claim, he showed some flowers used for the evilsom ritual, over the edge of the well!
Some people whom Rama Swamy had had helped absolutely selflessly, used to turn against him too and there are, atleast a few examples for that!
Though our father had very specially built that house with the best quality of materials and handed it over to that family, they used to tell people, that he had removed few screws from each of the hinges of the doors etc!
What a funny allegation was levelled against such a selfless and hard working mastar of all the arts who was honoured and presented with a solid Gold Medal by the local King, for most beautifully designing a portico for the “Kolakam” (erstwhile local king’s palace), hence with that, and also due to certain heroic deeds, Rama Swamy became famous among people of Nadavaramba, the adjacent places like ‘Konatha Kunnu’, ‘Mapranam’ and even around Thana (ठाणा) locality of Irinjalakkuda, one of the largest towns in the district of Trichur where many people knew Swamy, since he used go to that town regularly, by his special ’28 inch’ old BSA cycle, for purchasing houshold provision material from the shopes of “Pandikkaraal” Manikkam, Kolathu etc (Pandivamsh migrants from Tamilnadu) and to the main market area for certain items like cement and spade.
Amoung the few nefarious people who had turned against Rama Swamy, were certain near and ‘dear’ relatives, mostly, if not all of them!
But Swamy, who was like the deputy of Lord Hanumanji, never learnt to hate even such thankless and greatless devilish Souls other than just praying to his Lord, for making them realise.
So, Muthu, atlast realised his folly and regained good relationship and even his another office dropout brother, kept coming to see our parents and spending some time with all of us.
About The Author
