Nemmara Features

When weather turns fine 

Split bamboos using 

From branches swings hanging. 

Time for learning Sanskrit 

Tuition from Narayanan Pundit 

As a school optional language 

Needing hard work and courage. 

In time got familiar 

With a language used in times earlier 

Kalidas`s Raghuwamsa 

And the courtly skills of Chanakya. 

Daily readings of the Gita 

Coping with Sanskrit slokas 

A deep insight it gives 

For a life meaningful to live. 

Nelliampathy Hiils looming 

With rains, waterfalls cascading 

In summer dryness, forest fires raging 

A spectacular night vista forming. 

The Hills from anywhere seen 

For anyone to these parts have been 

A distinct regional landmark 

As a warm welcoming mark. 

Rejoicing in springtime

Bamboo tightly held 

On narrow seat balanced 

Pushed to get started 

By body and leg movements gets lifted. 

Children, girls, women in the moonlight 

A welcome pastime in the cool night 

Singing in motion 

Forgetting all caution. 

In summer`s scorching heat 

Wayfarers given a treat 

To wayside buttermilk in pots earthen 

Or Sarsaparilla with jaggery well taken. 

Bathing here an experience unique 

In a cool water pond getting such a kick 

Easing oneself into water 

Down slimy steps must not falter. 

August, 15th, 1947, Indian Independence 

Freed from foreign dominance 

At midnight the Union Jack Lowered 

India`s tricoloured flag hoisted. 

Nation-wide joy and celebrations 

The national anthem in united declaration 

Of a free people with hopes anew 

For all challenges ready and true. 

In January the next year tragedy strikes 

Deep sorrow at its height 

Mahatma Gandhi`s assassination 

By someone with a conviction. 

The world dumbstruck 

Indians thunderstruck 

He saw independence won  

Nehru`s tryst with destiny had begun. 

People with different ideologies 

Clashing sometimes in a free country 

An ideology backed by a world view 

Believing in what they think is true. 

Some driven to action 

Sometimes violent in reaction 

A new order in the making 

History now itself repeating  

MPP 

PJ 

14.8.2016 

 

The Pond

Spreading fields greenish yellow
As far as the eye can follow
Stalks grain laden
Needing a little more sunshine
A Pond by the side
Its waters deep and wide.

Floating weeds the surface cover
Water not allowed to flow over
With fish breeding
Waiting for harvesting
Fish netted in summer
When water gets lower.

Harvesting day like a carnival
Farmhands in water upto waist level
Long rope net firmly held
Moving from one to the other end
A crowd watching this from high up
Eager to see what turns up.

The net slowly brought to shore
Writhing fish could have been more
Fish sorted and weighed
Into iceboxes placed
Contractors now appear
For a good deal to secure.

In some years bountiful catch
For this pilfering must watch
Migratory birds appear
From distant lands in summer
Sitting on a tree stump
Waiting for catch to show up.

Welcome to feathered friends from afar
Waiting out their frozen winter
Bigger than two football fields
Water stored for paddy fields

Water behind high ground
A sluice for flow shaped round
Rains to the brim fill up pond
In summer canal water found
From a big water reservoir
Released for drying agriculture.

By the side a pump house
For sending water to the farm house
The Pond for all a savior
For farmers in the summer
With the gift of water
Two to three crops can gather.

Even with a monsoon poor
The Pond gives hope for sure
Inn a corner of the estate
Brought up to this pristine state
Helping all needing water
This way they do not falter.

With this pond goodwill flows
Kept well letting others grow
Nature is to be worshiped
It is my God someone quipped.


MPP

The M P House

For three years Nemmara my home 

Near and far was able to roam 

A place with its own charms 

For someone new also giving alarms. 

Manangot Parayil House 

My ancestral home 

A cluster of houses located 

All in some way related. 

Para in Malayalam meaning rock 

Other settlements on same bedrock 

Parayil, East, West and South 

Houses in these locations also North. 

These settlements have connections 

Through marriage ancestral conventions 

The Parayil house bring people together 

For social functions they gather. 

Grandmother`s brothers hard working 

Paddy fields and land acquiring 

Fertile land near and at Thevarmany 

Became a thriving farming family. 

A joint family in the forties 

Grandparents and daughters four 

Two of them in the house living 

Other two away settling. 

We from Malaya came to such a situation 

In a joint family making the best of the occasion 

Grandmother landed property getting 

Grandfather the property managing. 

Our house three floors 

Attic on top, ground floor, first floor 

Ground floor verandah in front and side 

Bedrooms two, kitchen, dining space wide. 

First floor two rooms for sleep 

Staircase up narrow and steep 

Verandah in front with wooden grills 

Drying boiled paddy sky lighted attic fills. 

An outhouse as a granary used 

A long shed for cows, hay and waste produced 

A gatehouse in front of main house 

Four small raised platforms to sit and converse. 

To the front and left of the house a pit well 

Holes in the sides show where snakes dwell 

Casting their skins in summer 

When well walls get warmer. 

Open space between cowshed and house 

Also in front behind gatehouse 

Summer scorching heat burning feet 

Slippers best way this challenge to meet. 

Unshaded spaces canopy covered in summer 

Fronds and leaves arranged in skillful manner 

The sandy floor gets a coating 

Mixed cow dung and water smearing. 

Cow dung here a precious commodity 

Made into round dried patties 

Used as disinfectant and fuel 

No one here to cattle gets cruel. 

Paddy fields in front like a sea 

To the side as far as the eye can see 

Palmera trees dark, broad leafed crown 

Bunches of fruits in summer purplish brown.

Most places in Kerala 

One sees coconut and Palmera 

Plowing by buffalos after first rain 

Tractors used now for better gain. 

With times changing 

Old ways abandoning 

Use of fertilizer, insecticides 

Fish, water life face suicide.   

The M.P. House now transformed 

As a modern residence reformed 

Brick walls replacing bamboo fencing 

TV, piped water, telephone a better life making.

M. P. Prabhakar 

13.7.16