Sreedevi Talkies

1

SREEDEVI TALKIES

As the evening sun disappeared through the canopy of overarching coconut groves and the irresistible odour of freshly brewed white frothing toddy — seditiously intertwined with steaming tapioca and sardine curry, with a liberal splatter of coconut paste and kodampuli — wafted through the dreary streets of Kotta, which that afternoon had received the premonsoon showers. A fortyfive rpm record began to revolve on an ageing, rickety Philips turntable kept in the instrumentstacked projection room of Sreedevi Talkies. Velayudhan. the middleaged projectionist, brought the stylus to the primeval disc which kept revolving with a vengeance. The vinyl received the stylus as an all too familiar acquaintance, as Velayudhan casually placed it on the track. It took some time for the voice to travel through the long connecting wires to reach the loudspeakers, permanently perched on top of the tallest coconut tree in the Talkies compound leaning precariously towards the rippling backwaters. It is not known which soul dared to climb up to that height with those unwieldy loudspeakers, or whether someone will ever climb it again to bring them down. It seemed as if they sprouted out and grew along with the ancient coconut tree and would eventually die along with it. Neither Velayudhan nor anyone else ever seemed to bother or remember those Ahuja loudspeakers singing themes of nostalgia, lovelongings and heroic ballads to the unmindful people of this lugubrious hamlet:

‘Sandhya mayangum neram, gramachanda piriyunna neram

Bendhure….raga Bendhure….Nee Enthinee Vazhy vannu?

Enikkenthu Nalkan vannu?

(As the evening began to envelop the earth and as the village market began to dwindle, maiden, oh melancholic maiden, what made you come along this way? What have you brought for me?)

The resuscitating charm of Yesudas’ song reassured the people of love and loss, hope and bereavement. Like those selfborn loudspeakers tied perennially to the coconut tree, like the all too familiar smell of toddy, the unpretentious lives in Kotta had lived so long with the voice of Yesudas that they hardly thought of it as something exotic and distant.

Lonappan casually threw the beedi he had rolled up, tying its tip with a thin blue thread, to the small hill of beedies lying in the corner of a small tray made of the leaves of the Palmyra tree. The beedi traversing the small distance from the hand of its creator to the small hill of beedies, landed smoothly, slid down a little and patiently lay along with his brother beedies waiting to be lit and smoked by those on the way to the devilish invitation of freshly brewed frothing white toddysteaming, tapiocasardine curry with a liberal splatter of coconut milk; or by those on the way to Sreedevi Talkies for the titillating romance of Prem Nazir and the raucous glamour of Sheela with the villainous Sudheer stalking in the dark shadows; or by the people who were not going anywhere in particular.

Lonappan found himself singing along with Yesudas:

Kattutharuvukal Inakale thirayum, kathara mizhikalode…

Kadathuthonikalil ale kayattum, kallothukkukaliloode…

Kadannuvarum tharunyame

Enikkulla marupadiyano ninte mounam?

Ninte mounam...

(With the lascivious eyes with which wild ducks search for their mates,

On the boarding stone steps where the ferry boats receive the passengers,

Lonappan casually threw the beedi he had rolled up, tying its tip with a thin blue thread, to the small hill of beedies lying in the corner of a small tray made of the leaves of the Palmyra tree. The beedi traversing the small distance from the hand of its creator to the small hill of beedies, landed smoothly, slid down a little and patiently lay along with his brother beedies waiting to be lit and smoked by those on the way to the devilish invitation of freshly brewed frothing white toddysteaming, tapiocasardine curry with a liberal splatter of coconut milk; or by those on the way to Sreedevi Talkies for the titillating romance of Prem Nazir and the raucous glamour of Sheela with the villainous Sudheer stalking in the dark shadows; or by the people who were not going anywhere in particular.

Lonappan found himself singing along with Yesudas:

Kattutharuvukal Inakale thirayum, kathara mizhikalode…

Kadathuthonikalil ale kayattum, kallothukkukaliloode…

Kadannuvarum tharunyame

Enikkulla marupadiyano ninte mounam?

Ninte mounam...

(With the lascivious eyes with which wild ducks search for their mates,

On the boarding stone steps where the ferry boats receive the passengers,

The youthfulness that is ushered in,

Is your silence a reply for me?

Your silence…)

Through the narrow slit in the wall Velayudhan looked inside the hall. Veluthakunju, the sole ticket collector of Sreedevi Talkies, could be seen walking inside pulling the wooden and steel chairs to their position. The understanding beedismoking Lonappan, toddydrinking Bhaskaran Pillai and other similar patrons, altered and shuffled the scheme and pattern of chairs during every show. Landlord Kuttan Pillai, a diehard Prem Nazir fan, never liked anyone occupying adjacent seats, and used the one in the front row as a footrest. Nalini, the school teacher always sat in the second row from the back, avoiding the unpleasant chance of meeting with Kuttan Nair.

The yellowing screen looked distant and remote — the airy nothingness of countless romantic

flirting and carnal passions, steadfast loyalties and betrayals, meetings and partings seemed to huddle in its vacant forebodings. Like those selfborn Ahuja speakers singing songs of love and loss forever, the yellowing screen had always been there. Not even Velayudhan could recollect the day when it was consecrated there. No one ever bothered or ever went anywhere near it. The faithful patrons of Sreedevi Talkies avoided going anywhere near it lest they intruded on and embarrassed the ritual amorousness of Prem Nazir and Sheela. Like a haunted house they always kept a respectable and safe distance from it. The forever young, forever romantic Prem Nazir, the rustic charms of Adoor Bhasi, the unrelenting villainy of Jose Prakash, the redeeming charms of Sarada, the aphrodisiacal abundance of Jayabharati – all ethereal shadows jostled for a space. The sheer magnitude of these overwhelming illusions resonated within the walls whenever Velayudhan dared to peep into the hall. Its enigmatic and elusive character refused to be exorcised and remained forever haunting. In the indulgent illusion of the Sreedevi Talkies’ mystique, Velayudhan had spent nearly a lifetime flirting surreptitiously with the powdered curvaceousness of the black and white apparitions and lived forever in the surreal charms of those unfailing warriors from the Chekava clan. Under the unbearable burden of unsustainable fantasies, the helpless projectionist in the evening of his life supported himself against the Westrex projector, which had always been there like the Ahuja loudspeakers, like the Lonappan beedies, like the white frothing Bhaskaran Pillai toddy.

Tre—ee—een!! Tre—ee—een!!

An unwarranted grumble of the electric bell instantly shattered and tore down the indulgent illusion. Ghosts vanished that instant from the Talkies’ hall.

Thankappan Nair, the theatre owner had made known his arrival. Famed for his miserly attributes (perhaps the only attribute he possessed), Thankappan Nair walked and talked with the practiced pomposity of a mockking. The denizens of the village regularly got loans from the Sreedevi Chit Fund and Finances of Thankappan Nair and regularly failed to pay it back. The unforgiving, unforgetful Nair pounced on those pawned artefacts with the hunger and relish of a mischievous god. A staunch believer in the local goddess Kotta Bhagavati and karma, Nair considered it his dharma to wrench maximum monetary benefits from his unsuspecting victims who got loans from the Chit Fund, and ran the Talkies with minimal staff and amenities. Nair had vowed to never waive the loans or add anything to the perpetual theatre — the choiceless patrons had learnt the art of not complaining.

Normally his first electric bell never signified anything more than that and hardly anyone bothered. At best the bell provided a strange existential certainty for Nair, the existence of himself as well as the Sreedevi Talkies.

Thankappan Nair casually scanned the precincts of the Talkies from his officecumticket counter. He could see some casual labourers admiring the larger than life image of Jayan, the new sensation of Malayalam cinema embracing Jayabharati in his heavy arms, as the heroine’s face, wearing heavy coats of powder and rouge, strained hard to feign at least a figment of romance. Its superficiality and ludicrousness struck Thankappan Nair like the all too familiar monsoon showers.

With some difficulty Velayudhan mounted the film roll into the projector. He knew that the strength had begun to fail him. He put on the lights inside the hall and craned through the slit to reassure himself that the phantoms had vanished. He desperately needed to possess them for himself. Veluthakunju had positioned himself at the door, having brought the hall back into order. The chairs lay in the dimly lit hall, like soldiers marching to the battlefront.

Velayudhetta, chaya.’

Velayudhan knew the Uncelluloid sound belonged to Appu, the teavendor’s assistant.

As Velayudhan drank the hot, strong tea in deep draughts, the boy watched the projector admiringly.

‘Anna, how is it going?’

‘Not bad.’

‘And the next change?’

‘As usual on Friday.’

‘Seems CID Nazir is coming?’

Velayudhan ignored the query. Celluloid illusions and fantasies were not for teaboys he was convinced.

The boy peeped through the slit into the hall, and Velayudhan was distempered. He quickly finished the tea and hurriedly dismissed the boy with the tea glass. Velayudhan aggressively possessed for himself the private illusions in the dark cinema hall before the patrons came in — the strictly Velayudhan illusions — where he forever played the evergreen hero, dismissing the rouged, powdered Prem Nazir, till the Westrex projector came to life. Velayudhan tirelessly romanced and flirted with cohorts whom no one else had ever seen, not even Prem Nazir and Thankappan Nair. He scripted and wrote dialogues and composed music for those lascivious episodes of fantasy which never had beginning or end, only the perpetual middle.

Tre—ee—een!! Tre—ee—een!!

The second bell from Thankappan Nair’s ticket counter mercilessly shattered the illusion to shreds like the shorn old film posters every Friday.

Velayudhan’s skilled hands brought the film roll through the lens component and fixed it to the lower spinner, opened a fresh box of carbon rods and fixed one into the compartment. With studied precision, he checked everything once again and waited.

Thankappan Nair scanned the theatre premises once again to find that a motley, discursive, apathetic crowd was beginning to gather and hardly anyone was in a hurry to approach the counter. Nair found nothing unusual about it, as the patrons knew well that the show would never get off till Prem Nazir and Nair had succeeded in tempting at least thirty members into the hall.

Velayudhan lit a Dinesh beedi — as a loyal follower of the Communist Party he preferred Dinesh beedies from Kannur to Lonappan beedies — and leaned out of the halfopened door of the projection room and waited patiently for the next Thankappan Nair bell. Over the years, in the small world of Sreedevi Talkies, everything had become jarringly predictable — the number of patrons who frequented the theatre, which never grew or dipped considerably; the worn out LPs, Thankappan Nair took care to see that money was never wasted on new releases, and their all too familiar melodies; the patrons who perennially smelt of Lonappan beedies and Bhaskaran Pillai toddy; young women who smelt of jasmine, Cuticura powder, Lux soap and sweat; farm labourers who smelt of sweat and nothing else; farm owners smelling of betel nut and starched dhotis — it was like a book read over and over again. Even the movies were not different — the evergreen Nazir and Madhu of Pareekkutty fame, in the delectably reassuring role of happymiserable loverhusbandcapitalistcommunist; SheelaJayabharathiSarada, forever as college freshersdeserted belovedspoilt rich girls; Govindan KuttyJose Prakash Janardhanan, languishing in their doomed kathivesha, wielding country knivessporting waxed moustachesspewing venom and doomsday arrack; jovial Adoor Bhasi and Bahadoor determined to make them laugh or laughing at their own jokes and at themselves. The beedi stub had begun to burn the projectionist’s fingers as he dropped it.

Tre—ee—een!! Tre—ee—een!!

Velayudhan switched off the lights in the hall, the Westrex projector slowly came to life and the compassionate projectionist let the patrons immerse themselves in yet another evening of illusions.

2

MADHAVAN, THE IRRATIONAL

RATIONALIST

Prabhakara Verma stared curiously at the septuagenarian who sat huddled on the ageing, rickety chair before him. The astrologer did not try to hide his apparent disbelief at the most vociferous rationalist and selfproclaimed atheist Madhavan, and nervously looked at the charts displayed pompously before the seer. With a studied Tiresiaslike paradox, he considered the possible themes that might have brought the landlord to this least expected of places. In the wallowing awareness of the looming irony, the astrologer and the reluctant visitor sat in an unusually prolonged space of silence, till that silence decided to disown itself.

‘Seems that the old world is fast disintegrating… without even sparing us a moment of nostalgic indulgence’.

— the astrologer spoke aloud his thoughts, either as a selfreassuring gesture or in an attempt to put the embarrassed client at ease.

The astrologer’s words, purported to strike a conversation, fell halfway through as the visitor sat engrossed in his own thoughts.

‘There have not been many occasions when we met’, Prabhakara Verma’s second attempt too failed to strike a note of camaraderie.

It was not very difficult to see that the man was engrossed in far greater complexities than what he could conjecture. Prabhakara Verma grew distraught at the imminent possibility of the disintegration of his prophetic hallow. Irrationally angstridden amidst growing perplexity, the astrologer sat crosslegged as if he had forgotten the movements the body was capable of.

‘It might be written somewhere that we must meet today, as there was no other day in the past when we could have been together’, Madhavan said, seeming to strike a conversation finally. His words seemed to emerge from the depths of the earth.

The prophet of Kotta was a little stupefied when he realised that Madhavan had used the words meant for him by the novelist. He forgave the writer for the distinct aura he had benignly provided the prophet and ethereal voice of Kotta. Instantly he was subjected to trepidations related to the vast and enormous responsibilities that the incipient writer may ascribe to him largely due to the former’s own wavering temperaments and possible frustrations at finding a publisher for the first ever manuscript of the mythical, folkloric and ultimately realistic Kotta with its Sreedevi Talkies.

Given a chance, the prophet might have hidden himself among those numerous stars and other celestial bodies that revealed themselves in the charts spread out before him. But instead of consoling the befuddled oracle man, they smiled sardonically at his sheer desperation. From their dizzying heights the prophet looked like a worm trying to immerse itself in the damp earth, unable to stand the wrath of the sun.

The prophet could see that the storyteller’s predicament was not much different from his own. He smiled derisively at the enormity of revelations the charts held out to him, like the understanding Tiresias.

In the next instant, he recaptured the image of the human figure huddled before him.

Madhavan seemed to be distant and alienated. The prophet could see that a pale shade of otherworldliness had begun to embalm the ageing patriarch.

For the first time in his life, the astrologer repented his foolishness in sitting before the enigmatic, puzzling charts with those unreliable agents of the unknown mocking his trivial attempts.

In the dingy cabin of Sreedevi Talkies, Velayudhan got on to the routine task of rewinding an enormous roll of film for the next show. As he did so, he found the fleeting images of Prem Nazir and Sheela scurrying from the left spin wheel to the right, their jarringly predictable love story along with all those VayalarDevarajanYesudas songs, those antics of Adoor Bhasi and Alummoodan. The ageing Velayudhan’s arm, with rheumatic prophecy, stopped to light a beedi. Sankaradi, the perennial — never so youngnever so old — uncle, winked at him from the reel asking for a Dinesh beedi. The knowing projectionist hesitated — a highly inflammable celluloid and lesser flammable plot of love and retaliation — and hurriedly began to spin faster and Sankaradi disappeared into the left spin wheel, his beedi request unrequited.

Velayudhan pensively smiled at his own newfound status as a demigod in the little empire of the projection cabin.

With a certain dismissive pride, he looked through the slit down into the cinema hall and casually surveyed the scene of the musty chairs waiting for patrons who had to be doled out a story replete with salacious themes of love, lust and betrayal.

‘Times are not portending good…’ the guttural voice of Madhavan was saying.

Prabhakara Verma the seer was not listening, as he painfully began to spin the reel of his life to the left spin wheel.

Images in fading black and white — frustrations and humiliations liberally blessed the life of the primary teacher from a family who had nothing to boast of except an ancestral family title.

Prabhakara Verma always kept away from Sreedevi Talkies as his own life had been more eventful and sensational than those black and white shadows emitted by the Westrex projector which Velayudhan let his diehard Nazir fans watch. The prophet, without consulting the charts, knew their leitmotif — they were copied from the scrolls of his life, which the Kotta citizens never knew.

As was the practice, Madhavan had placed the ‘dakshina’ in one of the houses of the charts.

Prabhakara Verma who just crossed his eleventh year, placed the ‘dakshina’ on the wooden board which lured the celestial wanderers, as insisted by his widowed mother. Behind the board, which foreboded things dismal and bleak, sat Balachandran Verma, his greatuncle and astrologer, who knew the future of the vast humanity except his own.

Both his mother and astrologeruncle prayed a silent prayer.

‘Let this child learn astrology well so that he may not go to bed hungry.’

The gods, who at that moment were flying above the wooden board, heard the prayer casually and instantly granted it with a certain cynical derision.

They sardonically blessed him, ‘Let him be an astrologer!’

And the aura of a prophet fell over Prabhakara Verma.

And the gods vanished forever as in those typical black and white devotional movies which were screened in the Sreedevi Talkies with regular frequency.

A tear or two rolled down the cheeks of the middleaged widow as she hoped those erroneous stars that roamed over the cowry shells of her wouldbe astrologerson, would fetch sufficient money to marry off her three daughters.

And it did.

But the Mephistophelian stars that provided everything to Prabhakara Verma could not settle for anything less than what Verma held close to his heart — the pale, dark girl with enormous curls, eyes like lakes and arse like twin hills.

‘You might know that I have four children — three daughters and a son. Ponnamma and Revathi have been happily married off to good families. I am happy about them, but with the youngest and my only son Rajan…!’ Words seemed to be choking the ageing Madhavan.

Santha, Lakshmi and Parvathy, the sisters of Verma, got grooms working as school teachers and clerks.

Prabhakara conjured up Mephistopheles every morning after the ritual bath, applying sandal paste on his forehead and visiting the local temple.

And Mephistopheles smiled at him viciously.

Along with the Prince of darkness, and the enigmatic spheres that loomed over his astrological charts, the dark girl in the neighbourhood found herself drawn to the magic circles of the young astrologer.

As the stars conspired with the budding astrologer, poverty stricken and deprived childhood were hastily sent back to nostalgic mythology. The crumbling house was pulled down to give way to a doublestoried building with ample space for the gullible clients to recline and browse through newspapers and film magazines with images of funky girls who suggestively bared their cleavages, as they waited for their turn for the local version of the Delphic oracle.

Among them sat Alexander the great on his way to try his luck in a construction company in the Gulf, and a khadiclad Oedipus the King, desperately searching to extricate himself from the sin of being fifteenth accused in a rape case that rocked Kerala for long. Oedipus, tired of being the king for so long, chose to become a central cabinet minister and the deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha.

The Westrex Projector fumed steam and fire with a vengeance. The projector seemed terrified of what it had just thrown on the screen. Velayudhan gently moved the carbon control lever as if to pacify it. His projectionist’s eye leisurely reached out to the screen and he visibly grew interested in what he saw.

Kottakara Sreedharan Nair with his forehead smeared with ashes and a crowning vermillion mark, held a handful of cowry shells close to his chest, his eyes halfclosed, lips whispering mantras to the primeval deities. Against him sat an apparently distraught Bahadoor, gloomily anticipating the Cassandrian words emerging for the lips of the celestial spokesman. Velayudhan flew across the hall with a halfsmoked beedi on his lips (for a while he decided to ignore the strict instructions of the forever glumfaced Thankappan Nair — No Smoking in the Hall) to the notsosilver screen and sat next to Bahadoor. The preoccupied Bahadoor did not notice the presence of the veteran projectionist.

‘The presence of Saturn in the fourth house and Mars in the ninth forebodes something terrible. The adversary transit of the Moon adds to the complications.’

‘What could that suggest?’ the crestfallen Bahadoor asked.

‘What else? Death and disaster!’

‘Is there any way out?’

‘Apparently not. Continue to pray to Bhagavati. Make an offering of red flowers on Friday.’

The instinct of the projectionist informed him that the reel was nearing its end. Leaving the astrologer and his unfortunate client to their own fate, Velayudhan flew back into the projection room. As he entered the room through the hole, his head knocked against the wall. Rubbing his head he leaned against the projector. The old faithful Westrex monster consoled him.

‘Alone of all the children Rajan went to the University. He could have made it into the Civil Services, or at least settled as a Lecturer in some college. But nothing came through.’ Madhavan seemed lost in thought.

The queue of rapists, blackmarketeers, extortionists, corrupt politicians, betrayed lovers, visaseeking young men, sadistic mothersinlaw and lecherous fathersinlaw, lengthened with the passage of time. Prabhakara Verma had graduated from a Raleigh bicycle to an Ambassador car. His white ambassador, with its fancy registration number and a monkey doll hanging against the windscreen, waded through the mud tracks of the Malabar village. His gullible clients streamed in from distant villages and towns. They came travelling by the only KSRTC bus that plied through the village, while the more affluent came in their own cars and bikes. Every trip of the KSRTC bus brought a fresh crowd of angstridden people. The more enterprising of the village folk set up their own ventures on the sidelines of this booming industry in the form of a shack vending tea and snacks, others selling essential items like camphor, agarbathis, areca nut and betel leaves, for the invisible gods.

As the reel came to the end, Velayudhan switched off the projector and put on the light that hung at the centre of the movie hall. He could see Dinesh beedi and Lonappan beedi smoke billowing to the roof of the hall. With some difficulty he removed the heavy roll of film and began inserting the next one.

‘Rajan was not given to bad habits till he went to the university. Perhaps it is the city that undid him.’ Madhavan wiped his forehead with the khadi shawl that hung around his neck, like the friendly snake around the neck of Lord Shiva.

‘Prabahakaretta, you will forget me when you become rich and famous’, the lean dark girl, with long, black curls and eyes like lakes was saying to the struggling astrologer.

‘Trust me’, whispered Prabhakaran years later, as the lean dark girl clung to his body.

With dexterous precision Velayudhan thrust the next reel on to the projector and pulled the lever. Kottarakkara, Bahadoor, Nazir and Jayabharathi took some time to commute the darkened hall to reach the screen. From the familiar sounds it was clear to Velayudhan that everything was going well. He left them to their own ways and lit another Lonappan beedi.

Everything did not go well between Madhavan and Rajan. Madhavan had always suspected that Rajan was beginning to reveal deviant traits — for a moment the old landlord hoped that everything could have been as good as those predictable shadows in Sreedevi Talkies. He began to think of Velayudhan as a god dispensing poetic justice and controlling creation and destruction with his Westrex projector.

Prabhakara Verma subconsciously knew that he would never be able to marry the lowercaste girl — at his core he always remained a dishonest coward — but always sought to camouflage it in meaningless sophistries of astrology.

As the crickets began to chirp endlessly in the incestual dusk of dreams and promises, Revathi surreptitiously visualised the Sreedevi Talkies which she had never seen or ever see. She could see Velayudhan pulling the lever of the Westrex projector and the flirtatious rays interspersed with black and white penetrating the musky darkness of the cinema hall erecting an orgasmic chasm of carnal passions on the screen — in the primal unadorned nakedness, the ululating selves of the young astrologer and the underprivileged girl climaxed — the monsoon came down with a vengeance and lashed against the thatched roof and tincovered doors of Sreedevi Talkies. Velayudhan switched off the projector and the lights, lit another Lonappan beedi and walked unsteadily in the direction of Bhaskaran Pillai’s toddy shop.

Prabhakara Verma could see tears welling up in the eyes of Madhavan as he could not narrate Rajan’s story any further.

Unlike his custom, the astrologer did not consult the charts — he had begun to distrust them for the time being — nor did he cast the cowrie shells. He left them and beheld the dejected atheistrationalist who sat before him.

The last of the lights in Kotta died down for the night.

3

MUTHU MANIKYAM

The endless stretches of the barren wasteland beyond the Eastern Ghats lay like a battlefield abandoned by the victors and vanquished. The desolate earth that had not seen rain for years fumed in desperation and cursed itself for not being a part of the fertile landscape that lay on the other side of the mountain.