My father, the son

 

Above is a photo of my father with his siblings ( standing) when he was about 12.  He was born in 1917.

I have very fond memories about my father but looking at this photo I started wondering, what it must have been to be a son at that age? To have a father who was probably one of the most famous people in the state of Kerala then, to have a father who went to jail for 6 months when he was just 4 years and then again in 1930 when he was just 13 for standing up against the British rule. First one in Kerala to go to jail.

Once when I started asking him about my grandfather (achachan), he said “Ammu do you know, I never knew my father; he was never there for us”. 

Now when I think about it, I feel it was words of a loving son, a little boy who missed his father immensely.  From the time my father was 4, Achachan was always working or travelling. If he was at home, he was busy with his leadership role as the head of the Congress committee (just an institution for the Freedom struggle then), working for the newspaper that he founded (Mathrubhumi) or studying his cases (lawsuits) that he had to present in court. Their house was the headquarters for the Kerala Congress Committee. So, it was 24/7.

Wonder how it must have been for my father, the little boy, to have his house busy all the time, have people eminent and otherwise, mostly strangers who come and go often, use his sleeping space as well all the other rooms constantly. His mother and his aunts were busy too, toiling in the kitchen to feed everyone who come to visit at all odd hours. (K.P. Kesava Menon in his autobiography Kazhinja kalam had written that he stayed in my grandfather’s house wuth his family for 6 months)

Also read from Mr. V.R.Menon’s  Mathrubhumiyude Charitram Vol I that in 1928 Achachan bailed Mathrubhumi Newspaper out from bankruptcy by giving all his savings and his wife and sons were with him when he gave the check (excerpts below). My father was 11 at that time. What was going through his mind when his father did it? Did he even know the significance and the risk his father was taking?

And within a few years, he lost his father at the tender age of 16 on September 28, 1933. “A national loss!” Mahatma Gandhi wrote in a telegram when he was informed (attached below). Wonder what my father felt as a son about his father’s loss?

Did all this affect him? I don’t know. But I would like to think that he took it all in a stride, as part of life. He was a very curious child always eager to learn. He learnt driving when he was 12, learnt carpentry from the people who were building their house, learnt marma chikitsa from the expert physician who came to treat his father and loved to do tricks with his bicycle. As we were climbing the steep steps to one of his cousin’s house, he said proudly “I have driven my bicycle down over these steps!”.  “How is that even possible?” I wondered. He must have been a very naughty little boy.

He was a good son indeed.  Honest, loving, spiritual, never drank or smoked, in fact he was vehemently against it. He was  a role model for my brothers, always present, family was everything for him.  If my grandfather had lived longer, he would have been proud of his son.

For those who are interested attaching a few documents for reference.

Gandhiji's telegram

Excerpts from an article my uncle wrote about my grandfather's arrest:

Excerpts from Mathrubhumiyude Charithram Vol I by V R Menon, an important part of  its history