Motor-Well Pit at Ramanilayam

"Memory is the dairy we all carry about with us". Memories and Moments make our life. Are you interested in listening to one of my childhood memories? Can I call it a sweet memory you tell me. 

May be it was the late 1980’s, before 35 years, I was in my maternal grandparent’s house, to spend the summer vacations.  The house ‘Ramanilayam’ used to be our Tharavadu. Tharavadu means the common ancestorial house of grandparent where all children and grand children would visit or live together. All cousins would come, stay, fight and play here during our growing up days. The house would have bathroom with well on one side a little far from the main home. Toilet would be on the other side.

Summer was the time when mango tree and jackfruit tree were not just loaded but would be laden with fruits.  There would be swings tied to them. It would be great fun, celebrating festivals, swinging, playing, and dancing.  Also, there would be heaps of dried paddy called haystack stored as pointed piles.  Haystacks come in different shapes and sizes, including piles of rectangular blocks of hay; rounded bales; and pointed piles of hay. We were forbidden from lighting fire anywhere near it. It is normally fed to farm animals.

We children would run around the house, the haystack and the bathroom. There would be a small sink hole, manmade, where a motor would be kept, to pull water from the well. In it would grow, the ‘touch me not’ plants, the Kattu Thumba, and other plants that cause skin blisters like the poison Ivy,  Oak , sumac, hogweed, wild parsnip, stinging nettle covering the motor. They would not be removed for two reasons, it would be tough to cut them out, and they would safeguard the motor and prevent thieves from steeling it.

As we were playing one day, do not remember exactly which game, but I think it was hide and seek; I was behind the well, hiding myself when my cousin came in search of me, I kept moving backward, from the direction my cousin was coming with focus on him so that he would not find me.  There I went ‘thud’ into the motorpit. I was shocked, crying and screeming. All kids came around and joined me in shouting for help.

My grandfather was enjoying listening to the radio in the front room, which had a door facing the entrance and another towards the direction of bathroom. 

(P.C. Sujit Menon)

He came running, put his hands into the pit, asked me to catch it and pull myself up. My body was full of blisters, I was crying, and there comes another ‘thud’ on my face, a slap, with message loud and clear, “You fell, because you were not careful; be careful going forward.” I was dumfounded. Unaware what went wrong.

I did have a grudge against my grandfather for a while, but my mother made me realise the importance of that warning, and how bad things could have turned out. I could have fallen into the well from the hole where the pipe from motor goes into the well too. We both loved each other dearly. I was his first grandchild, so very special to him.

As years pass by, I see the number of lessons from that event. These days, elders are not allowed to scold young ones. I wonder how long the lessons given out of love would last. For me, that was a lesson in E+R=O . There are some events and Outcomes that we cannot change in our life. But what we can control is our responses towards them. Whether it be going behind carefully, being aware of the surroundings or being caught, and running ahead to be not out; rather than falling into a pit. Also,  it was upto me on how I take that lesson, and continue my relationship with my granddad.

My lesson that day was 'Look before you leap'.

Thanks to my mother and elders around, for the wonderful lessons during the growing up days, that moulded me into the person I am today.