Homer & Swan

By S. Vasudevan

Y

ou may think that, it is some Sherlock Holmes characters when you first read this title. However this is the story of two Pens and the story of a Pen theft.

“Thottuva” is that beautiful village, where I born and brought up. In the past, our family had   lots of ancestral property, acres of land filled with Jack Fruit trees, Mango Trees, Cashew Trees and Tamarind Trees. The sole buyer of Jack Fruits from our land was a person named “Sulaiman”. His Son “Kochu Pillai” was the one who loaded the Jack Fruits on to the Bullock Cart and then unloaded the same in the nearby market. He was also responsible for writing the account of the number of Jack fruits loaded and its price.

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Mr Kochu Pillai was the proud owner of a pen which was light violet in color. Many times I had taken the pen from him and looked at it with utmost respect and sheer admiration. In its clip the pen’s name “Homer” was inscribed. I had an intense desire to make this pen my own. My innumerable shameless begging for that pen to be given to me had no effect on him.

Finally in a cunning stroke I stole that pen from him. Mr Kochu Pillai desperately searched for his pen everywhere. He started looking at me like a criminal and I felt very guilty. Somehow my mother got the news. Under her tough interrogation I had to admit the crime. She took the pen from me and handed it over to Kochu Pillai with a plea , not to disclose the whole incident to my Father.

After this incident, many a times I begged and pleaded my Mom and Dad to buy a pen for me. But there was no response from them.  I used to blabber pen. At last to trick them, I blabbered;      Pen!!…..Pen!!!……Homer!…..Pen!!……………..Homer!! ……….Homer!!! ; in my sleep like a sleep walker.  Those times the most popular pen was the one named “Swan” and  bowing down to   my mother’s compulsion, my dad took            me to the nearest town,          “Perumbavoor”
 

There was a bus named “Pankajam” from our village which traveled to the town. That was also  my maiden journey in a bus, and I felt that  all the trees on the roadside were  running  backwards very fast.

 At last we reached the town and purchased the pen from a shop which belonged to my dad’s friend Sri Achthan Nair. The pen was dark blue in color with the name “Swan” inscribed on the clip. After that we went to  “Sankara Iyer’s”  textile  shop. From there dad bought 4-5 towels for him as well as two “Dhotis” one or me and the other for my brother Viswam. The brand of the dhoti was “Suri Branded Dhothi”. We reached back home with the pen and dhoti. Viswam was so delighted seeing dhoti and with the overwhelming happiness he started chanting  like a rhyming Slogan “Soori MunDU¹ RanDU², Soori MunDU RanDU”

1 Mundu        = Dhoti

2 Randu         = Two

Next day I went to school wearing the brand new “Soori Dhoti” and the “Swan” Pen on my pocket. My friends stared at me as if they were seeing an alien         

            for the first time.

Our first hour was by our class teacher “Paramu Sir” He took the attendance register and started calling the name of each student. When the teacher calls our name we have to stand up and say “Haajar Sir” to mark our attendance. He called my name too and marked my attendance. After taking the attendance of the whole class the teacher came near me and took the pen from my pocket and kept on the table and reassured me that he will return the pen after the last hour of class was over.

In the evening, after the last class was over, instead of giving me back the pen he gave me a letter and instructed me to hand it over to my dad. The letter stated:

Respected “Manian Swami”, The pen is very good, but your son is too young to write with such an expensive pen. So I am keeping the pen in my safe custody. I shall return the pen to him once the year end exams are over. Yours Sincerely, …Paramu.

My dad was very happy upon reading this but I felt soooooo sad.

After all, the stolen “Homer” and the much longed “Swan” had 
become a sad dream for me.

Tail Piece

Even though the above story is my childhood experience but today I have many pens which are  more than sufficient  for me. These pens were given to me by my Son in law Ganapathy Narayanan whom I affectionately call “Ganesan” who is based in Bahrain. My son Rajaram, who motivates me to write these memory notes and my daughter Jayasree, who suggests minor corrections also live there in Bahrain.

I express my sincere and deepest gratitude to all the friends of my son Rajaram for reading the stories and providing me your valuable feedback and motivation. I am looking forward to  your continued support for  my future writings as well and with that I am signing off for now.

Thanks

Vasudevan

20-04-2012