Aniyan Kutty fondly remembers the time he moved to Bombay. Eyes skywards, the most nostalgic smile on his face, he speaks to Ravi at his one room kitchen home in Matunga Hindu Colony:
“When I came to Bombay in 1961, woman wore only sari. Only the Christian wore frock. But nowadays, see! I used to get monthly salary sixty rupees in which I could comfortably pay my rent and for my cigarette.
No body on the road. There was no traffic at the time. Roads were empty. We used to do our accounts manually. There was no computer and all. We never had computer in the factory. Like that big register book we used to get. With foot-rule and pencil; those days we used to get nice Staedtler pencil, German, first class, we used to draw straight line, column like-that and add manually. We had to be good in mathematics. Nowadays *tak* *tak* *tak* they do on computer and get the result. Tally, they call it. Nowadays they have lost that ability to do mathematics manually. There is significant degradation in the human ability to perform mathematics.
In general you know what the problem is with the youngsters? The tolerance levels have gone down terribly. No tolerance only. For small little thing, they make big thing and finally do nothing. And what they eat… McDonald? (laughs)… white food. In our day, simple food we had that was so tasty.”
Venkateshwaramone, Aniyan Kutty’s son was born in 1969. He is an excellent singer and very passionate about his music. Yesudas is his role model. He fondly remembers his teenage years:
“When I was in the ninth standard, I wanted to get into the film. I was inspired by Shivaji Ganeshan and Sadananda. What gems of persons. What voice! What melody! But my father said those are all not real jobs and that I must concentrate on maths and science because we are Brahmins and soon I would be sitting for my SSC examination… the stepping stone to the rest of my life. He said I must get minimum eighty percent to make him happy as my cousins in native place, Beeju, Beenu and Anju all got above eighty percent marks.
He is always right. Today, I thank him. I am a graduate in BCom. I got highest marks. There was vacancy in his old company and I got the position in 1990. In 1995, we brought computer in the factory but it was a headache actually. It was very difficult to learn. And every now and then, the computers would not work properly and that Pratik, the engineer would not come and attend to it for a week. Our old methods only was better. But what to do? The world was moving towards computer. It took me time, but I learnt. Now I am comfortable with MS Word, Windows, Tally; like that I use. But my son is expert. *tak* *tak* *tak*, he will do whole day.
But nowadays nobody listens to Yesudas. I feel like crying. Just they have poisoned pure music.”
Ravinderankutty, Aniyan Kutty’s grandson feels claustrophobic living with his parents, grand-parents and siblings at his grand-father’s one room apartment at Hindu Colony in Matunga, “the room isn’t big enough to comfortably sit and play Playstation.”
Ravi won his Playstation at a debating competition in school.
“When they want to see AsiaNET and SuryaTV, I don’t sound tantrums, but at least some time they should give me to play. Acha (father) is not buying a computer for me even. I have to go to my friend, Satya’s house to check my facebook and play ChessMaster08. Facebook has made it so simple to keep in touch with my friends. In my father’s time, there was only email. I wonder how they could live with just email! I like to make friends over the net. I make friends from around the world and Satya and I, we do video chatting in his room.
When I grow up, I want to become an electronic engineer. My grandfather says that he will be very happy if I do electronic engineering as my dad’s cousin’s kids, Guru, Laxmi and Bhadri are all electronic engineers.”
FIN
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