A DAY ON HOUSEBOAT

Fifth Reunion of CET 61-66 Batch

President’s Choice

CET 61-66 Batch had its fifth Reunion on 14^th October at Kollam. This was the choice not because Kollam is the most attractive place, but it is convenient to most of us. Natives of Trivandrum usually believe that as you travel North in Kerala you are in the rarefied atmosphere of Outer Space. They cannot conceive of anything beyond Ernakulam.  Earlier they had stoutly rejected, on this count, MPC’s offer to hold it in Vythiri, Wynad. This time our able President KNC Kurup took upon himself to hold it in his hometown, almost single-handed.  Alone, he had spent enormous amount of time and effort to organize this event, despite a possible threat of divorce from his wife.  She won’t certainly be unreasonable, as Kuruppachan had the habit of spending 24x7 on the job as though a generator in Idukki had a breakdown while he was the Chief Engineer of KSEB.

The Venue: Five Star Hotel

Kuruppachan always goes for Gold. He had booked our rooms in the best Hotel in Kollam, adjoining the sea. Quilon Beach Hotel displayed her status at the entrance on a Brass plate with five stars embossed, like a five star General's lapel in a ceremonial parade. Nirmala and myself, alighting on its porch in a humble auto-rikshaw  from the railway station were perhaps the first to reach the place and check in, well ahead of the scheduled  time, 9.30am. All the rooms were overlooking the beach. Nice to watch the beach from the 8^th floor.  Nirmala was floored by the beauty of the beach, only to realize that it was a deadly dangerous place. After breakfast we assembled in the lobby to welcome the meagre crowd. All the cars available took the full passenger load and delivered us at the Jetty where our houseboat was moored. Thick Thoma (KC Thomas) and Molly were gracious enough to take Nirmala and me together with Thin Thoma (KN Thomas) who had come alone as usual.

Present Sir...

Two of our American friends were present, Joyce John(ME) and Dr. Unnikrishnan (EE). They have come all the way from Houston and Los Angeles respectively.  Their spouses Celine and Rema added to the colour of our group. But Raechel Mathew (who didn’t have to change her surname after marriage) ditched the program this year, and no assignable causes were announced. Prasanna Kumari was a sure expectation this year, from the way she sent us off to Kanyakumari last time. NT Nair is away in Europe with his son, and could not make it. Other notable absence was of Jogan and Elizabeth,  Subramania Sarma came all the way from Mumbai, but came alone. Other regulars like Murali Mohanlal and Sudha, Janardanan and Uma, Murukesh Babu and Usha, Ayyappan and Lakshmi, were comfortably seated in the boat when we arrived. Other singletons were  U.Mani, Sundareswaran , Sivamony and Krishnan Asari.  Rashid came with his wife, and Esther with Mr. Philip. George Thomas (Pattalam) had brought his wife for the first time. She was keen on cultivating a level of spirituality among the savages of this batch, and all the qualities that Ashtavakra Maharshi spelt out were in her list:  Kshama, Aarjava, Daya, Thosha, Sathyam (patience, straightforwardness, kindness, happiness and Truth). Obviously she came to know we were short on these qualities from none other than her hubby, George Thomas. The long and short of Indian Navy, Admiral Kuruvilla and Omana were seated near the Bow, as an abundant caution for the safety of the boat.

Houseboat Afloat: Anthakshari

Everyone was counted in, and the boat was unleashed from its mooring, and started moving slowly.  Unnikrishna Kartha  (who came single this time) took charge as Maitre de Revels. He had brought with him printouts of two popular songs: Kuttanadan Puncha, and Aalayal Thara venam.  Printouts were in Roman script and those who got it were struggling to read it. MPC had to come to the rescue of singers with his loud voice (Kartha calls it noise) and clear lyrics. Kartha, with his bundle of movie songs came to action right royal. He divided the crowd into two, one he called his own and the other The Enemies.  He assigned MPC like Lucifer, to the Enemy camp. Kuruvilla with his meagre familiarity with music stuck fast with him through the battle of Anthakshari.

Star Performers

This time the star performer was Celine Joyce of the Enemy camp, ably assisted by  Molly, Dr. Maheswari , Rema , Nirmala and of course MPC.  Celine proved to be a combination of Latha Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle, KS Chithra and others.  Unlike MPC, she knew not only the songs, but also how to sing. U. Mani was the obvious choice for the Judge, as he was innocent of both music and lyrics. Kartha played the game like an expert, almost like Shakuni at the game of dice for Kauravas. His performance was a treat, because he would change words and letters to suit his game and would promptly get shouted down by the womenfolk. It was obvious that Janardanan knew many songs, but was shy to sing and fed words to Kartha quite frequently. Kuruvila knew many songs too, but just the first line. U. Mani the Judge gave a ruling that at least two lines should be sung, and the ruling led to the fall of Kartha’s team and the thumbing victory of the Enemies.

Food on Board

The greatest attraction of the houseboat cruise is the food served on board. At  11.00am they served  a sumptuous snack of tapioca and fish curry. Some people thought this was the lunch and consumed more than adequate for a snack, inviting trouble when the real lunch arrived.  At about 2.00 pm the boat slowly touched the shore in a convenient slot and got moored. It was lunch time. Sumptuous lunch was served on the little table where the womenfolk started queuing up. When I shot forward and joined them Kartha asked me, “Can’t you see that  the women had just begun to line up?”  I said “No, I can’t see any woman”, and as Arjuna told Dronacharya “ I can see only the eye of the fried Karimeen served on the table”.  There were many more delicious dishes, both veg. and non veg.  I ate rather fast, and wielded my camera while others were getting lost in the delicacies. In the afternoon the crowd was generally sleepy, and a few quiz (some of them stupid, of course) questions were thrown at the audience, just an excuse to distribute chocolates. Tea and coffee were served at 4O’clock, with banana fry, the fabled “Pazham Pori”. Near about the notorious Perumon Bridge the boat took a U turn back to where we started.  It was during this return journey that I really saw the beauty of Ashtamudi Kayal, the eight-cornered lake and its surroundings.

Back to Pavilion

As soon as we got back to the hotel we assembled in its front for a group photo, as there will be no chance on the morrow for a regrouping. Among the various mobile cameras and Ipads I had given my  Nikon coolpix to a hotel staff to shoot a picture. Some lady was asking, who is using this camera even now? I felt like a pre historic creature from Neanderthal with my beloved wide angle 26x zoom Nikon that seldom needs a flash gun.

The Beach

There is a gate opening to the Beach from the backyard of the Hotel. Every member of the hotel staff and guards on duty warned us that we shouldn’t go anywhere near the Water’s Edge as this sand beach is a dangerous place. It gets deep rather suddenly and one can get washed away without notice.  A few weeks ago an entire family of four people had lost their life. The sky was heavily overcast and there was no chance of viewing a sunset.  We walked back to our room while others in our group were going out through the rear gate, destined to repeat our experience.

General Body

Jogan Easaw Mathew and Elizabeth were our regular music performers in previous meetings. They didn’t  turn up this time. But Kartha our Master of ceremonies pulled out a fair sized keyboard from a black case and started an instrumental session without any warning. After every “Number” he would tell us what that song was. That saved a lot of trouble.

This year we did not have G Madhavan Nair and NT Nair with us. Last year NT Nair said we have received so much from the public by way of an almost free education and we should think of returning it to the country by way of specific techno-philanthropic activity. Madhavan Nair brought a solution to launch a centre of excellence to train top students graduating from CET to face real challenging technical jobs. Nothing happened afterwards and the subject did not come up for discussion any more.  The possibility of joining with the Civil Engineering group was raised and dropped on the basis of the bitter experience of negligence faced by our members in a previous attempt. 2016 is our Golden Jubilee Year and the College is planning some kind of celebration. If there is such a celebration we could join them, but we proceed on our own and continue to hold this reunion on a date close to the official celebration. So the next year’s venue is automatically fixed: Trivandrum. There was a good dinner and we bid farewell there itself, because there is no common program next day.

So we parted with a strong resolve to meet again next year.