Dr. Thrivikramji.K.P., Work Story-3
(Asst.Geologist, Directorate of Geology),
With the new offer of appointment as Asst.
Geologist, (with a rider warning me to meticulously observe the
service rules), I took a bus to Kozhikod, to report for duty to the Geologist,
in his Chalapuram office. I was received jubilantly by my friends - two nairs
and one Iyer as well as the boss - yet another nair. The supporting staff also
cordially welcomed me.
After formally signing the register to join duty
in last week of Dec.1966, keeping with our earlier routine, we walked out to
the street for a cup of coffee and snacks. Our usual place was the Tea stall
run by the Co-operative Milk Marketing federation in the Kallayi rd. The place
was not a great looking one, yet it was attractive for our age group, as our
seats looked-over a bus shelter, which most of the day time had a crowd of the
fair sex and one or two with outstanding build and colour.
I preferred to stay in the Valiyadi estate
lodge, where I had earlier forged some good linkages with several other residents.
In fact I and Iyer were the only PG degree holders in a crowd of
high-schoolers. Outside of my
professional friends, I still recall names like Jagannadan (a senior conductor,
KSRTC), Mr. Unnikrishna Pillai (Inspector, KSRTC), Mr Sreedharan Nair
(Inspector, KSRTC). In addition there were several others who say hello to
always.
My own friends, Nair and Iyer (my room-mate
at Valiyadi) were always together in a bunch, except when Nair goes home to Trivandrum.
In fact, among the three Nairs in the office, the only one Nair was married and
had the first boy child. So, this Nair made at least three monthly trips home.
Once I joined the office, the boss, assigned
Iyer and me on field programs. Iyer had an easy field area as the lodging and
fooding were on gratis. The Iyer team was assigned china clay exploration- a
mineral deposit of great acclaim in that part of the state.
On the other hand, I and another Nair were
put in charge of exploring for magnetite- quartzite in parts of Malapuram. In
the sixties, Iran had showed some keen interest in the West coast magnetite.
Several visits by Iranian teams or their Japanese consultants had taken place.
as the Iranians had fairly deep interest in the magnetite ore. For example, the
Kudiramukh iron ore deposit of Karnataka was taken up for exploration and
exploitation by the NMDC for supply to the Iranian mills.
It is routine for the geologist-boss to
introduce the field team to a new filed area of work. So, I and Nair were
driven in the office jeep to Angadipuram near Perinthalmanna, in Malppuram dist
now (and Kozhikod dist then). Our boss geologist paid for our lunch anyway on
the first day and in the afternoon drove back to office at Chalapuram,
Kozhikod. We decided to do a reckie from Angadipuram. Most of the known slag
fields from historic days are northerly of Angadipuram. Legend has it that
these slags were the remains of the crude style iron ore smelting, where in the
iron ore is buried into a huge hearth made of local timber. And after several
days of firing, the refined iron is recovered, which goes into making of
implements and tools used during the days of Tippu Sultans ‘padayottam’ or march of
army men. However, the left over slag due to its own heft is not eroded off. Thus
we had a surface clue as to the location and extent of the quartz-magnetite
reefs.
After spending the first field night in a
lodge at Angadiuram, by early morning on the next day, we took a bus to a
village, where Mr Abdur Rahman Baffakki Thangal presided over an Arabic
College. Mr. Thangal a top brass of Indian Union Muslim League. He commandeered
huge respect from the Muslims as well as non-Muslims in the area. Our intention
in calling on this dignitary was to gain some kind of indirect introduction to
the members of the majority community - Muslims- of the area, so that our stay
and work will be quite smooth. Indeed, it worked very well.
We had absolutely no problem in securing a partially
done house with shutters on the doors but sans electricity or toilet and bath, for
our stay and operations. The only drawback was about fooding in the mornings
and evenings. The sector was practically free of any kind of shop vending the
immediate essentials. As the backyard of our house was large enough we could
solve the second problem first i.e., attending the natures call. In fact, the
house owner, a thangal on his own right had dug a well in the homestead. The
compound was fenced off with tender bamboo pieces (sticks and branches), and
had a wicket gate (with horizontally placed bamboo sections, to ward off cattle
from the compound.
As far as bathing went, we had to get
permission to use a private pond (roughly 100 m away from our compound but
facing a patch of paddy field) owned by a “poor- royal-family”, with
connections to the Zamorins of Kozhikod. We were advised by one of our Muslim
field guides to approach the 'king' of the Kovilakom
or the homestead of king, for permission to access their own small pond to meet
our bathing needs.
So, Nair and I walked down to their compound
and to the front yard facing the verandah of the matted-palm-leaf-thatched
house, with a self introduction. But the word has already reached the Kovilakom that two young officials from
the State (in the early days of Indian states reorganization, Travancore was
designated as state) have rented out Thangals house in the neighbourhood. We
told the man in his early forties (but definitely appeared much older) wearing
the usual dhothy and an ‘undersized’
bath-towel like cotton cloth wrapped over the shoulder, our intention of the
visit. Truly, without any deep thinking or pondering, the head-man of the house
granted permission to use their pond. Only suggestion to us was not to go to
the pond after sunset. For one thing to avoid embarrassing the women folk, who
would be bathing with bare bosoms – a common practice in Malabar those days. Secondly, during night time walking to the
pond one has to be careful about loafing reptiles. The terms of use were quite
acceptable and we started going to the pond from the next day onwards. The
field coolie was surprised by the response of the family, because generally
accessing the pond is denied to one and all.
During our foot work, we struck friendship
quickly with one Mr Abdulkader – a primary school teacher from Angadipuram, but
teaching in a local school - the entire community called him mash – colloquial word for master. The
friendship with mash created a wider network
of other friendly youngsters. Two significant points about this mash. One, he was the local expert snake
disabler in the community. As he belonged to Angadipuram, only on weekends his
services were unavailable. Whenever a poisonous
snake is spotted, word will be send to mash,
who will rush to the spot on bicycle and launch the operation-disablement.
The process starts like this. First, a
javelin or spear carved out of a bamboo split or arecanut palm split. The good
thing about these spears is that they are strong and rarely bend or break while
in use. The step two is spotting the hiding snake by straightening the rat-hole
by widening to get a full unhindered view of the deadly beast. Step three is
quick and brisk action of driving the sharp end of the spear directly on the
holed in snake. In the next instant mash
will hook the snake and get it out for the crowd to beat and stone the poor
animal to death beyond doubt.
Secondly, during summer festive season, mash used to guide and take us to the
festival grounds around our camp. It was certainly a great feast for our eyes
as we get a chance to see the parading village girls and mid-aged women, along
with the staging of drama, music concerts and so on.
Once we befriended with mash, we were looking
for a better place with some more neighbours. We located one-room- upstairs of
a tea shop run by one Aboo. The rent was only ten rupees monthly. The advantage
was the breakfast cooked to our liking and choice by Aboo. For cooking the evening
meal, we are free access to Aboo’s open kitchen. So un-hesitantly, Nair and I
shifted our stuff to Aboos. The structure was of course very new, yet without
plastering of walls both inside as well as outside. Of course we had to sleep
on a blanket spread on the floor. Toilet was the open field or the side of rail
road connecting Nilambur and Shorannur. Water was not at all scarce as the
smaller streams always had a string of flowing water. We had to do bathing in
the river, which is only less than three kilometers one way if we walked along
the rail track. .
The Aboos Teashop is seasonal in that during
the harvest and sowing seasons only the shop attracted customers. As it was the
harvest season, summer, several farm workers (both genders) thronged to the
shop for their morning food and tea. Once the farm worker crowd is out, it is
our turn for food.
One or two words about the farm hands will be
in order. Majority are harijans or
members of the scheduled caste. In the sixties, the culture of Malabar did not
call for covering of the upper torso of women while taking bath in river or
pond. However, the girls of the scheduled caste wore a jumper only till their marriage.
But after marriage and child birth, they covered their bosoms only with several
layers of beaded necklaces. In other words the weather beaten bosom is there
in the open if one cared to a look at.
Our morning breakfast served by Aboo is quite
sumptuous. The dosa made of paste raw
rice flour is topped with one or two whole eggs while it is on the grill. I
always had three or four such dosas
but my friend Nair never ate that many. We may also go for one or two cups of
the Aboo tea.
Our noon meal was really non-descript. What
most of the time we get is only black tea and that too is with the kindness of
the man or woman in charge of a bi-session- only tea shops in the interior
villages. I always preferred a hot black tea mixed with one or two eggs poured
into the boiling tea. It assured a comfortably belly-full that I can ignore
food needs and be focused on what I do. The supper was quite exciting. Nair was
in charge of cooking and took care of the dishes. We procured by payment of
course, a certain volume of home milled raw rice. That family also used to give
us pickle of some sort and curd or yogurt- both came as freebees.
Nair will cook the raw rice say after seven
or so in the evening when our Aboo packs off for home. I keep all the supplies
and the other essentialities ready for Nair to earnestly work on, while
listening to songs in a SW radio. Once cooking is done we finish our supper,
and I take over the last chore, which is cleaning and washing the pots and
pans. Occasionally, mash too will join to taste the food cooked by Nair.
We took Sundays off our work. On one of those
afternoons when we came back after work, Aboo, called and informed us about
some guests who came in a Government Jeep are looking for us. Well it was a
team of young soils men who worked for the Kerala Soil Survey. They had a hard
time to locate alkaline soils in parts of Plakkad dist, about which their own
Director, (Dr. CKN Nair) wrote a scientific paper and published. As soon as we
met each this dilemma was presented to us and enquired if any one of us could
help them to locate the alkaline soil sections before their own Director makes
a field visit. I replied in the affirmative to earn quick invitation to travel
with them to their field camp in Mannarkkad. I agreed to and left the camp to
Nair and left for Mannarkad to reach there later in the night. We had good food
and coloured local brew to top it.
The next day early in the morning we started
off in the jeep, and I sat on the front seat at the edge to get a better view
of the soil sections exposed along the remade road side gutters. Within half an
hour of journey I had hit the jackpot – the alkaline soil. Such sections always
had white Kankar cobbles and pebbles exposed on the face of newly opened cuts.
I came back to my camp directly from the
field. During the same week, our boss asked us close the camp and return to the
office, in order to settle the accounts and to work on the report. So, by the
first week of March, 1967, we got back to Chalapuram office by the office Jeep.
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