Volume 4 | Issue 2 | April - May
2010 |
Fallen leaves
Adam Ayub
Chapter-5
Living alone in the metro city of Madras and the exposure to the movie industry had broadened my outlook on life. It gave me a wealth of experience. I began to read more.
I started observing life closely. My intellectual horizon expanded. I shed some of my timidity. I started active participation in the social activities around me. I organized a youth wing of my community in Mattancherry, called Memon Youth forum. We started giving free tuition to poor students. We organized cultural programs too. I made my debut as an actor at the anniversary celebrations of this association. I was the hero of the drama, which was well received by the audience.
My social activities expanded beyond the boundaries of my community. I became a member of the Uni-y club, university wing of YMCA. When the Rotary club of Cochin (west) decided to form its first youth wing, Rotaract club, they invited the youth activists from Mattancherry and Fort Cochin area. I was one among them. I was elected the charter secretary of the Rotaract Club of Cochin (west). I developed my public speaking skills during this period. Readers will remember the fiasco during the election in my high school. I also started writing in English and Malayalam. It was a period when my creative skills blossomed.
I joined the Maharajas College in Ernakulam, for B.A, opening up a new chapter in my life. I joined in a stream called pattern-2, which had history and economics as the main subjects. I had always viewed the female species with awe. I was shy by nature and the only girls I had contact with were my sisters and my close cousins. But at the Maharajas College, the first co-ed institution I joined; I found to my surprise, that girls were not so shy and inaccessible. I found girls taking the initiative to talk to me. One day I was walking alone in the corridor, when a group of beautiful girls confronted me. They came and stood before me, blocking my way. I was scared. One of the girls asked me,” Where is Naseem now?” The only Naseem I could remember was my friend who was studying in Thevara College. “He joined Thevara College for degree”, I blurted out, though I wondered how these girls knew him. He was a shy fellow and had never studied in Maharaja’s College. The girls looked at each other in surprise, and then they burst out laughing. I started sweating. I did not know what the joke was. Then the tallest among them said:-“We are talking about Naseem Chida,Yakub’s wife”. Then I remembered about the love story of Yakub and Naseem chida. Yakub was a graduate student and Naseem chida was a PG student, in Maharaja’s college. They had passed out the previous year. She did not belong to Kerala. That is why she had such a name. They had got married. Somehow these girls thought I am yakub’s brother or cousin. The girls had virtually gheraoed me. I had never thought girls were so bold. I don’t know how I escaped from those girls. From that day I always walked in the company of my friends. But gradually I realized to my pleasant surprise that many girls were after me. Before that I was not aware of any girl sparing a second glance at me. Since my friends were always in company, they encouraged me to shed my shyness and respond to the overtures of the girls. They told me that the girls were after me because I was good-looking. That day I went home and examined myself before the dressing mirror. Not bad. Then I remembered Camera assistant Padmanabhan’s words “you are very photogenic, you should be before the camera, not behind it.” Never before had I become aware of my personal appearance or personality. Now it gave me immense pleasure to be the cynosure of all eyes.
By this time our financial situation started to take a bad turn, as father’s partner, Mohamed, whom he trusted immensely, cheated him. He had been swindling money. But besides that he was trying to sabotage father’s business by not delivering the goods in time and damaging the goods etc. Finally father’s earnest money deposit was forfeited for not honoring the contract obligations. We lost everything. Most importantly father was emotionally shattered. It affected his health too. We had to sell everything to survive. We were back to bad times again.
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Adam Ayub - Adam Ayub is a well-known cine artiste with multi-dimensional talents in his field. He is also a good writer. He graduated from Ernakulam Maharajas College in 1972 and joined the film Institute in Madras. After passing his diploma, he worked in the film Industry for about 10 years, before switching over to television when doordarshan started operation. He has no other profession, but does several jobs in the media. He writes articles in English and Malayalam, and teaches
cinema at various Media Institutes. He is also an actor and screenplay writer.
He directs documentaries, serials and spots.He translates Films and serials from different languages into Malayalam, and vice versa.