Volume 4 | Issue 2 | April - May
2010 |
Fallen leaves
Adam Ayub
I and my friends did not attend all the classes. We used to roam around the campus, particularly the corridors in front of the ladies common room. For that matter all the boys were there during intervals, and so it was the most crowded place in the college. Girls also used to assemble on the verandah of the common room to enjoy the attention of the boys. Those were heady romantic days.
Our gang was very popular in the college. During free times we will sit on the staircase and sing songs. I used to play percussion on the glass panes of the window. I had a sense of rhythm and my beats were perfect. Sheik was the best singer among us. In fact he was the only singer. But we did not care. All of us sang in chorus. Girls and boys used to assemble around us to enjoy our performance. There was a tall lean fellow in our junior class. He used to tag behind us, in the hope of becoming a member of our gang. But we did not encourage juniors to become part our gang. We used to take part in all competitions, group dance, group song, drama etc. This junior fellow used to plead with us to give him also a chance to act. But we never gave him a chance. That fellow’s name was Mammootty. He later became the megastar of Malayalam cinema. Later he wrote in his biography after becoming a star, that “Adam Ayub was the Romeo of the college”. This was published in the Malayala Manorama weekly.
There was a group of five senior girls, who were referred to as “Anju sundarikal” (five beauties). Gradually I became aware that they were following us wherever we went.
There was a sort of hide and seek game between us in the long and vast corridors of the college. We were not sure who was interested in whom. But slowly it dawned on us that Sonia, among the girls, was interested in me, among the boys. At first I was a little reluctant. But my friends literally pushed me into the affair. Abdul Rahiman, Rashid, Ravi and Nanda kumar, all of them gave me the courage to go and talk to her. Rashid, the philosopher among the lot, told me that only a coward will run away, when a woman is making advances. But strangely Rashid, who was madly in love with Ruksana, one year junior to us, never made any advances at all, neither did Ruksana. But they got married soon after passing out, by mutual consent of the families. In fact it was more of an arranged marriage, than a love marriage, as they had never exchanged a word during the long college life.
In the beginning, I and Sonia talked, with our friends keeping company in the background. It was just small talk. There was nothing romantic about it. One day she gave me a book to read. On the inner cover page of the book was scribbled two lines of a popular Hindi song. “Yeh duniya vale poochenge, Mulaqat huvi, kya bath huvi, yeh bath kisee se na kahna”. (The world will ask you what happened after we met. Don’t tell them). “Nahee kahoonga” (I won’t tell) I scribbled below and returned the book. That was the spark, which started a long and passionate love affair. Then we graduated into meeting alone at lonely corners of the remote areas of the college. We started going to movies, mostly noon shows of art films, which were graced mostly by lovelorn couples like us. Sonia’s friend, Rema, also had a love affair. Her lover was her own cousin Baba. Actually he was not her cousin, but her uncle. But he was a very young man, working as a medical representative in Calicut. Their union was not possible, as it was against family traditions. So they used to meet clandestinely in Ernakulam. He used to come from Calicut. One day he suggested we go to Bolghatty. I and sonia, Rema and Baba. We spent the whole day in the picturesque island of bolghatty, watching small boats and big ships drift by and returned by 4 pm to catch the bus back home in time. We repeated the Bolghatty trip several times. Sometimes we went there alone without Rema and Baba. Sonia had her schooling partly in Bombay. So her command over Hindi and English was excellent. In fact it was Hindi which bonded us stronger. I was very much at home with Hindi. But it was Sonia’s profound influence that helped me develop my skills in the English language. I was a voracious reader. As a member of the local library, I had read great many classics in Malayalam as well as translations of world classics. But my English reading had just graduated from James Hadley Chase to Sidney Sheldon. She opened up a great new world of English literature before me. She introduced me to the books of P.G.Wodehouse, among others. She gifted me almost all the books of P.G.Wodehouse. Her English was excellent. The love letters she used to write to me were classics. I am indebted to her for my skills in the English language. When I was in the second year, she was in the final year. When the college magazine was released, I was surprised to see an English short story titled “Midnight prowler” published in my name. In fact it was an excellent translation of the Hindi short story I had written in the Thevara College magazine. She had borrowed that College magazine from me to read my story. But I never knew she had translated it and given it for publication in my name. She made me promise that I will never tell anybody that she had written it. When friends congratulated me on my mastery over the English language, I felt very small. I always had a passion for languages, particularly English. She kindled that passion and helped me scale new heights in mastering the language. She was one year senior to me in college, but not in age, as I had already lost two years in my academic life. Though our love affair became a talk in the college, I was aware that it was never going to blossom into marriage. We were both of the same age. As she was the only daughter of her parents, she could be married off soon, whereas I had four sisters. I could not marry till at least two of the sisters are married. The financial condition at home was bad. The fact that we belonged to different religions did not seem to matter to us at that time. She passed out one year earlier to me. But we used to correspond till she got married and settled.
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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.