A CASE STUDY

Whenever a ‘ case’ is to be presented [ a sort of analysis of the patients history,symptoms signs and arriving at a provisional diagnosis],call Hariharan,my professor used to boast off me in the clinics.,long times back,when my so called grey matter functioned in its prime.Using the very same tools I have tried to analyse one peculiar rather queer family from Kollam for the last so many years with out much results.I have had the opportunity to observe many families with very close ties,but this particular one baffles me and my limited mind cannot just comprehend the sheer absurdity of the plasma physics of this relationship..The main obstacle to this study stems from the fact that the researcher is also a part of this family ,hence there is every chance of bias and ego clouding his analysis and hence he has to become or pretend to be an outsider,the so called ‘sakshi’ to weigh the case.
One of the established and convicted fact that is alleged against this family by all observers is that it’s a NOSTALGIC Family in the sense that it lives in the PAST.Another common charge levelled against it is that when two or more members of the family meet they start bragging and none can dare to close their mouths, when they fly back to Kollam through their tongues irritating the new entrants to their family or for that matter any third person. Its this unique aspect that is being the project that I am entrusted with for my Phd and my project has turned out to be inconclusive.Yet some major observations have been put forth and worth investigating. further.

I have taken the pains to be with the Family for about 10 yrs and residing with the same at Kollam in their Tharavadu house near Lakshminada observing it at close quarters just like some of the modern fiction writers.What struck me was the positive charge or the ambience emanating from that extra ordinary house a so called nest offering refuge to one and all .The second feature was the grihanathan a 55 yr old bald headed white dhoti clad benign yet tall for a cloth trader with mesmerizing eyes, one Ramaswami Iyer alias Chamu mama ,the great APPA and a family of three daughters and two sons to be precise and a toddler doing the clown act..The most signifying absence that any out sider could smell was the absence of the grihanatha the great AMMA[uvvammai]who left early leaving the whole family in the hands of Appa.It is this fact which I presume to be the most important factor in the further evolution of the family which made it Nostalgic.

Many in the family wont agree with me for putting forth such a hypothesis but I strongly feel that had she lived for nother 20 odd years this family would have been like any other family.,since what I have heard about her makes me believe that she would have been a strict disciplinarian ..So when Appa had to play both the roles,he could n’t ,since all he could give was total love and little or no discipline. With the result that all the children were left totally free to mould their lives and the galatta kootam was born about 50yrs back and there was get together everyday.Since there was no mother and Appa waslate coming home from his shop all the five ,mainly four,since the eldest daughter was married away to Cochin, clung together and supported each other and made merry,though they didn’t exploit their unfounded freedom and still grew up to be mature mainly because of the unconditional love of their father and his great confidence in his children..

But one of its side effects was this penchant for talking and these talks converted to story telling and even enacting scene by scene of any movie or books each one has seen or read late in to the nights until Appa came and called out “Konthe thoongaliya”.Then the session used to conclude singing the national anthem. These were the preludes to the get together.Another salient feature was their love for the children who were their centre of attraction .If you can listen closely , that house still reverberates with the laugher and cries though seldom , of around 8 or 9 toddlers all born and brought up not by the elders but by these teenaged two girls supplemented by the younger two brothers and they became mini fathers and mothers in their teens ofcourse under the great banyan tree of Appa . and soon the origin of the clan began when two generations bonded from their births. Now that time grew them all and soon they had their families to look after.But the initial attachments with their siblings as well as their children who played,pissed and bathed in their hands couldn’t be erased that easily.So what I am trying to convey is that suppose the MOTHER was there ,such a sort of relationship cannot be dreamt off and another possibility is that there would have been more rifts in between the brothers and sisters because of the universal partiality of the Mother how ever much you may disagree with me in this point . The family had to clung together both in times of crisis and in celebration or to perish.So infact it was a sort of survival instinct aided by the great compassion as practiced by the GUARDIAN ANGEL that the family came to the fore and NOSTALGIA was the only way to acknowledge their FAITH in HIM..

Let me rest my case and the judgement is yours.

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