RAMAN

"We are leaving behind the mountains and all such elevations: we the social beings; and delving deeper into trenches. Spirituality behind, barbarianism on the forefront. What is there in everyone is the tendency to ridicule others, rather than to compliment each others functions." Ramanandan

                                                                                    

  An insight to what he really is, his thoughts are. Four years younger to me, five inches taller to me and six thoughts higher to me, he is not a specimen, but a pattern or a replica of this pure earth what it was years ago. He belong to the same higher order taxonomic rank. Iam talking about my brother Ramanandan. My parents and my relatives called us Kuttoos and Kunjan. But at a certain age it all stopped.There is no more Kuttoos.  But I continued calling him Kunjan. He was so innocent(still is) and sincere that he could never hurt a single piece of living matter. I was very talkative right from the year one, but remain the opposite. He uttered the first word at the age of 4. Everyone was very much tensed thinking he was dumb. He still limits himself to very few sentences or else he should be in a comfortable circle. He considers me as his best friend. Never I have heard him mentioning the name of a Girl and as such he is least bothered about girlfriends and love. 

Once in a while he rings me up and discusses Il Postino, Good Bye Bafana and the likes or the dreams of a classless society.His knowledge on Sanathana Dharmam ,Upanishaths and communism is vast.A brilliant guy in Mathematics and Physics. I was KV rank holder in English in the year 1998 and the record was broken in 2002 by this Gentleman who always possessed an extraordinary talent in higher level derivative English. We wanted him to join the Indian Institute of English but he was stubborn on learning structures and material science.  Lazy to the core, he never made a sincere effort to write the entrance.But he came out with a rank that could fetch him the merit seat he needed It was after his graduation that he had a severe dis opinion with Achan which made him to work hard.The result was he got admission in IIT Madras for Geotechnical Engineering. He is placed now in ENI Saipem, an Italian company.  

Its very difficult to make him active. An Environmentalist at Heart, A good fellow, A nice human being. Above all he is brilliant photographer. If ever I possess any charm in those portraits, its because of his angle, the way he keeps his D90 on the object. A complete devotee of Utherikavilamma and Ettumanoorappan. We  share many common ideas. But there are few elements or thoughts in him which Iam not able to comprehend. He and Kannan were our Cricket team's spear heads in the bowling department. His bowling action reminded us of Curtly Ambross. The length and precision of his ball always troubled me when I played against him.He was always calm in the field. I still remember, during a spell I hit him for two consecutive sixes, the third ball was a miracle which took the middle stump over the wicket keeper's head. He walked towards me and said ' I respect you but we need to win'. He was our opener along with Shyam for the test matches, a mild batsman who saved many of those innings for us.But on many occasions I had to shout at him when I opened the innings along with him. He was too lazy in running.Oh those days, so much of happiness and emotions in the ground. We had chances to play against achan. He always had difficulties playing the spin of achan,and used to give the strike to me.There was one occasion when he bowled achan out and stood looking at the pitch. I gave him my hand, I saw the emotions spreading across his face.He was a die hard fan of Sachin Tendulkar and Richie Richardson. 

He used to play badminton with me.Many of those games, he lost to me without even able to make a single point. But it was too heavy a feeling for me. Thereafter I made sure, he should win a comparable number.His happiness was everything for me. But suddenly one day he quit all those sports, the reason still is a mystery for me. And I remember he was so stubborn that he never again played cricket or badminton.

But, I always make sure that I never hurt him.He is so valuable a Human for me. Raman is going through the worst period of his life,but Iam sure he will reach the heights that he deserves.