Kuttipuram, Kumbidi, Ummathur and Maniyamperumbalam...

Dont keep wondering reading those words...thats not greek or french or anything...these are the names of places where i stay in kerala...kuttipuram is the rly station where i get down when am going home..its in malappuram district...i've heard its the main rly sdtation in the whole of the district...i dont know for sure...just heard somewhere...you know, the whole station is curve shaped...as in its C-shaped..from one end to another...cool, no??? kuttipuram is the main town there...lots of shops, stalls and huge crowd, with a very big bus stand with buses going to every major cities near-by, taxi stand, rickshaw stand, newspaper stalls and what not..the whole place has a lively smell of daily native trades and transport...huge crowds of people buying stuff...selling stuff...waiting for buses and those ambassador taxis...the whole place is always busy when i go there...if a have huge luggages with me, i usually hire a rickshaw home which costs almost 100bucks or a bus from ther will take you to kumbidi for 5bucks and then a rickshaw from kumbidi to Ummathur or Maniyamperumbalam depending on the distance...its usually 20-25bucks from kumbidi..

kumbidi is another small town...you can all it a mini-kuttipuram..small shops, small crowds, only rickshaw stands, and a small bus stand also, with mini-buses most of the time...crowd there is usually familiar...people from nearby houses...both my dad and mum used to study in a government school in kumbidi...it still stnds there...right at the centre of the town...so they know most of the people in the locality...when i walk around there with my parents, a occasional enquiry from some shopkeepers or rickshaw drivers or passers-by is common...they all know each other...

my mum's house is at Ummathur...around 20bucks from kumbidi in rickshaw...even though the place is remote there are tarred roads...potholes are comparitively less...so rickshaw travel is not that bad...and the place is somewhat on a hill...so the roads go up and down..only diesel rickshaws commute this route..there are houses on both the sides of the road...some new...some old...but the place is good...its calm and serene...you can actually hear the winds rubbing on the coconut tree-tops and the supari trees swaying side to side with the winds..its all greenery there...mah mum's house is just on the road side..and the road is not that wide...just enough for a truck to pass...thats it...the house is an old one..duplet sorta tructure..but a small one..my uncle and his family stays there...he has rebuilt most of the parts of the house to comfort their stay there...when i used to go there for vaccations earlier...i used to go climbing the hills with mah cousins who stay there...when you reach on top..you can see the river flowing far ahead down...Bharathapuzha...it flows from there...the scene is so beautiful...all so many green trees and the river flowing...the river banks with white sand make it look so beautiful...its like an awesome work of nature on the canvas...you know, the blue skies, green trees, white sand, and the crystal clear water...gosh! its amazing!! then there's also a den sorta thing there...it's called 'narimada'...nari means lion and mada is den..so i guess it used to be a lion's den once upon a time...i found many porqupine thorns there last time i went...and also snakes...but that was almost 4 years back...i went ther recently...but you know wot??? there was no greenery there...no trees...the wind had ceased floeing there...the hill top was all under construction...houses and mansions...humans...i hate humans...greedy humans...they used all those bulldozers and other equipments to dig out all the soil on top of the mountains...the mountains looked so bald...i hated it...i ran to see if i could see the river...the river was also hardly there...sand digging from the rivers had killed the river...there was no water where there used to be a river...humans!! i couldnt take it...i felt my eyes were gettin watery seeing all this..i returned back home...promising myself never to go back there again...never ever!!

Maniyamperumbalam is my dad's place...it's walkable distance from my mum's place to my dad's...my dad's house is a very old one...same duplet sorta house...but bigger...after all they were 8 children in that house...so it had to be big...there are two houses in the same compound...one is the main house and the other is the 'pathayapura'...sorta out-house...i have spent most of my childhood there...living in that house...and so i am quite naturally emotionally attached to it a lot...only my grandmum used to stay there...with a maid to help her...some times my 'velliyammama'(my dad's eldest brother) will also be there...he looked after the whole house...i dunno why but none of the other 7 children...as far as i now have paid any attention to that house...occasional visits used be there...that too once in 2 months maybe...as far as i know...and i am sure i am right on this one...that me and my brother are the only grandchildren of her's who have stayed in that house so much...who would bother to stay in such a haunted-looking house when everyone had their own houses...and i myself was...honestly...shit scared to stay there...i hardly used to go out to even pee in the dark...it was scary...nights used to be long hours of eerie silence there...no sounds...no life...nothing...but still iused to love that place...it was my house...the number of mangoes i've had from the mango tree satnding in the compound is countless...the hours i have spend it the plantations and farms...i can never forget all that...but now you know...that house is not there...my grandmum passed away a few years back..since then nobody has even bothered to look after that house...that house was broken doen and noe everyone wnats their share of land...children and grandchildren...since i stay in coimbatore...i go to kerala quite frequently...i cum nher to this place and again i feel the same way as i felt on the mountain top at ummathur...tears roll down at times...it was house here thats now habitated by snakes and mices and grass growing to my height...the mango tree is no longer there...it feels really sad...many a numbe of times i wised i had money to buy all that place for myself...but wishes remin wishes...atleast with me...it does!!!