The Heartbeats of Love

All She Needs is Love   Part-VII

The Heartbeats of Love

Mariamma peeped through the windows of the bedroom to see the guests of the day. Two men in their fifties, one lady of around 40 years, and a young man in his early twenties were sitting on the veranda accompanied by Joseph, who is a marriage dallal (whose job is to introduce prospective matches to the parents of the men and women of marriageable age). 

Joseph is a familiar person in the household, as he used to come with marriage proposals for Mariamma’s aunt. After undergoing several such ordeals, nothing fructified into a marriage and Mariamma’s aunt decided to become the bride of the Lord. She joined the Congregation of Mother of Carmel, which has its origin in the year 1866 at a small village called Koonammavu in Kerala. Mariamma’s aunt was happy at the convent, and she got the opportunity to study in English School and became a teacher in the St Aloysius Upper Primary School.

Dallal Joseph objectively moderated the proud presentation of family virtues by both parties. While Mariamma’s Appachan mentioned about the number of persons from their lineage who were selected to be priests and nuns, the elderly man from the other side, Thomman, did not want to

Goodbye to Gooseberry?

All She Needs is Love    Part-VI

Goodbye to Gooseberry?

  The twin boys grew up well nourished. Mariamma and her younger sisters had to be satisfied with lesser allotment of milk for their coffee. And the hens’ eggs, after the sales made to needy neighbours and to Thomas chettan’s tea shop in the junction, were exclusively kept for the twins. Mariamma’s sisters hated the hens because of this and angrily ward of the hens whenever they tried to come anywhere near them. They liked only the big red cock. They fed him well with the expectation of a good feast, next Christmas.

Mariamma didn’t bother much about such mundane things like her sisters. She sincerely served her mother. From early morning to late night she was hard up with unending household chores and rearing the cow, two goats and a kid, and more than a dozen of hens.  She enjoyed bathing the naughty twins and putting talcum powder on their body and dressing them up. She carried them on both the hips to the neighbours’ houses and played along with other children till her mother yelled them to return.

Every night, before she slept, she took her slate and scribbled several lines and then rubbed of everything. Many nights she dreamed

Broken slate and a lovely dream

All She Needs is Love

PART-IV

Broken slate and a lovely dream

Lukose master was going through the slates of his students in Class IV in St Thomas School, Karukachal. He found that the tall slender girl who was sitting in the last row on the cement floor had written so neatly, all the letters of the Malayalam alphabet.

He said ‘Sabash!’ meaning ‘excellent’.

The girl, who was clad in a white chatta^[1] and mundu^[2], felt happy and looked at her friends with a proud smile. Her name was Mariamma.

Lukose master was a terror not only for the students, but also for most of the teachers. No one used to be bothered much about the headmaster Kuriachan Sir who was regularly irregular to the school. Kuriachan sir was more interested to look after his chena (yam), kappa (tapioca), kaachil (another variety of yam) and a host of vegetables in his land rather than teaching students