Three wishes

“Ask for three wishes. It will be granted,” Manju chechi told me as we herded her little sons across the beach to Madre de Deos Church. During my two two-year stints in Thiruvananthapuram, I had never visited the famed pilgrim centre on the outskirts of the city. I regret it now. Vettukad church, as it is known locally, is a picnic spot too. Overlooking the Arabian Sea, the small church seems blessed.

The children are excited by the vastness of the church premises and the presence of sea. When they are tired of chasing each other, they sit on the foyer, narrating improvised stories. One (or all) of Manju chechi’s wishes will be for them. She too is new to this church and every first time in a church, you will be granted three wishes. That’s what we have been told when we were little children.

I have been so fascinated by the opportunity for easy gratification, without effort and without penance, that I drew up three wishes every time I went to a strange church. Almost all sets of wishes concerned the family’s health, my education and some childhood fantasies, which included some miraculous interventions to win over my first crush, a chubby girl who attended catechism with me.

I devised plans to face her, but never executed any of it. In due course I forgot about that wish and found another sweetheart. Most of the other wishes were granted. I never topped the class, but passed out in “flying colours” each year. Ultimately, the three-wishes scheme was forgotten as I bunked masses and classes without guilt and without excitement. But wishes remained, nevertheless.

An accidental visit to the church caught me off guard. I could not pinpoint three wishes. There are no exams to pass, no diseases to cure and no hearts to win. I have almost learned cycling and swimming after praying for it for years. Postal stamps of Papua New Guinea and Dominican Republic no longer needed providence to come by. Even my younger brother has abandoned the stamp albums.

Since an opportunity to realize three wishes could not be wasted, I widened my search as a politically conscious, socially responsible being. Then I realized the fallacy. Religion can only help the personal. In public affairs, faith doesn’t move mountains. What would god think if he got the following wish list: 1) Please make George Bush repent so he dismantles his nuke pile; 2) Please give some wisdom to Bin Laden so he doesn’t mistake ordinary men for nations and annihilate them; 3) Please tell Paul Wolfowitz not to make the Miserables more miserable.

We can’t pray to god to make all men (and women) good. If he could, he would have made them so despite the serpent and the apple. I wish I wasn’t told that war and violence, poverty and famine, greed and selfishness can’t be wished away. Then I would have lots of wishes to feed this make-believe system.

War songs and bar cries (oops, the other way)

“Your generation’s taste is pathetic. How could you listen to something like that? It won’t even last a fortnight”

"Maybe. But I like it now. And did you like 'your' song because you knew it would last forever?"

"Anyway it lasted. Our time was full of good music. Now times have changed. Everything is mediocre. Too populist."

"True. A lot of us like such songs. You like 'your' songs and we like 'our' songs."

"But what we liked are the best."

"That's what you say."

"That's the truth."

"Wait a minute, isn't that what we call fundamentalism?"

"Do you remember that masterpiece composed by…aha…hmm…that's the one…"

Someone was sensible enough to intervene so that we could finish our pegs in peace. Binges recur thanks to such souls who act as fire alarms. Like them, a potential fundamentalist is ever present in every joint. Maybe people are more fundamental when they are drunk.

Toddy shops had banned talks on communism and communalism through decrees written on the wooden panels that screened the rooms. Understandably. But what made them such fascists so as to ban music on their premises? Sometimes music can be a great divider too.

Years ago during a festival in Kazhakkoottam, we met up a group of friends in a shady bar. We were still lingering on to the university campus despite the vacation. We drank up brandy that looked like the proverbial daru in old Hindi movies and smelled like varnish.

Our troupe was poor in resources but rich in music. I too sang. (Those days not everyone had a mobile phone to reproduce drunken songs the next day.) Admiring glances and appreciating sounds came from the other tables. A tipsy man came over to us and requested the Tamil singer to repeat that Ilayaraja hit. Why not? We obliged.

The next request came from the other table. This time it was RD Burman. Why not? We competed with the blaring speaker put up by the festival organizers on the road. The thrilled juniors SPB and Kishore Kumar strained their ears for more applause. But the first admirer was less admiring now: "When I say Tamil, only Tamil."

"Who are you to say that? We would hear only Kishore Kumar songs," retorted the second admirer. Tamil! Hindi! Ilayaraja! Burman! We hummed the first lines of many songs as if in an Antakshari at the command of the rival gangs of Kazhakkoottam.

With years of experience in cheering fisticuffs, we scooted one by one. The goons of Ilayaraja and Burman were now at swords point and between them the main singer, Junior SPB, was waiting for the next command. Fortunately, we could drag out the sloshed singer before the first beer bottle smashed against the table.

Wish the bar manager had the old toddy shop wisdom.

Our songs, your songs.