Me,The Communist

I always wanted to be someone in life or rather something. At times I wanted to be a crow, shiny black with the ability to flick away food. Most  times I dreamt of being an angel- Good, clean. beautiful, white apparel and silver wings. But somehow I was most often than not found in the middle of some scene of crime. I had a gift right through my infancy to be caught for crimes engineered by others.

During my annual visits to kerala I often wished to be communist. Then I didn't know what it was. I thought communist was  a thing, then later I thought being communist meant being heroic.And i was also aware that my maternal relatives were congress and the paternal stark communist. I remember at one place I would see an entire room dedicated to rituals , lamps and worship while the other had not a single such sign.  At home I had access to a lot of Russian books since my dad was an avid reader of them. I remember he bought me Russian fairy tales and folk tales before my mother fetched me Anderson's . My grandmother's house/home was stacked with a lot of Russian books too. So I was then a confused being (more confused than I am now) caught in the fantasy world of European fairy tales and the inevitable communist flavor in the Russian folktales. My mother did not approve much of my dad 's communist influence on my thinking.

 Once I asked my dad's uncle (after he was acknowledged and described as a great communist activist of his times in the local newspaper) to help me become a communist. He told me you need to feel it in your soul "Lal salaam". He also told me that  he had spilt blood to feel that spirit, that even when years ago he had been beaten, he had held to his cause.
 I was hardly six then and I sought the help of the great seer of my life, my brother.

He told me I had to become a revolutionary by making the first small step towards communism. He and my cousin agreed to train me into a communist of action provided I follow their instructions. They told me to feel the fire of being a communist you need to hurl things. So we sat on a sandy mound behind the compound wall of the ancestral house.  I was instructed to pick up round, big stones while they pelted the same at passing buses.

My brother told me the buses were filled with capitalists(i thought that was something too) and we as communists must lay our lives to save honour. The buses were not frequent on that road but they were the rickety red lousy type...like you could see the colour of a person's eyes if you watched well enough.

My brother and my cousin told me the harder and faster you hurl the stone , the communist spirit is born. I was busy picking up round big stones when I heard the sound of screeching brakes. I stood with a proud smile as i saw some capitalists head for the house. Their faces were red with some emotion which I mistook for defeat at the hands of communists.

 One of my uncles(the youngest) was the only elder at the moment at home. They spoke to him  in "loud" Malayalam and they all turned to look where I was standing. I watched the bus move again and turned around to tell my brother and my cousin that we had won. I saw both of them taking to their heels, and my cousin just managed to tell me.."run for your life". And before I could sense that confused sense of being communist I felt my uncle grab me by the neck. It was also my first taste of cruelty. I felt him twist my ears and he slapped me hard when I managed to still say "Lal Salaam". I think he was frustrated at being the youngest uncle because he took out all his frustration on the blows he rained on me. I was confused because I was not used to physical beating and more confused because I was being beaten when I was being part of a noble cause. Through unshed tears of pain I saw the distant figures of my brother and my cousin still running for life. In spite of all my pain I felt proud that I was at last a communist since I had been beaten up while standing for a cause.

A cause then was a thing too.