kurian pampadi

The Last Frontier of a gentleman officer

text and pictures by Kurian Pampadi

Sushil Kumar sat in an obscure corner of the durbar hall of Kanakakunnu Palace in the heart of Thiruvananthapuram, listening to the speaker on the podium a little far away. He had no problem with hearing. His eyesight was good enough to plough through the ever-growing  traffic on the Kerala capital in his very loyal Maruti 800. At 72 he was a formerly a gentleman officer of the Indian army, to be precise Lt. Gen S.K. Pillai, PVSM (Retd). 

The young lady facing the audience looked like a pious homemaker . Wearing white salwar kameez with  a blue dotted dupatta  around her shoulders, she looked at the audience with a disarming smile. No tension at all. She had just read out selected passages from her latest novel Sacred Grove  and was waiting for the audience to comment. She had specially flown to the city for this at the Kovalam Literary Festival to gauge how the discerning readers in Kerala took her book. After all Kerala was the country’s first wholly literate state and the home of the latest Jnanpith winner, poet ONV Kurup. And also home of novelist MT Vasudevan Nair and of course Booker winner Arundhati.

“Is the novel autobiographical?” came the first shot. It was not an easy thing to answer for Daman Singh, the prime minister’s daughter, because if it was autobiographical, she would have to bring in the life of her father Manmohan  and mother Gursharan into the fold, of course with different names. 

“No it is not. After all, the setting is not Delhi. The story takes place in a north Indian middle class town, a tribal stronghold. The protagonist is the 12 year old son of the district collector and the problems of his growing up. There is a maidan close to his school where there is a sacred grove. The tribal people come to pray there. So the book narrates the tension that tears apart the different stakeholders.”

There could have been a second question on the similarities between the characters of the novel and Daman’s 15-year old son Rohan (whom she had brought to Trivandum on her maiden visit to Kerala) and her husband Ashok Patnaik, an IPS officer of the Orissa cadre, now living in 7 Race Course Road along with the prime minister. But it did not occur and the second question was on the very name Sacred Grove. She was relieved. She dwelled on the sacred groves in tribal India.

General was about to stand up and give her a short lecture on the sacred groves in the Hindu families of Kerala called Kaavu or Sarpakaavu. They have been there for the last several centuries including his own ancestral home in Pandanadu near Chengannur in Central Travancore. Of course he does not have it in Jawahar Nagar where his father K.R.N PIllai built a huge house when he retired as Chief Conservator of Forests, Bhopal. Sushil was also born in Bhopal but chose to return to his father’s place on his retirement and chose to build another beautiful house in the same vicinity. This time it was a redbrick one surrounded by green carpets designed by the well known architect Laurie Baker.

Sushil suddenly remembered the time when he first came into contact with Daman. As the commander of the Assam Regiment, he was posted in Mizoram and began researching on a project with direct bearing on the state’s social mores. The Mizos were highly literate, almost on par with Malayalees. They had strong moral codes that prevented them from taking up arms against anybody. No wonder, the Mizos were the most peace-loving people in the entire north eastern region.

General Pillai while pursuing his research came across a book The last frontier: people and forests in Mizoram by Daman Singh. It was published by Tata Energy Research Institute, Mumbai. It was an exquisite work on the Mizos and he wrote a letter to the author. He also learnt that Daman with a BSc honours in mathematics from St Stephens , New Delhi and an MBA from IRMA (Institute of Rural Management in Anand, Gujarat), had engaged herself with social work for two decades before becoming a full time author. The last frontier was her first book, Nine by Nine her first novel and Sacred Grove the second.

When Daman was back to her front row seat, Sushil thought it was time to intervene. He walked up to her, bowed his head and told her in hush hush tone who he was. Daman was awestruck. “Oh you are the general I was in touch with for the last 14 years and never met before!” she exclaimed. True they had never met before. She was all smiles and offered her hand to him in gay abandon. He sat by her for some time and withdrew finally before the security men (she is under Z-category)could take her away.

“Why did not you invite her for a cup of tea at your place just across the road?” I asked him when I called on him next morning to elicit more information on the relationship.

“ Oh I thought it is not prudent to invite the prime minister’s daughter to my humble abode. People might speculate why she is confabulating with a retired general,”was his curt answer. Did he buy a copy of the Sacred Grove that was being sold like hot cakes at the impromptu book stall on the side of the hall? No. He took one copy and browsed. But he has a copy of her first book The last frontier that he  keeps close to his heart.

Sushil holds his head high when he speaks of his father and mother. Both have passed away. His mother was Sukumari Pillai whose grandfather  Neyyur Nanu Pillai (1827-1886) was the diwan of Travancore during the reign of Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bai.  And her brother  Sir N.R. Pillai was a member of the Indian Civil Service who rose to become the Secretary General of Foreign Affairs or Foreign Secretary, Government of India, in current parlance.

Gen Pillai finished his own work on the Mizos titled Tlawmngaihna: A Mizo way of life. The first word pronounced Thlomngaina is the moral code closely followed by the Mizos. The most important code is : Do good to others preferably without anybody knowing it. But the General has not published it. The Sage Publishers returned the manuscript telling him to edit it in every body’s language. Till date he has found no time for it as he is as busy as ever. He is the patron of the Kerala Ex-Servicemen’s Association and spends much of his time in redressing their grievances. But that has not deterred him from being the live wire leader of a small group of literature lovers in the city.

Papyrus is the name and most likely the last frontier in his tumultuous life as a soldier ending with the tenure as Dy Chief of Army Staff after 55 years as a soldier right from his training days in Dehradun. Papyrus  has only some 15 active members. Now he is busy preparing the invitations to host it in his own premises, Vichitra where he lives along with his wife Jane (Devon, England) and only child Alpana, an MBA in HR working for Fab India, Trivandrum.

ends