Parameswaran

“Life is bogus!” cried my elderly neighbour who just had his leg amputated owing to a diabetic foot, just the day my father died. His remark shook me up deeply at its unembellished truth and leaving me open mouthed, staring at him. He had also lost all his savings in a bust co-operative bank and was barely eking out his own rations. Yet I marvelled at his wide smile and a grin that betrayed his bad and severally missing teeth each time i knocked his door with trepidation. He would have crawled on the unrepaired floor dragging himself across the room, barely reaching the door latch. “Cheenu there you” are he would beam in his thin underpants and bare chest, plentifully covered by his sacred thread. “Come come, you must have coffee with me” and he would instruct his patient wife who would have been reciting the thousand names of Lalitha to prepare some coffee as i protested guiltily wondering whether i was drinking up the little milk he bought. With the small cup of coffee were also some biscuits or ‘Kozhukottai’ with ‘Moru Kozhumbu’ that i would eat sparingly as he eagerly urged me on.