My Maiden Publication
K S S Pillai
In the late 1950s, there used to be a Malayalam newspaper called Malayala Rajyam and its sister publication Malayala Rajyam Weekly. Since my father subscribed to them, I was a regular reader of both. The Weekly used to have a ‘Letter to the Editor’ column that offered a prize of five rupees to the best letter every week. Once I wrote a letter about journeys by private buses in Kerala and it was adjudged the best!
I had no difficulty in writing that letter as I was then a student at a college twenty kilometres away, commuting by a private bus. The state-run buses, with limited stops, plied only on trunk routes, leaving the rest to private players. They were always over-crowded during the peak hours with passengers perilously hanging from the door and even from the ladder at the back, but people patronized them as they always stopped for the waiting passengers and one could reach the destination on time.
“Move towards the back. Move, please. There’s space to play football.” “Can’t move further, bro. A match is in progress.” That used to be the usual repartee between the conductor and the jostling passengers of these buses.
That letter was my first ‘publication’. The announcement about the best letter of the week and the prize money was printed prominently in a box! I was on cloud nine and showed the piece to all and sundry. Getting one’s name printed in a widely-circulated weekly was no mean achievement for a teenager, and five rupees was no meager amount.
We, the children, used to get a new set of dress every year on two occasions: the beginning of the academic year and at the Onam festival. It was my father who selected clothes for all of us from ‘Swamy’s Textiles’, the shop he always patronized as the owner was his childhood friend. Two tailors, Panicker Uncle and Abdul Mama, used to ply their trade on the veranda of the shop, stitching dresses for men, women, and children. Our regular tailor was the former.
My father did not object when I meekly sought his permission to get a new shirt stitched with the prize money. I almost ran to the shop as soon as the postman had paid the money order. As my father always selected white clothes for our shirts, I bought a piece of cloth in light blue with some designs, as if to proclaim my independence.
It cost a little over four rupees, leaving enough for tailoring charges. I requested Panicker Uncle to stitch the shirt then and there, but he was tied up with some urgent assignment and asked Abdul Mama if he could oblige me. I heaved a sigh of relief when he set aside the work he was doing, after observing my anxious face for some time.
Both the newspaper and the magazine have long since stopped publication. I still keep that shirt like the costliest gift I ever received and show it along with the Weekly containing my letter and the announcement of the prize. When overcome with nostalgia, I show them to my children and grandchildren, who take my statement about the cost of the shirt with a pinch of salt.
(The author is a retired professor of English. Apart from ‘Kashmir Vision’, his articles have been published by The New Indian Express, The Deccan Herald, The Hans India, The Herald Goa, and elsewhere)
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