Delusion of Grandeur

The eyes were green and penetrating. Hair glowed like polished copper. Reddish nose with tiny nostrils had semblance of parrot-beak. Fully ripened mandarin was the best match for those cheeks. Occasional smile exposed rather prematurely decayed irregular teeth, speckled badly with black pores like corroded metal.

- That was Paul, an Australian immigration officer in Singapore. He was sitting at the other end of a glass-slabbed table that displayed a colourful world map blown-up to an enormous size spreading over the upper surface.

In front of him leaning forward with his arms crossed on the table sat a swarthy Brahman youth from Kerala, a South Indian State.

Questions and answers....

Paul Stonnil asks...

Karthikeyan Bhattathirippadu replies...

K. Bhttathirippadu – The journey that began from the rustic beauties of Quailon as a schoolboy took him many eventful years to get settled down and eventually placed himself up in Singapore as a Computer Engineer. He has sought entry to Australia for living and as a result was up for his first encounter with an immigration officer.

“Well, I think I have finished with my questions, Mr. Bhattathirippadu...I suppose it’s your turn now.”

Those words reflected a note of compulsion.

“Have you got anything in particular to ask?”

Bhattathirippadu tensely watched the officer’s mixed expressions. He had a number of questions to ask. But, he did not really know where to begin.

He remained pensive for a while. And then suddenly was found making a frantic effort to smile. With that enforced smile still lingering on his face he asked: “is there any kind of discrimination still existing in Australia?”

- Discrimination...

The word ‘discrimination’ seemed reverberating in the cool, dense, air of that richly decorated room. Sonority of that sensational word seemingly struck to every surface of the room including the walls that tastefully displayed posters of primitive Aborigines, Asians and the white European settlers in conglomeration, depicting a Utopian society.

- A promise of equality...

“Well done, Mr. Bhattathiri...well done. Your question indeed suggests that you are rather obsessed with an egalitarian social concept.”

Paul tried to impose a wry smile that spelt nothing but pejorative sarcasm. After a relatively long pause he continued:

“Well, Mr. Bhattathiri, if I put it straight, I feel that you should not have asked this question. I suppose you are not entitled to raise such a question which is ineffable by its own merit.”

He said it sternly without emotion as if he was passing an impersonal verdict upon someone. He remained silent as though he was lost into a deep thought, struggling to find an objective definition of human value...

“You know what I mean?”

Stonnil’s voice suddenly became blunt and was found distinctly sardonic in tone.

“Let us go back to your own country’s cultural heritage and social set-up which was said to be built up solidly on altruistic and ideological base.

“You would perhaps agree that the Harijans occupy today as they did in the past the lowest rung of the social ladder in your country, particularly in your state. They were believed to have contaminated not only by their touch but also by their presence. They were denigrated to such an extent that the mere sight of them made the atmosphere ominous to those sanctimonious Brahmins.

“For the majority of people in this contemporary world this is the most heinous and oppressive form of inequality...Don’t you still maintain the distance among own civilians in your village, in your own neighbourhood? Even now they call their names by their respective casts and sub-casts- Nair, Menon, Pillai and what not...? Why should we go that far? Let’s take your own name: Bhattathirippadu. What does that denote? Please would you tell me what that means?”

“Nothing, but delusion of grandeur.” Karthikeyan whispered to himself.

He felt ashamed as if somebody had spat right in his face...On the basis of his own wretched background he could not utter a word of resentment. He felt quiet and empty. His feelings became numb and cold. His silent response was his confession. He thought that his long desperate cry of rebellion should have begun years ago, from his village against his own people, against his own father...

Balaraman Bhattathirippadu- a railway servant who sought an official transfer to Shornure to get away from the so called untouchable Harijan lads of Quailon, Kannan and Koran, who reared buffaloes and led them every hot day to the nearest lake of Mullattu to take the beasts for a cool dip or a muddy swim. When those inferiors passed their superiors on the road they did not step aside and make way, as they ought to. Those revolting lads were defiant instead. They often twitted the Brahmins about the unnatural way in which they kept others aloof by building

rigid walls around themselves. For the fear of being contaminated, Balaraman Bhattathiri- ppadu, his fanatic father wanted to turn away from them. And, strangely enough, at the same time with the same craze, due to the ideological differences, Karthikeyan wanted to run away from his father, a lunatic fringe.

Karthikeyan does not believe in nor does he wish to place himself on a hierarchy of status by virtue of being born to a Brahmin who tried to establish his superiority among others. He does not want to receive the accolades of any undeserved social status though he has to bear the stigma of all those odious deeds of his predecessors who made the other mankind subservient to their use and tried to destroy the others when they could not subdue.