OPPOLAMMA-FATHER'S FIRST WIFE

If anybody really loved and cared for my mother, it was my father’s first wife! She was wealthy and handsome. My mother was of the same age as her own daughter who was a real beauty. We, my brother and I, used to call her Oppolamma, meaning sister’s mother, as was customary among us. She used to remain in her own home, most of the time, and was something like an occasional visitor. I had no friend in the family, when we were staying at kotticall house, before partition, following the death of my father, I used to remain with the ladies. I used to see Oppolamma reading religious books like Ramayana, the fat book placed on a wooden stand, shaped like an X. She once commented that I would be a hen pecked husband! I was about five years old at that time. I have not seen her talking to my father. Normally, it was rarely that he talked to my mother either, except to give some command or to scold her! Even when we moved to a mud house at Pazhai, she remained with us, during her yearly visit, spending only one or two days with her daughter, my step sister. Her affectin for my mother was so great that she preferred my mother to serve her, when she was bed ridden during her last days. This was when I was studying for B.Sc. When I heard about her end being near, I started for her home near Wadakanchery with petty cash, enough for the bus journey. That was all I had. At that time, I did not know how I was going to raise moey for my next college fee. She told me that her end was near. After spending some time, I bid her final good bye and started to go.She asked me whether I had any money. I emptied my pocket and showed her the coins. She told me to place it at her foot and go round her and prostrate. I did as told, realizing only then, that it is customary to do so, as she was my step mother. I could have easily borrowed money for the return journey from her people in the house, but was too shy to do so and proceeded to Olarikara near Trichur on foot, along the railway track. It was getting dark. Luckily I saw the full moon rising in the eastern sky and enjoyed the whole journey, looking at the landscape in the moonlight and observing the goings on in the villages along the track, an experience we miss normally. When I reached the house of my cousin sister Kali, where I was staying and daily trekking to and from Kerala Varma College, Trichur,  a distance of about two miles, all  were sleeping soundly. I quietly slipped into my mattress on the floor and went to sleep immediately.