Jacob Martin Pathros was enthralled by the ad on
terror tourism which promised to take the tourist to the terrorist-jungles of
Chhattisgarh. Jacob Martin Pathros had already visited almost all countries, except the perverted South America, after retiring at the young
age of 56 from an ‘aided’ school in Kerala. 56 is the retirement age in Kerala’s
schools, aided as well as totally government-fed. Aided schools belong to the
different religious groups in Kerala. They build up the infrastructure with the
money extorted from the believers and then appoint as staff people who can pay
hefty donations in the name of infrastructure. The state government will pay the salary of the staff. The private
management will rake in millions by way of donations from job-seekers who are
usually the third-class graduates from rich-class families. And there are no
students to study in these schools because they are all Malayalam medium. Every
Malayali wants to go to Europe or North America and hence Malayalam medium
schools are obsolete. Only the government of the state and the managements of
the aided schools seem to be unaware of the obsolescence of these schools. But both
are happy to retain the rotting system because that is how politics is:
religion and its institutions bring in more votes than anything else.
Jacob Martin Pathros’s children were
all sent to CBSE English medium schools though he and his wife were both teaching
in the church-managed aided school of their own parish. They had paid no less
than one crore rupees to the diocese for securing their positions as teachers
in the secondary school. A lion’s share of that sum had come as dowry. Celina, Jacob
Martin Pathros’s wife, was from a rich family that was proud of its Christian
origins whose roots went back to Saint Thomas, the disciple of Jesus. They
believed that their ancestors were Namboothiris who were converted by the
disciple of Jesus himself. Jacob Martin Pathros, like most people in Kerala,
didn’t know that the Namboothiris arrived in Kerala only centuries after Saint
Thomas did, if he did at all.
“It’s much better than putting all
that money in the bank or in business,” Jacob will tell you if you ask him why
he couldn’t have done so many other better things with that much money. “At
school, you don’t have to do anything. Just sit in the staffroom or the classroom
and tell the children to read something or do whatever they wanted. After all
three or four children in a class, what harm can they do? They will go to sleep
after some horseplay or something. And I get my salary every month. Now I get
my monthly pension just sitting at home.”
That’s fantastic business sense.
Recently Jacob Martin Pathros’s school wanted some developmental constructions.
So the parish priest sent WhatsApp messages to all parishioners to make
generous contributions for the modernisation of their own school. No parishioner
ever questioned any demand of the parish priest. Faith does not question, they
had been taught in their infancy. Jacob Martin Pathros and other infants of his
generation were all rocked to sleep by their mothers who sang dirges for
lullabies.
Death will come one day, remember
you… The
lines still run in Jacob Martin Pathros’s veins though he is now a sexagenarian
who wants to see everything under the sun before he turns seventy because none
of his ancestors lived much beyond 70 years of age. Those ancestors were not
teachers in aided schools, of course. They were all farmers who tilled the hard
ground in sun and shower and carried the smell of soil on their tattering clothes.
They were people who didn’t rush to hospital when they ran a temperature or
barked a cough. A few leaves of the Tulsi in the tea or some dried ginger would
cure them. They couldn’t afford hospitals. The soil waited for them every
morning. Death was a proximate possibility especially for the women who had to
deliver children every year or so apart from cooking, washing, cleaning, and
working in the fields. The children were inevitable byproducts in a time where
social media and other diversions did not exist.
Jacob Martin Pathros had nothing to
do in the day. The pension amount was accruing in his bank account. The
government will eat it up in the name of income tax and umpteen other taxes. It’s
better to spend it on travels. Jacob Martin Pathros loved seeing people, especially
women who walked around wearing almost nothing. Don’t misunderstand me, please.
Jacob Martin Pathros was not a voyeur or anything. He loved the Arab women who
walked around looking like Penguins too. He liked these overdressed women
precisely for one reason: it gave his hatred of Muslim men a rational foundation.
When Prime Minister Modiji
annihilated the triple talaq affair, Jacob Martin Pathros burst crackers and
celebrated it. He nearly wanted to drink some cow urine to prove his
nationalist spirit, but Celina convinced him that cow urine was medicine only
when it is sold in the name of Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali brand.
Celina did love Jacob Martin Pathros.
It is a different matter altogether that he had never uttered a word of
affection to his wife in the last many years though he loved the Penguins of
Arabia. He had burnt their queen-size bed and bought two single beds so that he
and Celina could fart in peace while sleeping. His most recent meditation is
about whether he should shift his bed or his wife’s bed to another room
altogether. After all there are two empty bedrooms in the house since their
children, son and daughter, are both settled in Canada.
It is during one of those meditations that the tour ad caught Jacob Martin Pathros’s attention.
Contact details were given and Jacob Martin Pathros keyed in the given number on his smartphone that was giving a lot of problem these days because of the porn sites he visited frequently. “Welcome aboard, sir,” a sweet husky voice answered. And Jacob Martin Pathros jumped in. He wanted to touch a terrorist.
To be continued
Disclaimer: This is pure fiction. Any
resemblance to reality is unwarranted over-reading.
Caution: I started
this as a short story. Now it is threatening to become a novel. Inconvenience
is regretted.
Came to know that how aided-school system is working in Kerala, interesting indeed.
ReplyDeleteStick with me Murthy saab for a lot more info on Kerala's perverted social system.
DeleteThe same pattern is followed in CMC,Vellore. There the Resident doctors are asked to donate a part of their salary to the trust in the name of faith. Non-Christian patients who are suffering from terminally ill disease(like Cancer) are provided with Bible, So that they can ask for forgiveness before they depart.The institution knows how to take advantage of their helplessness.
ReplyDeleteThat's quite terrifying. They should give copies of the Gita in Rama Rajya.
DeleteHari Om
ReplyDeleteWell, you have me hooked and ready for the next edition! YAM xx
I'm thrilled, Yam. 🙏
DeleteGreat going!
ReplyDelete👍
DeleteDid the story start to get away from you? I know how that goes...
ReplyDeleteYes, that's how it started.
DeleteTerror scares me.
ReplyDeleteIn the next part of this story you'll meet some friendly terrorists.
Delete