Vinayachandran sir.
The year is 2012. I am 12 years of age . Talkative. Curious . Interested in poetry, music, dance and infact everything except studies . Among my many friends , there is someone special whom I fondly love and respect. My friend and neighbor, the malayalam poet , D Vinayachandran.
I was 11 when my family shifted to a rented house near Ayurveda College in Thiruvananthapuram . Two houses away lived this writer , who was in his late 50s at the time. He lived alone and his rented house was this vertically long , three storeyed building with one room on each floor. I was fascinated at the structure of that house . The resident of the house , a unique looking tall man who walked through the lane greeting other neighbors with a great smile also seemed like an interesting person to me . We became friends real soon, I don't remember how we first started talking though!
I called him "Vinayachandran sir" because my father called him that. He loved the presence of children. He'd give us ( my brother and another girl who was also our neighbor)author's copies of the children's books he wrote but I always wondered why he never gave me any of his own popular poetry collections . Only years after his departure had I come to know that he was a post modernist writer . He sure knew that a 11 year old would not be able to grasp it.
One evening, he rang our door bell . He'd never enter anyone's house ,even if we invited him. He called me and gave me a bouquet and this oil painting of Gandhi which was wrapped in colour paper .
" I got it from a function. You keep it . " He said . He smiled . I smiled . Did I thank him? I don't remember.
I shifted to a new place a year later . I don't remember the last time we talked. A few months after that , he passed away. I saw on TV, his lifeless body being kept for the public to have a last look at their dear poet at VJT Hall nearby. I didn't want to go there . I didn't want to see the funeral of my friend. I was too young to know that I'd to pay my homage. My parents didn't compel me to go . They all knew he was my friend . I remember seeing him on TV and running to my room. There I wept . No , I cried. I distinctly remember that.
Today , I don't have any of those books he gave me . They all somehow were lost when we shifted houses( which we did twice or thrice after that ). All I've got is this painting that someone gifted him at some function. I remember his contagious smile everytime I look at it. I'm glad and thankful to the universe to have known him.
I'm unfamiliar with most of his poems even today . I honestly never felt like reading his poems ,maybe because when we were friends he never talked about his own works . Even for my school recitation competition , he just taught me Vayalar's poem . I wanted him to teach me one from his own poetry collection but he didn't and I never complained. His immortal lines are discussed and devoured by literature enthusiasts today but my memories of poet D Vinayachandran is that of a kind hearted friend with a charming smile and bold voice.
I happened to read a short stanza from one his poems which I think is about lovers but the lines are beautiful and haunting!
"നീ ഉറങ്ങുന്നതിന് മുമ്പ്
നിന്നെയോര്ത്ത് മയങ്ങി ഞാന്
നീ മരിക്കാതിരിക്കുവാന്
നിനക്കായ് മരിച്ചു ഞാന്... "
Poet D Vinayachandran will always live in my heart .
