Amballore House by Jose Thekkumthala Page B

met with a traffic accident that took away his life. It would happen many years after the episode where George defended his mom from Thoma’s blows.
    Thomas was married and living with his young wife and their twin sons. He was in his thirties, and the year was 2006. When he was riding his bike that day, he was full of excitement because of an upcoming birthday celebration that he had planned for his twin sons. He was lost in thought. That is when a big truck came hurtling down from the opposite side and sent him flying.
    He would still have been with his young family, seeing to his twins growing up and giving support to his young wife, if it were not for that disastrous accident. It is one thing seeing people dying of old age and it is a totally different thing seeing young life being snatched away. But that is what happened to Thoma’s grandson, Thomas. Anyone with a heart is bound to cringe at the thought of the tragedy happening to a young life. A father and mother should not be cursed to live to see their son’s death.

6A CULTURAL PASSAGE
    This is Josh. I live in Canada. I’d like to tell you my story in first person. Talking to you face-to-face is like writing a personal letter and I believe ** personal letter is the most intimate way of communicating. I am going to use this opportunity to tell you what is on my mind. Hope you don’t mind.
    To understand what it means when I tell you that to get out of the Mannuthy home was like paradise gained, you ought to have been with me as my sibling, living there with me, breathing the same air as I was, and battling innumerable moments of hurdles that our combined miserable existence presented unfailingly, with no hope in sight. But lucky you, you were not, and therefore you may not fully comprehend when I tell you that just to get out of there to anywhere, not necessarily to somewhere where sun shone, was sunshine in itself. Simply to dream while I was veiled in despair was a dream come true. While living there, I dreamed for the sake of dreaming, knowing very well that that was all what I could hope for, while the rest of the world knew that there was a tomorrow when their dreams would come to fulfillment.
    Life was robed in the gloom of misery so much so that unhappiness was expected to be an indispensable part of even childhood. We did not know anything better personally. Nevertheless, we were aware that it existed elsewhere, judging from the happy looks and smiling faces of our friends in the school. I was steadily sinking into desperation, along with my siblings. We were at the end of the road, lost and unsure of what to do. We were up against the proverbial wall.
    It was while some of us were thus contemplating suicide born of desperation that postman came knocking at the door. He carried a letter from a Canadian university. The letter stated that I was offered graduate fellowship at that institution. This news was so earth shattering that for a couple of days, I could not eat or drink. I was like a little boy, overjoyed at an unexpected gift from Santa Claus on the Christmas Eve.
    It became big news in Amballore. At that time in history—that is, 1975—going away from India was like getting into heaven. Going away from my family would be like attaining the seventh heaven. Amballore citizens believed that I was going to heaven even before I died. Even one-eyed Chettiar came to our rental home and congratulated me. He was happy that our family would no more be overdue on rental payments.
    That letter meant a lot of things and changed course of events in my life and in our lives. Holding the letter in my hand, a letter that told me of an unbelievable opportunity, a letter that promised me a future far away from Mannuthy —it was like capturing a moment of magic. The letter was like Aladdin’s lamp that I was able to invoke the genie with. The genie would grant all my pent-up desires and fulfill all my dreams.
    Looking back, I know the letter was more important than