8 Random Facts

1) Though I do not remember the time I was born, I am told it was the first time I cried. Though I do not remember what I liked or disliked then, I have been reminded on more than one occasion that I liked the smell of kerosene, so much so that I once drank a lot of it. Even though you may tend to disagree, I must say, it did not harm me gravely. Though I guess, it did screw up my olfactory senses and has made the smell of kerosene repugnant enough for me to have puked each time I smelt it during those long rides on dilapidated buses we took when we had to travel to the city. Perhaps – I again surmise – it was this relation of sickness to buses and buses to travel, that made me hate buses, travelling and anything else related to travelling. And it is for this latter reason I think, that I liked staying put at home, and perhaps due to this that I started getting bored of home, and therefore took up books to exorcise boredom in order to stay put.

2) 2) I am told that even when I didn’t have enough sense of consciousness to realize that I was in fact trying to read, I used to attempt reading the newspaper upside down. My maternal grandfather always kept me beside him whenever he was working, he gave me a pen and a rough notebook and I – the ever obedient grandson that I was – used to scribble on the book either until when there was no other page left to scribble on, or when my grandfather or anyone else stopped me from scribbling anymore. I always liked sitting at one place, even before I started travelling. So, I think I am contradicting my first statement.

3) 3) I was named Unnikrishnan Neithilath when I was about 6 months old. Unni in Malayalam means ‘child’. Krishnan of course means Krishnan, and not someone who is so dark that it is hard to capture his image on a photograph. Neithilath is the surname of my mother, which she got from her mother, and so on (This is a custom in the Nair community that the surname of the mother’s is passed on instead of the father’s.) Then I got named bugs bunny, for some insane, inane reason….then got nicked Dr. Flea…then I got nicked panni (I don’t know why)…then I got nicked prandan unni (Unni the psycho, “why?” is quite evident I think)…then vulgar-unni (for my sense of humor)…then director Unni (for a flopped play)…then editor unni (for the newsletter)…I am planning to name myself Unnamed Unni…doesn’t have the touch though…am still thinking…ideas for names are welcome.

4) 4) I learnt balling; I liked it and I balled so much that I never got to bat. I didn’t give a damn. During one period, I made it a ritual to eat five-star before I went out to play a game.

5) 5) I once made humus out of a lot of waste and decided I would become a biologist. Then my friend and myself, took the wood shavings from a sharpener, added explosive powder from the “atom bomb”, some water, mixed it with something else, then I think we heated it (If we did, we were lucky not have blown up the kitchen), and at last put whatever it was, in the freezer. After a week we found a silver colored precipitate, which my friend’s mother threw out in a fit of frenzy as soon as she saw it in our hands. I made up theory for things falling on the ground, and told it to friends, none of whom understood a damn thing (this was in seventh). I at the same time, also started writing stories inspired by hardy boys, of whose collection I had read only half a book. I wrote two stories, the themes of which I do not remember. I then saw the film “Border” and decided I would join the army. I was also inspired by the famous cartoon GI Joe. I played a lot with a lot of toys, day dreaming war sequences. Abhinandan and myself would sit together, and painstakingly set up the whole thing in about two hrs, hiding the villains, imagining beds as cliffs, and the floor as the battleground; and then in one stroke we would finish off the villains, because we knew where they were hiding exactly.

6) 6) I always thought specs were cool. I thought they made me look intellectual. The first specs I bought were round, like that of Harry Potter’s. After reading Harry Potter I always dreamt about my pen suddenly becoming my wand, and being able to blast my teachers into oblivion. I had a humongous crush on Hermione.

7) 7) Whenever I eat apples at home, with all civility in me, I throw whatever is left into the bushy park in front of my home, thinking that after a long time those seeds grow into apple trees and that park change into an apple orchard.

8) 8) Once as I rode my two-wheeler (spirit aka “kukka pilla” for the noise it makes) I had an intense, irritating wish to scratch my right knee. I didn’t want to slow down the vehicle, and for some reason wanted to scratch my right knee with my right hand. After some amount of careful deliberation I came to the conclusion that I could hold the accelerator with my left and the scratch my right knee with my right hand. I tried that ingenious plan: the scooter lost balance, skidded about ten feet, was about to land in a gutter but was saved by a tree. All this luckily happened in front of the hospital. I am alive, and that is about the best random fact I can give you about myself.