12.RICE BY CHEMMANAM CHACKO

 12.RICE BY CHEMMANAM CHACKO

‘Rice’ is a poem in Malayalam written by Chemmanam Chacko and translated into English by Prof. K. Ayyappa Paniker. In the first half of the poem, the poet tells about his expectation of events that may happen when he goes to his house after four years. In the beginning, the poet tells that after four years doing research in North India, he is coming back to the native place which is in Kerala. He got research when he proved that through the husk, one could make toys. Now he is in a train. He is eager to eat a meal of athikira rice because he is fed up with chapaties.

 Now the poet gives the images of his father, little brother and mother and their response when he reaches his home. In his imagination, his father will be wearing a handloom dhoti which is blemished with yellow mud. He will be very happy that water is coming from Varanganal canal. The poet assumes that his father will see him from far and his father and would ask when he had started from there .Father would be busy in field and would be ploughing the field with oxen as it is planting season.

Seeing the poet, his little brother would happily run towards him with tender saplings of paddy which has to be planted in the paddy field.  His little brother would intimate his mother that he had arrived .

 The poet then imagines that in order to reach his house which is beside the paddy field, he has to walk through the paddy field. In his imagination, he is walking very carefully along the dyke so that he will not damage the baskets full of seed. While he is on the way to his home, his mother will be separating rice soup from rice. Imagining all these, he wants to reach his home as far as possible.

In the second section, the poet sees the changes that have happened when he reaches his native place. When he left his place, there were only palm-thatched houses. Now instead of palm-thatched houses, there are only trees. Also, there are rubber plants everywhere which are twice than his height. These rubber plants replace ‘modan and vellaran’, varieties of paddy. Now he has confusion about whether he has taken the wrong path.

 Now the poet has reached the house. Four years back, there was a paddy field adjacent to his house. So he expects that he can hear the shouts of workers who are engaged in ploughing. Unfortunately, he cannot hear such shouts. He gets a shock. To his dismay, he sees areca nut palms in that field. Also, there are deal wood trees on either side of the canal. 

Finally, the poet enters his house. His father is observing a worker fixing up the rubber sheet making the machine. His father informs that he has shifted to a commercial plantation because there is no profit in paddy cultivation. Father stated that only a few people are cultivating paddy in their fields. Beyond that, Government is providing rice to people in the name of the ration.  

 At that time, the poet’s little brother arrives. Seeing his brother, the poet yearns to have a full meal of athikira rice. But he is shocked to see the wheat ration spilling on the floor. While the poet observes these changes, he hears the sound of the aeroplane which he describes as the “ship of the sky”. He says that the Chief Minister of Kerala might have gone to the centre for requesting more rice. He sarcastically comments that the Chief Minister is passing above the cash crops which have destroyed the paddy cultivation in Kerala. 

As the poem ends, the poet sarcastically asks a question whether the Centre will give him husk to make toys too.

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