Varavoor also has a website.  www.varavoor.in

The site attempts to bring the soul of varavoor across the global village

Unni Mama, 2009

It was during early 1986, I had the opportunity to see TV and VCR (Video Cassette Recorder).  Unni Mama (Mama means uncle), while returning from Muscat, brought home a Sony TV and a National Panasonic VCR. He was with Toyota, as  Personnel Manager.  His ancestral home was just opposite to our home, and I could often run to his house to see the films and TV programmes tuned in the ‘wonder box’.  The cassettes Unni Mama brought from Muscat were Tom & Jerry cartoons, Poochakkoru Mukkuthi (a malayalam film), Brazil V/s France football match, Kattathoru Kilikkoodu (another Malayalam film) etc.  As the terrestrial transmission of Doordarshan was very feeble at Varavoor, we could see the programmes in these cassettes again and again.  I have seen ‘Poochakkoru mukkuthi’ 16 times!  Raju, Arun and Sobha, children of Unni Mama, always preferred to see Tom & Jerry.  All our neighbours came to their house to see the films and programmes.  For us, the programme was irrelevant.  We wanted to see the TV and VCR!  If the cassette player is not working, we will sit  and see the grains of the Doordarshan programmes. One of us will always keep tuning the

booster, expecting a better clarity for the pictures.  But in vain.  Within three months, Unni Mama and family shifted to Palakkad, leaving back the good memories of a new medium of communication.  It was after that, Suresh’s parents bought a new TV and we started seeing World Cup Football 1986 from his  home.

Raju N Kutty

Now Unni Mama is settled at Kochi, running his own business.   Raju N Kutty, his elder son, is also an entrepreneur.  He takes good photographs.  Arun N Kutty, his second son is a software engineer, working at Bangalore.

Sobha N Kutty, his daughter, a post graduate in home science is at Chennai.  She is a house wife. Unni Mama’s wife, Ambika Mami, is with him, at Kochi.

Photo by Raju N Kutty

A world of unique experiences.  Thats my varavoor.  One can find lot of funny situations when our lives are put under keen focus.  One such happened during the World Cup Football of 1986.  Only one television set was available in our village.  It was at my friend Suresh’s house.  Village floks flow to his house to see televison programmes.  World Cup Football 1986, made almost the whole village sleepless.  Games captured the full nights.  The day next, we spend for analysis of the games and predictions of the coming games.  There are some genuine experts among us.  But most of us pretends to be experts and join the discussion.

One such discussion was getting pace after England’s quarter final with Argentina.  The venue of the discussion was the tea shop run by my friend Prakashan’s family.  One person announced that there will be highlights tonight at 8 pm.  Hearing this, Prakashan’s father, who was making tea, took the tea cup, walked to the person to whom he has to give the tea, and innocently asked; “With which team is Highlights playing?  Who are the known players from the Highlights team?” The experts got stuck.  Pin drop silence was the result.

Now all of us have television at our homes.  Still, during world cups, we remember this.  For us, it is such memories which make people immortal.