Namakkal Narayanan & the Muser.

Namakkal Narayanan was the shift-mate cum roommate of the Muser, in the Private Company mentioned earlier (Read One Legged Crow). The former happened by accident and the latter by choice. The latter happened due to various reasons; both suffered from homesickness, melancholic feelings as well as the passion for “sound of music” – Hindi film songs. Another passion they picked up together was playing bridge and climbing the nearby hillock (a la Edmond Hillary & Tensing Norge).

Their room was a virtual sound studio. A five valve radio (made in England) was hooked up with few specially designed speaker elements, seated at the neck of earthenware of varying sizes, to get Bass Treble and hoofer effects. This novel audio system drew admiring hostel inmates as willing listeners. This diversion made both of them to temporarily forget about their homesickness.

Enthused by the popular response Namakkal Narayananan purchased one National Panasonic tape recorder. It had become an obsession with the duo to take up recording of hit songs (from LP/EP records). People used wonder why one should take such pains to patiently record on tape, listen and then re-record the same song by adjusting the recording volume. They did not know once bitten by a passion, no records were left unturned.

With similar enthusiasm, they organized and led willing hostel mates on trekking trips to nearby hillocks. They might not have been climbing the Everest but any small achievement was balm to their peace of mind. Many used to wonder about the duo’s sufferings and mood swings, yet they happily partook in the trekking organized, since no expenditure was involved. All were in some sort of financial crisis. Happy only on the pay day as they would be counting paisa’s till the next pay day.

Namakkal Narayanan was the only person who did not show undue interest in knowing about what had transpired during the closed door meeting between the Muser and the WM (Read One Legged Crow). He instinctively knew how his roommate would have felt. That was the type of bond they had which prompted them to attempt “psychic communication”.

This led to another interesting pastime. They wanted to use this technique of “psychic communication” in playing bridge, par with local club. After many of cups of coffee & tea, they resolved to develop a different system of bidding (Vulnerable, Pre-emptive bid, cue-bid, No-trump and slam etc).

Muser took the responsibility and put in long hours thinking about a camouflaged sequence for bidding. All the while the muser was dreaming that his bidding system will be used besides other established systems. The duo practiced the developed system for bidding in local club matches. Sometimes they fared well and at other times ended up over bidding.

A year passed. Namakkal Narayanan got married and moved out from the hostel. Few months later, the muser quit his work & joined a government organization and slowly lost contact with his friend.  Namakkal Naraynan also resigned and joined a petrochemical company in Baroda.

The music still reminds the muser of his friendship in difficult times, when the friends stood by each other. The ‘Dam site’ and the “karumalaikoodal” hillocks have become distant memories. Even now the muser nostalgically recollects – him being called “SIVAAA” and his friend being called “hey Narayanaa”.  'The Destroyer' and 'The Protector', What a strange friendship!