ADI PARVA

THE ADVENTURES OF HANUMAN   MURALI

                                   

Preface

I do not know when I first met Murali; I must have been a toddler, I did ask him though but all he would say “You were only a child” that is hardly something because many still consider me a child at both heart and mind.

I am currently twenty seven, some consider this an age of action and illumination, but I was still the same man I was five years ago, a minor position at a minor literary journal. By minor I mean only by circulation and not by standing.

Murali or Hanuman Murali as he is popularly known in the neighborhood is somewhere between forty nine and fifty three; I can never come to a conclusion. He is also one of the few people to have two birth certificates; one from his original birth place and another from Madras.

This February had not been particularly pleasant, we received a major dip in sales and our editor had to announce to the staff that, he would be taking the Madras Literary Review (MLR) online because of the cost of paper and we could say that we have become a green company by doing so, it didn’t raise spirits but we had something to do.

It was during the time that I renewed my friendship with Murali, I had met him during one of the fancy dress competitions held by the local school and I was attending because one of my cousins was portraying Mother Theresa, he had been the judge of the contest.

Murali was one of the stars during my childhood, he had essayed the part of Hanuman in the long running TV series of the epic, I still remember the days when we (my brother &I) would positions ourselves at the stipulated time before set and watch with admiration the exploits of the Ayodhya brothers aided by their loyal devotee, the monkey faced Hanuman.

Everyone knew the Ramayana, at least everyone I knew did. It was India’s national epic; but the television series was a humongous hit and its stars became icons at least of that era.

It was a Hindi series, with a majority of the cast being from the north of the Vindhyas; in our household there had been only one man who claimed to know the national language; it was Uncle Siddharta or Siddhu as we did call him, he had served in the army as a doctor and was stationed in the Upper Garhwal regions, he would in the corner of what was then known as the ‘TV’ room and translate word by word and would promptly give a summary of the episode during lunch. The TV room sadly does not exist anymore, it was torn down to pieces when my brother married a designer and they both wanted some place to work. The TV room now is the fashion room.

Coming back to the series, Murali was an exception; he was in fact the only recognizable south Indian star in the series, and the most exciting thing was he lived three houses down.

It was good thing that he did remember me all these days, but the sad thing was that he took some time to remember my brother; I had to do expressions and walk like him before Sajeev became a reality to him.

“Ah yes, now I remember your elder brother, he was the one who turned atheist because he failed in biology…yes yes now I do” said Murali.

It was odd that he remembered that small piece of trivia and not the person himself, I think the conversion of Sanjeev into an atheist had somehow affected Murali, he playing the quintessential God devotee in more than three hundred appearances; yes it would have hurt his faith.

The incident though out of context proves to be still a much quoted anecdote in our large family, “Sanjeev was a studious kid except of course in some subjects which he completely hated, and one of them was biology, he would always study hard for them, cursing his teachers and his plight at having to do extensive illustrations about the internals of the human body, the night before the boards Sanjeev had transformed himself into this orange creature smearing himself with everything divine and singing songs well into the night, I doubt if he ever did sleep, as you might have guessed Sanjeev had failed by twelve marks.

Later when received the transcripts we found out that he had drawn the liver instead of the heart, this singular incident had sparked his transformation from a pious boy to a card carrying atheist. One member of the family rightly pointed out ‘Liver is where the heart is’

It is point to be noted the Sanjeev regained confidence in divinity when his in laws took him on a magical tour of temples in Kerala just after marriage, yes it does seem mysterious.

It was during this conversation that I told Murali about the literary crisis my magazine was facing; he took a moment and said “Why don’t you write my story..?”

It was something of a startling question; no doubt Hanuman Murali was one of my childhood heroes but writing about his life was hardly the solution I was looking for. The man seemed to understand my plight, he said “It’s full of drama and action, even if you are not satisfied you can always fictionalize as you always do, the decision is yours, I’m always free”

I took the next day off and considered his offer, then I went to my editor; my editor being the person he is said “We are going online, no one is going to care what we are going to read, get on with it” thus began my tryst with destiny, I planned this to be a variety piece every Sunday taking the best from both our lives, Murali was impressed; he had at last something to do after many months.

“So what are we going to call it?” he asked

“The adventures of Hanuman Murali” I said with a firm smile on my face, I had formed the title a few minutes back. I could see light in his eyes.