2023-06-01 09:18:43
# Zakaria/ Mangad Ratnakaran
An excerpt from the book John Abraham by KN Shaji. Mangat Ratnakaran’s essay on Zacharias, the writer’s recollections of John.
JoeNin was first seen during the shooting of the film Trisandhya. John was the assistant director of the unreleased film. I was the secretary of A.K.P.T.A. Then I got into a car accident. It was reported that I had died. One day Kottayam KK. John found me dead and alive as I walked down the road. During the talk, John talked regarding making a new film. A priest named Joseph. The movie is regarding a little boy and a big boy in the surroundings of a church.
We met once more. John’s and my best friend, E.P. Apart from Kurien, Aravindan, Sethu, C.N. Karunakaran, C.N. Sreekanthan Nair there are many people like this sometimes. To complete the screenplay, John and I settled in a two-storied slum of Kotukappalli in Aluva with friends. John also has a serious drinking problem; Positive alcohol consumption.
Once Kuryan and I went to take a bath in the pond near our residence. John is lying in the room with a fit. If it is six, it is overflowing. Turbulent water is injected. Bathing in it was a terrible deal, but we got down to it. Couldn’t for a while. Kuryan lost his footing in the current. Caught me for support. I got carried away too. I know how to swim. But Kuryan is holding me close to death. We are both sinking. Luckily there was a loophole to escape. We thus drifted slowly towards the shore, and moved away to where there was no great current. Meanwhile, someone had shaken John and informed him of this matter. John is standing on the terrace of the building and calling us all the terri in Malayalam. A speech mixed with anger and sadness. ‘You are some people. Don’t you know you’re going to die’, John shouts.
And so it ended. The script writing continued. It was then that John’s father passed away. Father is John’s weakness. All of us immediately took a car and went to Chenankari. Because John’s father was involved in some church disputes, there were disputes over burial. That said. One of John’s brothers has left the body uncovered once more to come; John will be angry. Finally the father was buried there.
After that, John turns to alcohol incessantly. John might not bear his father’s death. John was angry that his father had remarried. But John was like a lamb before his father.
John decided to stay away from the country for a while. John returned to Madras. I also went with him. He took a room there and started trying to complete the script. As for John’s drinking, there is no stopping him. One day John is lying under the bed passed out following drinking. I am above. John is having a conversation. Simultaneously as father, mother and self in separate voices. John was very broken mentally.
Somehow I lost the time to write the script. John had new ideas in his mind. John chased the priest away and went to shoot the film, Students. I went there when I got a job as an area manager in a company in Coimbatore. He took a room in a hotel and started living alone.
Then John appeared there. Arriving in the wake of a big Madras movie star. When the filmmaker filed a case, John went into hiding. Thinking that it would be a proper hiding life, John cut off his beard and made him a clean man. John lived there as a good socialite.
I leave John alone in the room and go to the office. One day I was in the office when I got a call from the hotel that my friend was in danger. When I looked over, John was being held down by people. I held John by the feet and hands of the assembled people and freed him. When he was alone in the room and was absorbed in some thoughts, John, disturbed by the sound from the adjacent room, nodded his head through the ventilator and signaled him to be quiet. Because there were women in the room, John’s actions misled them. John had no interest in sex.
This is when I get married. He got a house of his own and settled John there. It was John who received us when he and his wife returned from the country. John is living like a good family man. John is like a lamb in a family environment. Receiving guests and making quests were all very important to John.
So we celebrated our honeymoon with John. John also cut down on alcohol and went into complete relaxation with ventures such as buying vegetables, cooking, sleeping, reading and writing poetry. John used to have long discussions regarding Brahminism with my Tamil Brahmin wife. One such day, during one of John’s endless toilet meditations, Agraharam gave birth to a colt. On my wife’s suggestion, John went and met Venkat Swaminathan to write the script. Swaminathan agreed. The script was completed with a scandal.
I then went to Delhi. He lived with his family politely and respectfully. That is, became part of the establishment. John, on the other hand, began to live with complete freedom, drinking and otherwise. Born in the midst of orthodoxy, John might not survive in society without drinking. This seems to be the sociological explanation for John’s drinking. It was a form of protest. Later, John fell into the society of smugglers. John’s style is to live by making a confrontation with life. John will deliver as far as he can take a situation; Never going back.
John Abraham
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I remember once John, Kuryan and our rich friend George and I went to the famous ‘Toddy Parlor’ in Ernakulam. He was coming to the room in George’s car, fit and well fed. That’s when a party’s procession passed that way. George stopped the car. If it is a procession, it does not end even following going. John is very upset. He is saying everything that came out of his mouth. He called John George ‘Where’s the car’. John himself took the steering wheel and drove the car into the crowd. Two or three processions fell down. The car is being hit with sticks etc. Angry party workers all around. Do you know what kind of situation it is? Death can occur. In the end Kuryan and I got rid of it by prostrating ourselves.
Alcohol was a medium for John to see the world. A way to face the world anyway. John’s non-drinking was a big deal to everyone in the family. John will conquer all with love. John knew many things that only women knew.
But a system cannot afford a drunken John. John is sure to agree with that. This is why I have fallen out with John.
I am staying in Sarvodaya Enclave when John comes to Delhi with his donkey. KG with John. There are some friends like George. John and his friends stayed at my house. After my wife and I went to work, leaving our daughter alone, John and his friends started drinking. I know following two or three days. Everyone is a good Pimpiri when one day, when they are cut off at an unusual time. I told John that there was no drinking in the house, and that it was enough to put it all out.
‘Are you Zacharias telling John to get out?’ John asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
John became very sentimental. Stepping back down, John repeated the same question. When I didn’t respond, he came out and shouted at me from downstairs. ‘I will see you’, ‘I will not step foot here once more’. John is ready at home for breakfast the next morning.
Behind John’s rebellious posture was unrequited love. Joseph is also talking regarding a warm relationship with John in a priest. All John wanted from life was love. But John was the opposite in his search for love.
The last time John came to Delhi with his mother was for the 1987 film festival. John was completely helpless. John’s endless drinking made companionship impossible. John’s residence was in Ashoka. I will go there and see John. John is constantly ordering alcohol. You can guess the rate there. I forbade John from it. John insisted that he give the money in exchange for the air ticket back home. 1000 rupees was left following paying the liquor bill etc. John’s next plan is to enter the town with it. John can sleep only if that money is gone. I took 700 rupees from it and kept it in my hand. Booked a ticket for John to Madras and kept the remaining Rs.
In March of the same year, I went to Thiruvananthapuram as a member of the Film Awards Committee of the Government of Kerala. John’s mother was also among the pictures. John visited the hotel where I was staying several times. Fearing that meeting the director of competing films would lead to accusations, TN. Jayadevan convinced John that I am not here by saying many things. Knowing that it was not John’s nature to influence anyone, I tried to avoid the meeting. I thought the gathering might be over following the award announcement. Meanwhile, John sent someone to the hotel. John’s message is that it is a must see and will be in the tea shop opposite the Tagore Theater in the evening. I got scared in the evening and went to the tea shop. John is sitting here. A film critic and a journalist have somehow sensed this and are once morest John. I felt angry and sad. I asked John formally what was the matter.
‘I need twenty-five very badly,’ replied John.
I had no money in my hand. I said no.
That was my last meeting with John.
I learned of John’s death while attending the wedding of Joseph Pulikunnel’s daughter (who later died under tragic circumstances) at Pala. He immediately left for Chennangari with his friends. John was last seen.
So many deaths have come between John and I’s friendship. The news of my death brought us closer. Then John’s father died. Many close friends have left us. And finally John.
The goldmine of John’s words is all around us. John’s was an inimitable and inimitable extraordinary personality. It is impossible to be John.
(Prepared from conversation: Mangad Ratnakaran).
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