Kochi in our school days was just Kochi - with attractions like Fort Kochi as the only beach around our place, the Portuguese Church from Vasco de Gama's times, and Mattanchery with its Judapalli (Jewish Synagogue) and Edakochi after Palluruthy - just another Kochi of no great significance, perhaps, one of the farthest bus destinations by private public transport bus from Ernakulam.
It was the late 90s movies that revealed to people like us who were just about 10 kms from Kochi, that Kochi was another face of Kochi city, we hardly ever used to refer to our place as Kochi, in spite of its being in the heart of Kochi city. The Mammootty dialogue of .... had become a kind of byline for anyone to refer to Kochi as 'Kochi pazhaya Kochiyalla' (Kochi is not the old Kochi) of Big B, and several other Mammootty and Mohanlal movies depicting the dark side of Kochi came to be known to people like me, especially those who left Kochi in our school days, only through such movies. Kochi of thugs, drug peddlers, mafias, having its own peculiar Malayalam.
It was in our informal gathering at Qatar that Johny the heartian from Kochi revealed some very special people of the erstwhile Kochi - like Rape Antakka (pardon the misogynistic ring - that was how the locality had taxonomised him), Electric Hamsa, Spring Babu...
Rape Anthakka was notorious for his ability to molest and violate women either as a contract agent for the same or for the satiation of one's own animal instincts. He even announced his arrival in advance and succeeded in ruining the lives of many. Once he thus announced his arrival at a wedding home, and people were all set to thwart his attempt. However, he accomplished his act by breaking in unexpectedly through the roof. The family and relatives were really put off, that they pursued him, and he ran more than 2 kilometers only to be caught, beaten to a pulp and his sexual organ mutilated to pieces. He had to be wrapped in a mat (paya) to be taken away, and that was the end of a notorious character of Kochi. The audience was expecting something more terrible, more vicious, more wicked...
Then there was electric Electric Hamsa - who was a taskara veeran, and a great terror for people. If Hamsa walked a street, all would just try to keep off, and leave the street all for him. In his old age too Hamsa used to walk around with a dagger. Once he arrived at a teashop, and dug his dagger onto the tea shop table, and ordered a tea and a banana fried. But the teashop help came up coolly, unhooked the dagger, gave a tea and a banana fried, and instructed: Hamsakka, please go (Hamsakka chellu). That was the transformation that occurred to a local terror of yesteryears.
Then there was spring Babu who used to spring from one spot to another, and would easily abscond after his petty crimes. He would come close to people, bend a little, and spring at them unawares, making a noise 'brrrr', making them start. That was his way of having fun. Then there was Mattancheri Kalapam (riot), perhaps somewhere in the mid-80s, and the place was surrounded by CRPF personnel. And it was all curfew around. But Spring... tried to go around nonchalantly, and as per his wont, he tried his 'spring action' with the CRPF person around, making him startle, and he pounced upon him, with his colleagues joining the melee, beating him black and blue. That was the end of Spring Babu's springing action.
All these anti-heroes of the region seemed to fizzle out in the superman aura they had built up, and they end up invariably almost as tragic heroes of the legend the local community had woven around them. Johny says there are other characters yet to be revealed - Nazareth Ponnen and Pappachan, Kaki Basheer...
I felt the punch we felt in the narration in a casual post-dinner conversation was lost in narrating it in English
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