“People cannot go through that temple road,” my friend Krishnakumar vented his anger. I asked what exactly happened. “A new person has been appointed as the priest of the temple.” So what! I exclaimed. Krishnakumar took the newspaper from my living room. On the fourth page he showed news about Nagamana, an ancestral house of a prominent Brahman landlord, very interesting news for archaeologists. Krishnakumar continued, the news about this house appears in the newspaper often. Whenever such news appears, the newly appointed temple priest will call out to everyone who passes the temple path and boast of the greatness of his ancestors. People had had enough of his bragging. Krishnakumar was one of those who got bored with Raman Namboodiri’s endless narration. Having made me understand his story about Raman Namboodiri, Krishnakumar set out for the nearby river on the way to my house.

After Krishnakumar left the scene, I developed a great desire to meet the newly appointed temple priest. From the beginning, he had been an admirer of Brahmanism. In addition, he only wanted to know the veracity of the newspaper’s content by interviewing him personally. Being an introvert, I couldn’t muster up the courage to introduce myself and start small talk so I could dig deeper. I was hoping that Krishnakumar would help me in this regard, but this guy turned out to be too elusive for this cause.

After this incident, I met Krishnakumar frequently. Although he reported more on the priest’s boasts that made me laugh out loud, he did little to introduce it. As the days passed, my attention turned to the latest political changes that became hot news. One day, he was sitting by the roadside to read a left-wing newspaper. At that moment, my attention was caught by a short stranger coming out of a nearby kiosk. He was dressed in a dhoti sans shirt with lines of ash on his forehead and a sacred thread around his body. While he was watching his movements, he approached me and introduced me: “I am Raman Namboodiri, the new priest of the temple.” I couldn’t hide my joy when I stumbled upon what he was looking for. Cleverly concealing sarcasm, I told him that I had heard about him through my friends and newspaper reports. I congratulated him, “you’re the talk of the town now.” This impressed him to be in the good books of him.

My eagerness to listen to him turned into an affable sympathy. In fact, few listened to him due to his boasting. He began to visit my house and we discussed issues related to castism, religion and others. Every time he visited my house, he would ask me for a grass mat, which I duly provided. Whatever he spoke, I listened with great interest. He said, “our ancestors had 5000 acres of land. This land was given by Lord Parasuram, one of Vishnu’s avatars.” Due to land reforms, they lost their land. Poverty caused his father to sell the mana (ancestral home of the Brahmins) to the government. Now they live in a rented house. I sympathized with him when he narrated his pathetic story. Even the sitting MLA from the nearby town was the tenant of it. There was seething anger in his words against the current democratic system.

Although we both liked each other, I noticed one thing. Most of the people in the community literally hated him, especially the elite class Nairs for their disrespect to their community. Since I believed his words that it was out of jealousy that the locals hated him, I wanted to clear that up with my childhood friend Krishnakumar. One day I asked Krishnakumar about this. Krishnakumar revealed to me, “Namboodiri is a man of oddities with explicit character flaws.” To my utter surprise, Krishnakumar told me that the priest was in the habit of eating beef at roadside restaurants. He added that Namboodiri often comes to the temple without bathing. “Although this caught his attention several times, he only showed callous contempt,” Krishnakumar continued. This is a cardinal sin, I interrupted, “a Namboodiri must have a high moral standard, he must not consume beef, nor must he skip the bath.” I asked for proof of this. In those days there were no cell phones with cameras. Therefore, it was not possible to take snapshots of the prank of him as proof. “You have to believe the rumors, without fire the smoke doesn’t rise,” Krishnakumar joked as he rode away from him.

While meditating on this matter, I felt on the horns of the dilemma, how to upset and avoid my friend. In those days he used to frequent my house to chat. In my presence, he behaved like a gentleman. I consoled myself, “perhaps these were all falsely fabricated stories, or time will show who is right.”

A month had passed after this. For several days, I started to miss my friend Raman Namboodiri. As usual, Krishnakumar was cycling to the river for his afternoon bath. I called out loud and got his attention. He turned and rode directly towards me. Without asking me, he said, “Raman Namboodiri has been transferred for misconduct.” Amazed, I entered Krishnakumar to reveal more. “While offering flowers to the women, he placed a love letter with flowers in the hands of a pretty girl who immediately showed the letter to her parents. Before long, the parents took the matter to the Dewaswom board.” . That is why this transfer, Krishnakumar narrated.

As Krishnakumar ran towards the river, I warned myself, character flaws ruin the run, the example of Nagamanathu Tamburan is an indicator of this.