Page 3 - Microsoft Word - My story of Pathyil Kalluvelil as told by Joseph Pathyil

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Introduction

Kalluvelil house has an attic, which the family calls thattinpuram. Old letters, moth-eaten
photographs, old account books, ancient paintings, discarded furniture, unusable or rarely
used utensils, trunks, heirlooms, ancient and heavy lamps, and such precious junk could
be found in the loft. One always knew that everything was put away, consigned, and safe
in the place. There is no order up there. From time to time one would go up to fetch a
specific object. It is dark in thattinpuram and it has a low ceiling. So one climbs the stairs
with a lighted lamp and stoops among the precious piles. The spiders, the lizards, the
house mice, and the kittens are the usual tenants of the attic. One walks cautiously
among the cobwebs, in the dark, and among the dust laden artifacts. One never knows
what one might stumble on to. One stays only for a short while in the stuffy atmosphere
of the loft, long enough to find the object or abandon the search for the time being. What
a family history does is to throw powerful lights in to the crevices and nooks and corners
of thattinpuram, expose everything to the naked eye, seek and bring forth memories
cached away for generations. It has its obvious advantages and attendant risks.

Every family has a unique story, a story that should be known to every member of the
family. Without this knowledge, he or she is a lesser human being. No one can exist in a
vacuum. All of us have roots and heritage that are singular.

When people immigrate to a new country, they opt for new ways of doing things. They
leave the land of the forefathers behind them. But they cannot leave behind their
characteristics - physical, mental and spiritual - as these are innate. It is necessary for the
children of immigrants to know how or why they do things in a particular way. Such
information enriches us all.

Mine is a modest attempt at putting on paper, in English, the story known to many of my
generation. The story needs to be told to all the Pathyils and their descendants in North
America. It is a story that they must cherish.

Naturally, any story is lost in its telling in the non-native tongue. The flourishes to the
story are diminished when committed to paper. In oral traditions, one tends to embellish,
add, or subtract in order to suit the audience. Once such a story is written down, it may
sound wooden or pedantic or scandal-ridden. But that is a risk one has to take, in order to
save the story itself.

Perhaps I am the one least qualified to write the story of the Pathyils, as I had left the
Pathyil foyer when very young, and returned only for occasional visits. On second
thought, such a person is perhaps best qualified, as he may be an interested observer,
rather than a participant in the story. However that is, I have undertaken to tell the story
because I have the interest and the time to tell it.

When writing the story of families in India, writers have traditionally confined
themselves to the male side of the family. I have deliberately shunned that method of
story telling. The story told in these pages belongs equally to our women as to our men
and their descendants. Naturally, the text may have to be expanded in the process, but all

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