This was his ‘home’ where he slept come heat, rain or cold, snoring like a steam engine laboriously chugging up a mountain. All this was kept under the staircase near the electricity meter board. A brown dirty handkerchief always showed in his pocket.Ī battered tin plate and mug, along with some dirty bedding, comprised his earthly possession. We would have a giggling fit, if by chance we ever spied part of his buttocks through the worn-out pants. His pants were frayed at the edges and worn out at the seat. Ironically, his pate was bald with wisps of matted hair and a huge black mole on the bald scalp stared at us like an ominous third eye. The buttons were broken and the gaps in the shirt gave us a peep of his hairy salt and pepper chest and a hirsute line running to his navel. The hand-me-down shirt he wore strained to cover him. He was a huge unkempt man with a big belly.
Keka was homeless and in our affluent community, this was something unheard of. He was so embedded in my consciousness that whenever I read fairy tales replete with fairies, goblins and ogres to my children and now grandchildren, Keka again came to my mind. Whenever Keka passed by the house, mothers would see that the children had a good look at him so that their jobs would be made easier when the need arose!įrom time to time we invite readers to contribute. Most children were endlessly blackmailed day after day, to fall in line, with Keka’s name. “Eat up or Keka will come to feed you”, “Stop this noise at once or else we’ll have to call Keka”, “Don’t cry, Keka does not like bawling children”. When the mothers wanted to frighten their children, it was Keka’s name they invoked.
#Keka food movie
When I first saw the Bollywood movie ‘Sholay’ and Gabbar boasting about his notoriety and how for miles his name was invoked by all mothers to frighten their children to fall in line, that Keka’s image came to mind. To my 6-year-old eyes there did not exist a more ferocious giant than Keka.
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