It's Year Zero in Kayyoor, where time lies stagnant in the granite memory of martyrdom. And another day fades out in the river of deep secrets, of antique revenge. In the stillness of night, revolution once again becomes the spasmodic ballad of Pokkai.Illuminated by a lantern, surrounded by grandchildren, the paper-thin Pokkai, his 94 years held aloft by a stick thicker than him, has been waiting for the wayfarer in search of the Kayyoor story, heroism's red chapter in the mythology of Kerala communism.Pokkai was Accused No. 28 in the "Kayyoor Incident". The "incident" is today preserved in a pillar of dull red. "The Immortal Martyrs of Kayyoor: Madathil Appu, Koyithattil Chirukandan, Pallikkal Abubacker, Podera Kunjambu Nair" - remember them? They were Pokkai's comrades half-a-century ago. Currently, they are a garish inscription on the banks of Karyangadu Puzha, the river Tejaswini. A flagpost of the CPI(M), the institutionalised legatee of the Kayyoor saga, a half-constructed building, abrick-by-brick declaration of the eternity of romance, the vigilant canopy of coconut trees, and the all-knowing journey of Tejaswini - Kayyoor lives in the backyard of history, a space between hills and the river in North Malabar.And Pokkai is a gasping testament of the living legacy of a very personal intifada, autonomous from books and theories. That day on March 29 in 1943, Pokkai was there in the procession of peasants. It was a protest against police brutality, the lesser class' rising anger against higher class landlordism. Suddenly, Subbarayan the constable found himself trapped between two processions, a river, and a hill. He was subjected to proletarian humiliation. He was placed in the vanguard of the march, forced to hold the flag of rebellion. For life's sake, he suffered. A subaltern's mockery of the State's tyranny, played out in the distant "soviet" of a Kerala village. Subbarayan wanted to run, to escape, to redeem his uniform. The river called him. He didn't wait. His solitaryprocession in the water was celebrated by high-velocity stones. But Subbarayan's martyrdom lies orphaned outside the hagiography of sub-rural romance.And Pokkai is romancing his own history in the darkness of the courtyard. Four of his comrades were hanged for the death of a policeman. He was imprisoned, tortured, and freed. Today, he is the ceremonial relic of a folk heroic struggle, never ill enough to disappoint the seeker of Kayyoor saga. "But I'm too old and tired to work for the party." But listen to me, my story, my private Bolshevik conquest. As his tongue moves in rapid-fire incomprehension, the daughter warns: "You are just back from the hospital". Pokkai is possessed, Pokkai once again joins the march, and cries out, "Bring the book, now, right now, bring the book."The book is a bundle of soiled papers, wrapped in an old newspaper. A little boy brings the lantern closer to Pokkai, whose trembling fingers struggle with pages of Kayyoor incident, chronicled by T. Pokkai. "Where's that page?"Pokkai asks the night. O, here it is - re-written, overwritten, criss-crossed script of Pokkai's history, the Kayyoor "incident". "Read, Read". Pokkai waits. And you are reading his life. Or, you are living in an immense tragedy: this old man, the party's museum piece, doesn't need vindication; he begs humanity to read his chapter in the concise edition of revolution, ghostwritten by the party. A cynical voice whispers: "The party didn't want the revolution to be betrayed by senility".But Kayyoor cannot betray. It's the sovereign republic of nostalgia. Here the party has no enemy, for almost everyone in this village indulges in only one activity: remembrance. Suresh, a college student: "It's a party of equality". He reads Deshabhimani, the official voice of CPI(M), and the largest circulation daily in Kayyoor, every morning. "Communism didn't fail. Communism cannot fail. We are living in communism. It's the idea of equality, and Kayyoor is the village of equality". In Kayyoor, the headline writerof Deshabhimani is more influential than the author of Das Kapital.Kunjiraman, the former secretary of the Kayyoor unit of the party, echoes the same Kayyoor exceptionalism. He is returning from an election meet. We meet him in the depth of darkness - in Kayyoor, there are no street lamps. And the twinkling stars are not even red. Kunjiraman, Kayyoor's Ramettan, is an animated whiteness with a voice that has no doubt. "We know what is communism. We didn't learn it from the book." And he knows the world outside (long live Deshabhimani). "Some mistakes in the Soviet Union. In Kayyoor, no mistake." But the generation with the first-hand memory of Kayyoor is disappearing. "Kayyoor cannot disappear. It defies generations." And someone is saying that Nayanar (E.K. Nayanar, the Kerala Chief Minister) was nowhere near Kayyoor in 1943. "Lie. People have seen him. Historians - or journalists - haven't". Does the CPI(M) still preserve the values of Kayyoor struggle? "There is no CPI (M) withoutKayyoor". Kunjikrishnan, Ramettan's friend, intervenes: "I believe in God. My God is Marx. Come to my house, you will first see my God, framed and preserved on the wall". Ramettan: "They are not Gods, Kunjikrishnan".God is Muthappan, whose favourite diet is arrack and dry fish. Was Muthappan the first Marxist of North Malabar, a Marxist before Marx ? "The tribal idealism of Muthappan was quite revolutionary," says Shibu, who lives in another "soviet" not far from Kayyoor - Aroli. In Aroli today, revolution is confined to Theyyam. Few years ago, Aroli celebrated its Marxian machismo by the public murder of the enemy - an RSS worker. Sudhakaran was the accused number one in that case. "Communalist is the enemy" - he has no doubt, golden chain, golden watch, unbuttoned shirt - Sudhakaran, a toddy tapper by profession, is waiting for social liberation through communism. For Kunjambu, Aroli's seniormost citizen, liberation has lost its manhood. "AKG (A.K. Gopalan), (P.) Krishnapillai - they weremen!".He quotes Unniarcha, the martial heroine of Malabar, to rhapsodise AKG - "my hero, I have seen him". Thanks to him, lesser marxists can get all the votes in places like Aroli and Kayyoor. You vote for an idea.In the select soviets of Malabar, Marxism lives in memory, and memory contains history. Does the party contain Kayyoor by keeping it as the biological park of revolution? Kaleeswaram Raj, a young advocate in Payyannoor, says underdevelopment means the endurance of the myth. Maybe true, a Marxist-led government cannot provide some street lamps to Kayyoor. History has to be read in the glow of Pokkai's magic lantern.