CPM General Secretary Prakash Karat, who turns 60 today, talks about his life in a free-wheeling conversation with Malayala Manorama’s JOMY THOMAS — on his childhood, his motorbike, his interests, his initiation into politics and his marriage. “Sixty means I am a senior citizen. I don’t feel like a senior citizen,” he says.

Excerpts from the interview:

• On childhood

My father, Chundoli Padmanabhan Nair, was working as a clerk in Burma Railways. My mother’s (Elappully Karat Radhamma) family was also in Burma. They got married in Burma and I was born there in 1948. When I was six months old, my mother brought me to Kerala and we stayed in Palakkad for four and a half years. We went back when I was five and stayed there till I was nine.

I lost my sister there, she died of a sudden illness. Since my father’s job, then at Burma Oil Pipeline Project, took him to different places in Bihar and Bengal, my mother wanted me to be based in Madras for my studies. (I studied at the Madras Christian College School and Madras Christian College.)

After my father’s death (he died when I was 13), my mother became an LIC agent. She took a loan, built a house in Madras and gave it out on rent. We used to live in the outhouse and live on the rent.

After my BA, I got a scholarship to study at the Edinburgh University. By that time, I had become political... so the only way to avoid taking up a job was to go abroad for studies.

... contd.