my grandmothers

I love my  grandmothers. They are two very different people except they both enriched my life equally as I grew-up. 

My paternal grandmother is very dear to me and myself to her; she is supposed to have told my mother just prior to my marriage that she has so many grand daughters, but if she has to call one her own, its me. I miss her touch, the softness of movement as she floated her hand over my face communicating her affection and well wishes to allevaiate my ailment or distress. It never ever failed to provide the releief and joy in all abundance- any trip to my local doctor was more a pretext to polish-up my four sentence strong English. 

My grandmother was an ace cook. Whether it was the sambar served before it released its raw edge from the tamarind as I would hurry her as the first bell for my school's morning assembly rang through our kitchen, or the usili she'll keep aside for me prior to adding cluster beans, the raw bananna podimas, the orange-peal vathal kozhambu, or the gazzillion sweet and savoury snacks, the list of which grew everytime she travelled. She would learn a new recipe by mearely eating a delicacy and upon her return, create a sufficiently south-indianised version to suit our taste and budget- mind you we were a house hold with a large number of permanent members and larger number of floating members with an appetite to consume everything she churned out from our kitchen. I have hung around her in the kitchen all my life eating food in all its stages of preparation, may it be while making the starters for rolling the papadams, or cutting cookies for our charcoal oven, or pitting the berry for making elantha vadai or making(more like eating) vadams, or filling pooranam for karchikai.  I have never actually cooked on my own until I got married.

My grandmother had so many interests. Apart from the dozen or so  major festivals that filled the hindu calender giving us an opportunity to have fun in the name of ou deities, she marked many a clestial occurances with special worships, pradakshina ammavasai being my favourite. The festivity required her to go around a shrine of pillar perched under the twin trees of ficus and neem 108 times with a special offering, an item of utility or food at each count. I'd help her complete her numbers and enjoy distribute the lot to the poor after the worship. Another such worship was to give away 100, 000 spuds of turmeric to women, a couple of hadfuls at a time. As you can imagine, the entreprise ran for som time as I would helpher count and bunch them up as she kept tally in a little very yelllowed note book. She was also very adept with her fingers. She'll reverse engineer any wire or wool or film or string or work of art made from other bits and pieces of recycled material such as glass medicine bottles, from a chance glance and make dozens of them until she perfects them. She'll teach me, though not all of them engaged me. She hardly ever kept any of her handy work for herself and with the nuber of people she came in contat with, there was no shortage of takers for the fruits of her labour. When she visited my uncle in Schenectady, she brought back box-loads of trinkets and craft material and kits, that kept us going for months on end. 

My gradmother loved watching movies. My brother and myself were our grandmother's movie buddies. There were five theatres in Palani, and they would screen the same movie on average for four to six weeks. I would be surprised if we missed any screening for a span of about ten years other than when she was not in town. She has never discussed the movie with us, though, she will tell my mother the stories the following day as they lunched together. Just as well, because, my mother usually would be so tired to stay awake on her movie excursions with my father for the late night shows. 

My grandmother was very musical and played the violin - only practically no one knew that. She was instrumental in getting my uncle to give me his beautiful violin and my training. Her attempts to sit with me with her own violin to practice hardly ever got of the mark. 

My grandmother's greatest gift to me his her friends, poor wives of bramins who provided religious service to our house hold; some of them doubled up as cooks to assist her and my mother on special occations. For  every navarathri and varalakshmi poojai and any other such occation, she will give me special instructions to go to their humble homes and invite them in person, even though one of them lived, kind of farther beyond our local neigbourhood. She taught me to enjoy lyrical beauty and richness of the only song Ammani mami ever sang year after year: potti niraya poo konarnthu poojithen amma, meaning I brought a box full of flowers (of every kind) and worshiped you. She would also point out, how the lady probably couldn't afford so much as a single flower, yet how as she sang you can visualise the goddess drowning in a shower of exquisite flowers. Lakshmi mami, one of the most beautiful women I have seen, never sang- but both her daughters did- coincidentally they also had one song to their repertoire which they faithfully sang every year: panchakshath peeda roopini. I have never heard my grandmother sing. And parvada mami. the most cheerful person I have ever known. Her husband was my tuition teacher for sometime. I can bearly remeber what he taught me though. 

My grandmother was very devoted to my grandfather. Their dependency on each other visibly grew as I grew-up though it would be difficult for me to articulate in exactly which way. She grew frail over the years, though she was a tireless worker and would hardly waste a moment with out turning it into some tangible outcome. She loved all her children- I got to see more of her love for my father and his for her.  

I wear her ring, clinging to her touch that can never come back to me.

My maternal grandmother was a very pios woman. She was well versed in the scriptures and had a very methodical way of approaching everything she did or said for that matter. She was also a great cook, but she'll use choice vegetables and ingradients, maticulously prepare them and cook them perfection, taking pride in the size of the hole of the vadai being exactly the same everytime she made it. She'll prepare baskets full of flowers that Murugesan would have collected for her every morning grouping them in terms of size and colour and shape- I'd help her on our visits during school holidays. Her daily worships/poojai will last close to a couple of hours as she'd wash and bathe and dry a large plateful of little deities and stones, and icons, put chandanam kungumam for each of them as she packed them back so beautifully in to a little box with one fourth the footprint of teh original plate- with each piece equally visible. She would follow it up with jabam and recital of several hyms/slokams in a mature, collected calm voice. I would be sitting there mesmarised by the elegance of the whole ritual not realising the time roll-on waiting to jump at the occational errand to fetch some thing or other. Coming to thin of it, the silver mahalakshmi bust she worshiped held an uncanny resemblance to my maternal grandmother's friend Lakshmi mami- perhaps that's why I think of her as the most beautiful women I have known. 

My grand mother had a lot of respect for saints. She wouldn't miss an opportunity to attend or host discourses. With none of my cousins or my brother sharing her interests, I would be her chosen companion, initially during our visits during school holidays and later when I stayed with her for a couple of years as I started University. I can't recollect ever discussing philosophy with her nor learning any hymns or slogams- at the same time I am chokeful-of her insights imparted seamlessly in a variety of contexts. She survived the lossof both my uncles, and was the carer for one of them for 3-4 years towards the fag end of her own life. I was in my late teens at that time and thirsty for independent experinces and moved to the hostel when I got the opportunity. I wish I didn't and stayed with her instead and looked after both of them instead. She beleived in reincarnation - Ididn't and I don't. But if I am wrong, I want to be able to correct my short-coming and baby my grandmother and uncle for life.

3 February

Its Kumar’s birthday today. Kumar is my cousin and I love him very much. 

Kumar was my first anna, a relationship that is like no other for a girl. You are a peer as well as you are the protected, giving you the freedom to err and grow without being misunderstood.

When I moved to Coimbatore for my tertiary education, I stayed with my grandmother for thee years and we all lived under the same roof, my grandmother, myself, my uncle, my aunt and my three cousins, with my aunt and uncle who were my cousin’s parents living a few streets away. Kumar was the eldest of the lot and assumed responsibility for our idiocy, there was plenty to go around, particularly when you also include tow of Kumar’s close friends, who were a constant presence in our household during all wakeful hours. Being the youngest I got teased around for fun a fair bit, but Kumar wouldn’t say so much an uneven word to me not even for fun. 

Kumar has taught me so many many things, some of which I didn’t quite understand until recently, such as the OPEC crisis of the seventies. Kumar introduced me to English fiction. He bought me the day of the jackal - probably the only book I have read from cover to cover, Andrameda strain, Fountain head, Atlas shrugged- you can understand why both of which would have taught me to skip straight to the last few pages after the first chapter, a habit I have found hard to shake even now; with Soylent Green and Catch 22, I got him to tell me the story instead. He would patiently explain the context of each of the books expanding my globe politically - though the dynamics didn’t gel until recently. I wish he was alive so that he can help clarify my insights.

Kumar introduced me to Indian federal politics and Tamil Nadu politics in the seventies. I think it was 77 when the country overturned the incumbent and the emergency rule in a landmark election.  It was before the news industry had discovered live election coverage as top selling entertainment. There were but a handful of bill boards set at salient sites around the city. Kumar took me to watch the results role on the Kennedy Theatre fore-court in the heat of the night to a gaping crowd. 

Kumar was loyal to his friends. He introduced me to his best friend, who became my best friend too as we played scrabbles and draughts for hours on end. Beats me why my spelling is still poor! Kumar would sit and smoke Gold flake and watch over from the corner of his eye as he devoured his news paper or book. Kumar taught me being respectful to your boss doesn’t mean you loose your sense of humour. He was brilliant at his work, the auditor who trained him had nothing but accolades for him, yet Kumar didn’t mix his appreciation of his expertise beyond the office premises and didn’t think twice before finding his strict adherence to religious rituals erring on the side ridiculous. Needless to say he was far from religious. 

Kumar was brilliant- if the size of the forehead is any measure of mental capacity, you can fit a four hundred word essay on his, double spaced. He was almost naive at times in the simplicity of his communication that his brother, my other cousin would capitalise on and tease him to shreds and all the response Kumar would have is a “enn..” and a sheepish smile. I would have laughed out loud with my other cousin while being endeared by Kumar’s smile at the same time. Kumar can’t sing - another vulnerability if caught was brutally punished by my other cousins. 

Kumar was very dear to all my relatives. He was always there for them no matter what the need was. He was very respectful of all of them and next to his brother, he would seem like a saint. My mother’s love for Kumar is unconditional- mind you even her love for me has a few strings attached, particularly when I lay the line on her grievances. But Kumar can tell her to “nee chumma pesama iru” and she would, like a lamb.

Kumar grew several years in the months that my uncle took ill- I’d never want to forget his “akka, I have Rs 6000 in provident fund, can we do one last dialysis to see if Appa’s kidney revives” - not sure if its because it was the last Rs 6000 from his provident fund, or I never knew how the loss of my uncle hurt him, because sure enough the kidney didn’t revive; I didn’t know what it takes to love and lose then. And several more when my other cousin passed. My aunt fell prey to breast cancer and they moved to Madurai. I could only visit her once - Kumar took time off his work to accompany me back to Coimbatore on an over night bus. The appalm-bajjies he bought me from the tea-stall in one of the bus-stations ranks amongst the best meals I have ever had, my anna bought it for me.

Soon after my return my aunt passed and Kumar moved to Salem with his sister, my dear cousin Sudarma. Sudarma, while watching some movie, shot abroad, was supposed to have said, will we ever get to see these places and Kumar answered, Sumathy will take us there. I frankly didn’t know how he himself survived her loss to a potential DVT, turned stroke. With a disfigured jaw struggling to do justice to his voice from the rewiring following an accident, when I finally met him in Chennai at the wedding reception of another cousin of mine, I wanted to cry! I could pick the stiff he must have gulped to feel at home amongst the Chennai elite at the opulent reception; it made me want to cry again. 

Kumar taught me what self-respect was. Amongst bramins there is saying, that think of Hanuman when you are in distress, you’d find your courage. Kumar lived as an example of what is humanly possible when it comes to picking himself up unscathed when the tides of time knock you down over and again. He didn’t have a tail, lest, I would have kept pottu for him and chathued vadai malai.

Kumar passed a few years ago. I was some 9000 km away from the pit that tripped his scooter and injured his head- the helplessness I felt re-living the narration of the fall, the hospitalisation, the calls to my cousin, the truama of his irrecoverable brain injury, the decisions to move him from critical care to palliative care and finally his passing, took years to pass. 

Kumar used to tell me I was the only one who remembered his birthday except for one year- that I had kicked myself for forgetting! 

When my social enterprise takes root, I’ll mark 3 February as Kumar’s Birthday that will be celebrated in a way that no one will be able to forget.

Happy birthday Kumar!

Sincerely,

Sumathy, Sydney

3 February 2021

My values

An extract from my letter to my children and my husband:

------ Original Message --------

Subject: maadyanigam

…

Kannamma, Kanna,

Over teh past few months I had unhindered opportunty to reflect back on my life and a few values standout- not because they are different from the rest of my life but becasue they are the very fabric of who I was shaping my life - and to some extent yours too. I want to share them with you.

The core amongst them is my zest for life, life as in finding an expression for as much of me every moment irrespective of what I do. It manifests as love for what I do, love for humans who are the recipients of my actions, directly or indirectly. In practice I give my all to everything I do with the fervor of a child's play with its favorite toy. Generosity of spirit, tenacity, resilience, resourcefulness, humor, belief in myself, belief in the ability of every one of the people in my life, tolerance for difference, patience to turn adversity around all are but side effects.

There are but two secondary manifestations of this fundamental value:

1. recognition of intelligence as the characteristics that distinguishes human from every other physical entity; the value of equality stems from this recognition.

2. recognition of truth as the characteristic of one's understanding of a given situation at a given point in time; the value of empathy stems from this recognition.

I love you. I won't be a tenth of the person I am with out the three of you.

Life thus requires a physical environment to flourish. Humans, in their aarvakkolaru (misplaced over enthusiasm to propagate one aspect of something at the expense of everything else- not intensionally, mostly becasue they are blind to it) have whitteld access to sufficient safe environment for most humans to flourish. We have landed here, those of us whose values are founded in love, equality and empathy are left with no option but to intertwine our zest for life with our inability to not fight for the lives of those whose zest for lives are compromised.

We can't do it alone. The brunt of some of what I have endured from my say environment over the years, for example, would have been impossible if I didn't have the three of you.

My wish to you thus in 2021 is that you would find shoulders for you to lean on that you can call your own when you come home. I know both of you have the ability to find the human in any one- its just that the world around us is in such shambles, that it would help if you find some one who can resonate with your own fundamental values so that all four of you can extend your hands together to pull those in need, helping each other and making the most of your lives and ability.

affectionately,

amma

My ragams

Bhairavi

Bhairavi is one of my favorite ragams for several reasons: its beautiful in in its breath and depth that there is practically nothing you can do with it. It has a scale of sorts, much like the grid on a graph paper for those who want to understand an aspect of its own flow with respect to its other reaches or with respect to other ragams; I am not a musician but I can assure you, when a skilled drafter completes the drawing for communicating to the manufacturers, except for the paper graph paper manufacturer, no one else will have an eye for the grid. And if you are an intelligent, experienced  designer communicating your design to the manufacturer, you don’t even need the graph paper. AND most certainly the users of the device that came out the design don’t even need to be aware of even the design, let alone the grid on the graph.  With Bhairavi, I have worn practically all those hats  and happily settled to be the power user to do what ever I want with my Bhairavi so much so that I think in Bhairavi to solve say, physics of cosmological observations that are typically referred to as black holes, to composing poetry to distill the essence of Kannagi, the heroine of an ancient Tamil literature Silapadikaram to digging through the roots of our palm tree to plant the two exotic bulbs that I picked up the the botanical gardens in Blue mountain in memory of my fellow country men, young and old who fought in battle fields unknown with weapons they didn’t pick.

 If I were a ragam I will be Bhairavi; like my husband would be Hari kambhodhi, my daughter would be Sankarabaranam and my son Kambhodhi;  for the untrained ears, Hari Kambothi, defies the scale limited in its scope only by the limitation of expression of the composer and has a rich set of jannya ragas each of which so beautiful in itself; while Sankarabaranm and Kambhodhi are is sheer joy and gentle respectively, no matter how you render them. Whereas Bhairavi will let you be while claiming you for itself in doing so; if needed, it will shake your sole and deny you the comfort of hiding your ambiguities from yourself. 

I first learnt Bhairavi varnam in my primary years in violin with the unbiased disinterest I had for every other piece I learnt in those two years. Its when my husband introduced me to KVN’s balagopalam, it grew on me. And with the recording of Sanjay subramaniam’s rendition it took roots mainly because, I was too busy to change the CD in my car for years- besides I wasn’t bored of it either. When my children learnt it formally, their teacher’s bani in resonance with KVN’s, Bhairavi consumed me and claimed me. There were ofcourse any number of opportunities to hear Bhairavi from any number of musicians, legends, living legends, professionals, amateur and learners filling me, chiseling me, shaping me and growing me. With the ground tilled to perfection thus, when my son learned and practiced Bhairavi varnam for playing for his performance in the local youth usic forum with Sri Lalgudi Jayaraman’s recording as reference, bhairavi was finally sown in me for my own cultivation, enjoyment and distribution of the produce for the enjoyment of all, not as a musician, but as a human, educated in Bhairavi.

My grandfathers

My paternal grandfather is GOD, the best amongst those relinquishing any divine power left in them in shame after their encounter with my grand father for, say, swap tobacco. My maternal grandfather passed five months before I was born. My maternal grand mother’s family were lead to believe by their religious teachers that I am his reincarnation- they even called me Padmaja, to probably to keep  this suggestion alive or to divert all the love they held for my grandfather towards  this new arrival. As an aside, I have researched the concept of reincarnation, a pivotal concept in the vaidika readings extensively and I can tell you in unequivocal terms there is no such thing as reincarnation. You have but one life , and the choice is yours on how much of it you live here and now without postponing good times to some future non-existent after life. In Aussie lingo, you have got but one life, don’t screw it up.

My paternal grandfather is the one who saw me for who I was, probably the first time he saw me, his grand daughter, this new person he could hold and be himself with (not that he wasn’t other wise because he had equal irreverence to every one), a live undemanding object of his love in full. No matter what else I did or didn’t do, or no matter what he did or didn’t do, there is no change to how he related to me. He never used any endearments while addressing me in all the twenty eight years he had addressed me, but nothing is more endearing to me than the way he called me Sumath. No one else had shortened my name that way, as if to find the line to sufficiently reach me and pull back lest the additional notes hurt my ears. Him I’ll never miss him for I have found him in every shred of me over the years, any number of times. And after nailing the limits of the God heads objectively to the best of what is humanly possible through my extensive experince walking through several fronts in adversity seemingly insurmountable most times, I have declared he was a living GOD and placed him in the sanctum amidst my other gods. 

My grandfather was always my peer, like the buddy you’d go for a smoko with where there are no rules or rule makers, just the two of you enjoying what came our ways. Wheer we went for smoko changed over the years as I grew up, but the reason or relationship never did. When I was in preschool years, it was the Meenakshi Amman kovil praharam where we shopped together for my first handbag, bangles and jimmikki. And then there were the trips- I think two) to visit my aunt: he wouldn’t present himself or his precious grand daughter with their travel fatigue marring their good looks; he would hire a room accross the station for a bath and change of crisply laundered clothes; he would bathe me, dress me, powder my face, take out the knots, braid my hair and tie a ribbon of my choice- which we would bought on our previous trip to Madurai. You can understand why Maharajapuram Viswanatha Iyer failed to impress him as he walke past his place to my athai’s: he didn’t wear a shirt and sported a belly- my grandfather, a six foot twoer didn’t loose his waist line even when he was eighty one, the last time I saw him. And the trip to Darapuram where I had my first taste of badam halva- that my grandfather would work in as many vaida’s(extensions) as practicable so that he can get me my favourite badam halva- or so it seemed, I was too young to understand the parameters of extensions. And the trips to Ottanchathram when my cousins were born. Its a tiny town on the highway with a single main street across. The hospital sat on one end of the highway. We would visit my aunt/aunt the babies and my grand mother who would be making a full meal in the tiny space adjoing the private room where my aunts would be resting and take off to combe the streets. There was an ice-fruit factory that made ice-cream in a churing drum that had facinated me- the physics of it stayed dorment unresolved at the back of mind until a couple of years ago when my daughter bought my husband an iceream maker for father’s day. And the trips to Vijayakumar mill in Nekarapatti: upon reflection my understanding of expression of respect as an exchange of the softest glances were seeded the way Jaganathan the estate owner and my grandfather would exchange - both would barely lift their eyelids and yet they both knew they held each other in high esteem. And it wasn’t any different when the estate administrative assistant Palaniswamy showed up to our place as a follow-up, the eye lids of both my grandfather or Palaniswamy didn’t open any wider or closer; though they may not both have called it so, the trust the administrative assistant had in my grandfather’s ability to resolve whatever issue he brought to him and the acknowledgement of his trust by my grandfather were but a manifestation of their mutual respect. And there was kannadikaran, a smuggler by profession who would visit my grandfather bearing gifts of hero pens, the sleek fountain pens in various shades with beautifully designed barrels in soft plastic in hues I haven’t seen in my environment in Palani or steel or gold or silver and lids that matched the elegance of the barrels. My brother and I were the only privileged persons on the planet my grandfather would part with one or more of these hero pens. There would be such reluctance to open them distracting your mind away from falling for their beautiful design wishing the ink would run out so that you can play with the self-filling mechanism incorporated in them. But then once the preliminaries were duly complete and the pen sits between your thumb and forefinger, it would vanish from existence flowing your thoughts on to the paper; the thoughts that shaped my being by the person who gave it to me , my grandfather. And our trips to pada vinayagar kovil - the seas of devotees would part seamlesly for my grandfather and my self in his arms to get an uninterrupted darshan of Vinayagar as if waiting to get the priest to give my grandfather the garlands of his choice from the dozens that draped the deity; he picked his prasadams, not took what was given to him. And then the trips to Ayakudi; my grandmother would make a huge jodu thavalai full of chundal and we would take it for neivedyam at the Rajagopala swamy temple. And then the trips to perumal kovil and mariyamman kovil and periyavudayar kovil. And his love for my great grand mother: he loved her, I didn’t know how much until I had the ability to begin to understand what affection is: prior to her srartham each year, his inhibitions on his own mortality would be brought to the fore and when he was at a low point would nominate the day of the srartham for his own passing - as if when he invoked her through the manthrams to accept his offerings through the srartha rituals, she would be there to pick him up into her own world as he left this. I wish I understood the physics of the humans as I do now, so that I could have explained to him the only way he can unite with my great grand mother is if he lived, so that he could have boarded the foot-board of the next town bus to Chellam cafe to bring boondhi for us. And , I can be hear and write for ever and probbaly I have written about him elsewhere too and never tire of writing. Being omnipresent in my universe, there is always more to write about. And with him in me fear there is none for me, and problems that can’t be solved are non-existant. 

My aunts

I love my aunts, three of them are my father’s sisters, two of them my mother’s sisters, four of them are my father’s brother’s wives and one of them is my mother’s brother’s wife. Each of them is so special to me. I can’t have enough of them. All of them have huge hearts and are so affectionate, I can’t even begin to count my blessings.

My eldest athai had the most beautiful voice- it had the purest quality that it would just speak to your heart no matter if she is singing balasubramanian bajeham or amused at the pacha color veshti of the paalkaran! Her effortless enjoyment of all things beautiful, is perhaps one of the most beautiful thing that I had effortlessly picked up as a child as she dotted on me. I miss her; when my cousin gave me her recording of MS’s namaramayanam, I played it over and again seeking to somehow hear my aunt through what she heard knowing its completely illogical, so many times that my baby girl had learnt it by heart even before she could speak fully at two. She was the only one amongst my aunts and uncle’s who would write to my grandfather that validated his expectations with respect to the length and relevance pushing everyone else to the category of “kanda kamakshinayakan kanatta <I-could-never-figure-out-what-that> vaduga paya”. My earliest memories of visiting her in Madras was when she was living in upstairs in the same building as the music legend Maharajapuram Viswanathaiyer - I had no idea of his vidwath at that time, neither did my grandfather for that matter.

My next athai is very charismatic, she was remarkably outgoing for some one from Palani, a small town, particularly in early sixties. I was her pet lap dog, whether it was to socialize with Appaji Raos, ottei Mani, Karthiyani teacher and her daughters, Dr Sarada, or Sarasu or to her embroidery class or dress making class, or her instructions on homeopathy medicine from Fakir Maniyagarar, and no matter how long the visit was for. She’d free me up doll me up and do whatever else that pleased her and I would lap it all up faster than she can dish it. She is very talented with her fingers and is an ace cook. She would raise up to any occasion giving her all and make it the best it could be. She is a loyal friend to those who have known her, she has a remarkable memory and attention to detail in everything she did. Her resilience in the face of adversity is inspirational- the kind of lady who won’t curl up and cry when knocked down, she’d pick herself up and land a punch getting the offender back to shape. I love her. I wish the COVID would lift so I can go and see her again.

My youngest athai is delicate and sweet. I love her very much. I’ve spent more time with her than the others and looked up to her as a role model as I grew up. She’d braid my hair, line my eyes, flower my hair every day as went to school. She’d teach me little etiquette, taught me to put on a half saree, and to my husband’s delight taught me how to make the best appam. I can’t ever imagine her face with out a smile- it hurts me deeply to see her hurt. She is also quite simple in her taste, but then if you are as pretty as her your adornments are redundant any way. She is also quite unassuming. I’d be ever so grateful for her generosity of taking several weeks away from her family to help settle my parents in Coimbatore when my father’s health took a bad turn and we had to return back to Sydney; and guiding me throughout the ceremonies of my son’s poonal as my parents couldn’t travel due to my father’s poor health.

My eldest perimma is one of the most intelligent people ever born - she didn’t cross high school, but her spontaneous generosity of heart more than compensated for what any formal education could have bestowed her with. She never distinguished between children as she gave them her time and care- it could be us, or my cousins, or the neighbors’ children or the kid on the street with a stretched hand. She’d fight tooth and nail with my periyappa, my mother and grand mother for slacking off on some of the household chores to care for the fancies of the children in her sight on the given day. She would plan outings for every day of our visits when we were young; when we ran out of parks or exhibitions she’ll take us for a walk to show us the 10 laksham bungalow, essentially an expansive mansion sporting state of the art architecture in the late sixties in Coimbatore. She was a huge support to my mother after both myself and my brother moved abroad. I lost her to breast cancer, a condition to which her neighbors fell prey one at a time before hitting her, that if you didn’t know better would make you think that its somehow contagious. I miss her. 

My youngest periamma is fun. She is soft spoken and beautiful and always presents herself well. She has a subtle sense of humor you’d miss if you are not paying attention, but would burst you in laughter upon reflection. She is also very engaged with what’s happening around the world. She is very dear to my mother; until recently, the hour long daily telephone calls to her would boost my mother’s spirit to such levels that she won’t stop smiling for hours later. My periamma had mastered the art of arranging her household items, books, magazines and furniture that would make you think you are walking into a display home. She is very affectionate and tolerant even though her own standards of what is under her control were very high. She has always been very proud of us and would express it in such a way that made us feel as if we were one in a million. I love her. As I look at the picture of my maternal grandfather sitting on my desk, I see that she is a spit image of him. I love her.

My eldest chithi is probably what you can call as most traditional from my side of the family. Her wedding with my chithappa in kadayam was one of the fondest memories of my childhood. She is very beautiful and very pious. She’ll play by the rule and would not leave anything to chance. She was the first one in my side of the family to have settled abroad and in the pre social media days that meant we didn’t get to see each other very much. She’d bring me gifts, trinkets, clothes. She has a sense of humor you’d miss at first glance- she’d tease me with playful use of puns or phrases as I’d first respond with strait-forward answers. She is very affectionate. I love her. 

My next chithi is the one I am closest to- I may not have talked to her or seen her for months, but I can just pick up the threads from where I left off as if we just met the previous day. I love her. She is thoughtful, outspoken and self assured and  in my younger days I have looked uptown her as she was very successful in her career and managed a home with a large extended family unfamiliar on how to moderate their expectations from working women stretching themselves to meet their demands, stated and unstated. You have to remember that in seventies and eighties workplaces in Chennai may not also be particularly sympathetic to intelligent women for its more likely than not, the men in their work environment may not have the maturity to interact with women as their equals. I am proud of her- always been.  I love the way she complements my chithappa. I can’t wait for COVID to lift so that I can go to Chennai for my fill of her.

My next chithi is fun though I didn’t get to know her much. She lived with my Chithappa in Bombay and  moved to Canada. After my chithappa’s passing the opportunities to keep in touch were reduced. The one think I wouldn’t do if I had a chance again is to accompany her on her honeymoon, with my brother and parents! I briefly met her at my cousin’s wedding hope to be able to learn her as we both grow old and find more time to spend with each other.

My youngest chithi is like just made for my youngest chithappa. She is sweet and generous and soft spoken. She is also very caring with a huge heart. There is no saying enough when she is feeding you. Its hard to think of her without think of my chithappa in the same vein, she loves him and even when putting forth a thought will find away to attribute it to chithappa and I love that. I remember when she was dating my chithappa, my grandfather received a letter in perfect English and grew suspicious, it of course turned out that chithi wrote it for him. She is quietly responsible  and takes charge of things that matter while my chithappa would while away his lot with us in mirth. She is very respectful of the rest of the family; infant she is my grandmother’s niece and held a special place in her references. I love her. 

My mami was very beautiful. She herself had grown up in a farm in a very conservative family. She left my uncle to pursue a spiritual path renouncing family life. I was too young to understand the reasons. I haven’t met her in years, I hope I may some day.

My mother

I love my mother for many reasons, most of all because most things don’t matter to her. She can put practically anything behind herself and move forward, her natural forgetfulness assisting her where her conscious effort proved inadequate. She was the first daughter-in-law of a large combined family with seven of my father’s siblings vying for a respectful peer relationship, and a houseful of guests for the best part of the year.

One would find it hard to believe, but she was feminist in her own way. She didn’t change her maiden name upon marriage for she considered it as a change of her identity, a very progressive notion for a woman in Palani in late fifties. The structure of the name includes her birth place, a practice reserved for men and unheard of for brahmin women who adopt the gothram of their husband renouncing the one they are born with. She was amongst the few instrumental in forming a woman’s club that met and discussed social issues and lead local charities as opposed to cultural programs typically the scope of ladies associations. She was a right hand to my father in managing his accounts and his social obligations as a keen office bearer of the Lions club. She subscribed to illustrated weekly and reader’s digest in Palani probably the only issue that got got delivered that far south in those days. She would send out printed invitations for navarathri to her friends to augment the manjal kungumam azhaikara rounds of mine on foot.

She was very kind to my brother and myself and found time for us no matter how packed her days were. I can’t ever remeber her scolding us, hitting is unheard of in our household. She would play games that would stretch our minds, tell us stories from action packed classics such as Three Musketeers, Count of Monte Cristo, Scarlet pimpernel, help us with our school work, teach us English, teach to spell with innovative rhymes such as ennaarawhyyaennaen for Narayanan,(with such a rocky foundation you now know why my spelling is still stinted)  tell us stories from Mahabaratham, slogams, help us fill the hall with what ever we wanted to during navarathri including a cart load of dirt to build a model of Kodaikanal mountains one of the years. Given there were a million reasons for us to not be focused on studies, she managed to instill the discipline of not missing any of the set home work, taught us to save money, made us chopped tomatoes with sugar in a melmoware bowl and spoon to lure us away from my grandmother’s nelakadai urundai. 

As we got to high school, she introduced me to Bagavath Geetha, I had a choice of Vinoba Bave’s explanation or an old book with just the meaning in Tamil verse for verse while she herself read the three volumes with discussions by Chinmayananda. She’d read out interesting passages and explain them to me. I continued to learn a whole heap more slogans such as kanaka dara sthothram, lalitha sahasranamam, bajagovindam- all thirty verses, namaramayanam, chandra sekarashtagam, anjaneya pancharathnam to name a few and in a week probably we’ll recite them at least thrice. She stretched my english beyond what the texts required me to learn. She taught me the biological chapters of my science texts and encouraged me to augment my answer to every question with  a quick sketch - with the result, I can’t ever remember finishing any science paper at the bell - but then I kinda canned science some twenty -twenty five percentage points above any one els in the grade. In retrospective, probably this could have been a reason why I can paint and quickly think through abstract concepts in my head with out any paper or pen to scribble. She was instrumental in me getting to Coimbatore to do my degree as opposed to have married off after higher secondary. Her disinterst in my violin may also have been a reason for my own that eventualy got me to quit as she feared it might interefere with my studies as I moved to high school. I barely spent any time studying, so in hind sight, probbaly that was a bad call.

I love my mother not only because what she meant to me but I had seen her selective generosity extend far beyond normal expectations of a large combined family. I am proud of her for the way she looked after my grandfather after my grand mother’s passing. And the way she became my father’s leg and eyes when he lost them, comforting him and lifting him out of his depression while probably breaking down completely with in, because I know how much she loved him just by the way she was pleading as the nurse wiped my father’s stools with a rough paper as he prepared him for the theatre, how she broke down while packing his shoes after his amputation, knowing he only need one and her refusal to leave his side at the ambulance that took his failing self for the last trip to the hospital. 

I love my mother because she taught herself sanskrit grammer in her sixties to keep her sanity alive as she looked after my father. I love my mother because she came to Australia after sixty seven years of intelectual independence to learn to adjust to a new culture and new expectations where she was no longer in the position to call the shots on what happens in the household on a daily basis. She did that admirably, except it took a whole year and half more to learn to keep the water from the kitchen sink off floor. She moved forward when hurt, at times braking down and finding an ear in Nithya when I refused mine to discourage that line of talk. I love her becasue she is immensely contented with herself and knows to engage herself productively. I love her for her unquestioned devotion to her mentor is, second only to her devotion to my fatherand adoration of my brother and her grand children.

I love my mother, because she respects that I am my own person and not agree with all her belives or priorities- but I wouldn’t have been half the person but for her.

Palani

I am going to start my story in Palani, where I first experienced the love of my family as a child. 

Palani is a small pilgrim town in Tamil Nadu. Given 98 percent of whom I would turn out be was handed down to me through my ancestors from the chimpanzees -exactly like the rest of us in this world, my early years in Palani almost defined who I am even today. I'll never cease to be a Tamil ponnu from Palani.

I love my brother. My proudest memory from my childhood is when I took my baby brother to pre-school and looked after him the whole day- though probably the sizeable contents of the biscuit tin he carried did most of the looking after. For a girl from Palani, which didn't even have a primary school in the neighbourhood in my father's generation, pre-school education at the local convent was a privilege. Even when you are three the ability of your brain to feel the full brunt of cumulative stress is no different to what it is as a grown-up. For example, our kindy annual function included a play to the nursery rhyme found-a-peanut where I performed as a nurse with my neighbour as doctor; all in all it might have lasted five minutes, but to my little brain it lasted for ever and the milk my mother brought for me to drink after the play still ranks in terms of experience of relief somewhere between the delivery of a patient management module, my first project as a systems engineer, and the recent delivery of a virtual summit on Medical Device Reform. I don't remember much else other than the hair-do of my teachers which doubled as their identifications as pony-tail-miss and bob-miss and the papaya tree lined very-long garden path of about 15 meters.

I didn't continue my schooling in the convent choosing to join CSI Wakeman school which was right next doors to my house. In retrospect I am glad I didn't for I may not have made friends with some of the children who came to school because the school served the only meal they may get to eat on somedays.

Kousic

My father was a lawyer. He was the eldest of eight siblings, the second inline didn't get married until I was six or seven, it meant myself and my brother grew up in a large family where we all lived together with our grandparents in our family home, Kousik. When I reflect back Kousik had been a family home for several of our extended families, thanks to the attitudes of my grandfather, Kanakasabathy Sarma and my grandmother Subalakhmi; my favourite deity Kankasabapathy of Chidambaram can not hold a candle to my grandfather when it comes to his impartiality to caste and creed and irreverence to wealth and titles. He would relax on the little cement seat at our front door that opened to the busy main street every evening as the people criss-crossed after their day's work, and stopping by to socialise with him. If all you got to hear was only his voice, you can never pick if he is chatting up with the police inspector or a local jobless thug whose only source of income was petty thefts. 

My parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, extended families, friends, neighbours and every one we have come across loved my brother and myself. I have never known anyone so much as raising their voices to me save some ebusing experiences of recent times. However, throughout my primary years I have felt the pain and helpless of several others in my little town, the whole world in my little eyes - as if such abuses were inflicted directly on me; and I have tried in my own-often stupid ways- to alleviate such pains. In some ways, it hasn't changed- only my world has gotten bigger. 
But I digress. Kousik was my cradle for sixteen years.

My father

It was my father's birthday on 1 May 2020. I love him; and he me, so much so that when it was time to start my primary education he decided that I was too good for first grade. He took me to the primary school in Kaniyoor for an hour or to sit in the first-grade classroom before the principal could issue me a transfer certificate, a necessary prerequisite for Wakeman school to admit me to the second grade. He loved his sisters, brothers and my cousins dearly. My uncles and aunts held him in high respect and my cousins love him. My cousin Sudarma had stories of his bias towards me, his visible offense if anyone mistook her for his daughter, his demeanor flipping from rampant to rhythmic when he talked to me. But the fact she was comfortable to tease him when he was all seriousness is testament that she enjoyed the liberty of his affection for her.

My father was a civil lawyer- he worked very hard. I have memories of him spending hours into the evening after a full day of court preparing his documents, managing his clerks, advising his clients who ranged from estate owners who wanted to litigate the farmers for shortchanging them on their dues to farmers wanting respite from the landowners who were squeezing their gains and small entities wanting to secure loans from banks to banks wanting to claim unpaid loans. There was a common perception that he was short-tempered. From my current understanding of the human body, I wonder if his body's response to the blood transfusion he received following a sickle attack by some gang-robbers manifested as his diabetes of thirty-odd years, debilitating his brain from diverting built-up charge and bursting his temper as he battled the demands of his work. Given the majority of his clientele were from the nearby villages, unwashed in the ways of the judicial systems, eliciting relevant information from their outpourings, getting them to understand their part in the legal proceedings and mending their slip-ups in the courtroom would have a taken toll on anyone. For someone like him with a generous heart, who cared about the people in general, it must have been draining.

My father was a social elite- he had several friends. He was loyal to them and he kept in touch with many of them until his late years. After graduating in law while his friends went to the bar in the city, he chose to come back and settle in his little home town with his family, bringing back some of the city cultures to Palani. He was a member of the Tennis club, officer's club and instrumental in establishing Lion's club Palani.  My mother was a proud lioness, contributing to their journal on a regular basis. Except for my father and our family Dr Sankararama, I don't think anyone actually understood her writings. She would get me to write in the kids corner and sing songs in English on UN days. I must confess I actually understood very little English in those days and the songs were a mere stream of sounds.  Later I figured out what they could have been except for a "oceodandothere" that preceded "still I am a child of his care". Anyway, to my brother and myself they were opportunities to hold on ice cream and rose milk, no more. Except for the officer's club. I have been there just once or twice and my memory of it was you didn't have to actually smoke to smoke! If there were differences between my mother and father, the officers club as a trigger was on close competition to her forgetting to place his comb back at the mirror after use!

My father told me his birthday is also celebrated as Labor Day in India and mine the UN day. It felt special- and I can imagine how children get drawn into unlikely movements at a tender age making such larger than their-little-life connections to inspire them; like Lal Bahadur Sastry, sharing Gandhiji's birthday may have played a tiny part in his youth drawing him to the independence movement lead by Gandhi. Labor day is claimed as their own by many ideologies, and rightly so because it celebrates fair recognition for individual contributions. While my father was naturally empathetic and would never say no to anyone who touched him for some cash, its hard to lock his political leanings. I was too young to understand why he was proud to share his birthday with Labour day, as for me my flirtation with sharing mine with the UN day was short-lived. I didn't understand UN- in a way, I still don't.

I lost my father to poor health with one of the significant symptoms being his inability to produce adequate insulin. I am proud of him. When the promise of economic superiority was driving educated youth of his days away from small towns, he made a conscious choice to come back and leave his mark in Palani. 

My first friendships

My brother and myself had a little dash-hound named Jimmy for a pet. He had large eyes, a silky rust coat and ears that drooped and swept the floor as he walked. I have wondered why most pets had anglical names in a place where even the pastors didn't stray from their heritage and continued to call themselves Selvaraj or Thangachami. In any case, we loved Jimmy. It was infact a bitch, however for a town that promoted every English movie as a பயங்கர ஆங்கில சண்டை படம் (English stunt thriller) irrespective of if it was Mackenna's Gold or Breakfast in Tiffany, the only thing I can say to that is that my towns people where way ahead of their times in neutralising gender biases. Anyway, Jimmy was fully into all our pretend plays- depending on if we are playing Iyappan or raja-rani story Jimmy would be my brother's Tiger or a horse. I loved Jimmy except when he would bring down a litter of puppies every now and then; I was always very scared of the puppies- unlike to Jimmy, I didn't know how to talk to them. They'll crawl around the place making me scream and run for the table. My youngest uncle would want to keep the puppies and my mother would plot to give them away and I have rejoiced in my mother's victory every time.

When I started school I made my own friends. Our primary school adjoined our home. The school included four teachers quarters, three of which lined the back-court yard. Even at three and five my brother and I had the freedom to wander into to the school grounds after hours and join the local children as we ran around the play ground, climbed the windows, fell on our knees and muddied our clothes. All except when we played with Selvakumar, the well dressed, well-groomed grandson of one of the teachers who lived in the quarters, we had to play with in sight of their front door. My best friend from second grade Krishnaveni used to come to our house and we'd build temples with my brother's little office table: one foot by one foot and one and half foot tall. My brother would double as the deity when its time for the procession; Krishnaveni and myself would carry him around gibbering god know's what. 

It was a defining moment in my life when I learnt Krishnaveni couldn't come on an excursion that my school planned for us because her family couldn't afford to pay the excursion fee. The uneven ground around right corner of the school building was my Apple tree sparking my little brain to come up with the idea of accidentally loosing my gold earring to convert to cash at the pawn shop an idea either Krishnaveni rejected or both of us estimated was an over kill becuase the article that exchanged our hands eventually for the afore stated purpose was the largest stainless-steel tumbler(with the name Padma inscribed on it). The whole thing fell in a heap because Krishnaveni couldn't execute her part of taking it to the pawn shop without her mother finding out about it. Her mother ofcourse promptly brought it back the tumbler to our place, upon confirming she didn't steal it she banned Krishnaveni from talking to me. All I remember is I was devastated and used to watch her from a distance during the breaks. After almost 53-54 years it still hurts- I don't know how many six year olds are well versed in the ways of their households reliance on pawn brokers lining their shop shelves with the priced possessions of their family and think of it as a normal mode of tiding over their immediate needs; I don't know how many presumptuous interventions are breaking up friendships. Before I pass, I want to wake up where primary schools in every locale are equiped to design programs that wouldn't distinguish participation on the basis of their parents' means. 

There were other kinds in my class, most of whom moved with me as I graduated to third grade except this one girl who was almost twice my height and wore a half-saree indicative of her age to be more like nine or ten. Her hair was always shabby her language vulgar; my memory of her is integral to the large dented aluminum plate she carried with to the class, a plate that probably carried an extra spoon or two of midday meals to either last her the day or take home to share with her family, I can't remember. In a way she has moved with me where ever I went.

And there were the brothers Krishnan and Dasarathi. Krishnan was a big boy Dasarathy, his younger brother, was one third his size. I always thought Krishnan was the brightest kid in the class- my teachers thought it was me, but I was too young to objectively asses my own talents.  To date its a mystery to me how both of them landed in the same grade.They lived in a what they called a store- essentially a dozen or so humble dwellings around a dusty common open space. I used to come home for a quick lunch and run back to play either at the school ground or in the store. The boys were so poor though I didn't know at that time. Dasarathy's siglets were strands of wornout fabric hung over his boney shoulders- he was very shy- his eyes would cast a shy look just as the mucus would from the tip of his nose. Next to him Krishnan could have been Clooney. 

Mounguruswamy was another quite boy with an unusually fair complexion and blonde hair. I can't remeber his shirts ever having all their buttons on; his shorts would have been coaxed to stay on his hips with anything from a piece of rope made from hemp to stainless steel pins. And Sreenivasan, the feisty son of the roadside teastall. I remeber gaping in admiration as he took on our grade five teacher Pandian when he rediculed one of the temple rituals viz., rakkala ppojai where the deity is locked in side the shrine. Sreenivasan's sharp comeback asking if the churhes locked up their deity in a beauro, beauro being a colloquial reference for a steel safe. It made no sense to me even then, particularly because I was unfamiliar with rakkala poojai yet, he has stayed my hero since then. Sreenivasan has proven association with Pandian Sir's cane- however, on that occation he encouraged expression of free thought and I admired him for that as well. 

Mallika, the daughter of the tea-stall near the court that also had the Officer's club on its customer base was one of my rich buddies. On lazy afternoons, particularly in Darmarajan Sir's class both of us would entertain the rest of class with our freelance dance to movie hits. Mallika Begam, another of my friends, was the most pretty friend of my childhood years- she had a voice that I loved. My after-lunch roaming to her house in the edge of the town where her community lived was probably the farthest we could get to and be back on time for the afternoon class.

Bairoja was my friend who has etched herself in my heart since the last time I saw her sitting infront of her stove in her one-room hut cooking idlis for her mother to sell- a role that was thrust on her by her father's passing. 

Siva Subramaniam lives across the street, with a courtyard and steps and cement landing perfect for play. Needless to say we were frequent visitors to his place. His mother would hand out panangkalkandu (palm sugar candy) a favourite todate.

Jagathhesan, the son of the firewood merchant was my most favourite. He was quite, deligent and well mannered. When you measure wealth on the basis of having shirts that can be buttoned through, he was rich. But if you did so on the basis of having enough shirts to get an ink-stained shirt laundered while you manage the school days with others, he was quite poor. I forget if it was school policy or just a bad-hair day for my teacher, Jagadeesan's knuckles got rapped for the dirty shirt one day which killed me. He was the star of my study group and I almost felt a personal responsibility. I was in fifth grade and by this time my territory for lunch time escape and back had expanded past the market all the way up to the main street. I nicked 10 rupees from my aunt's purse, ran to Beauty Emporium and bought four or five presents for my study group- amongst them was a white pen with a golden cap which found its way to Jagatheesan's hand in some made up context. I was happy. 

There were friendships between us and the children of the friends of our family; I’ll write about them as I reflect on family friends.