My Mom and her Grandmom

The formative years of my life and that of my sibling were constantly punctuated by stories. We were introduced to mythology, history and literature by our dad. My mom told us stories about her herself. The people in her life became the protagonists of the stories she told us. Slowly and surely we were given a dekko into her life before she entered wedlock. We were introduced to the members of her family tree sans flow charts, pictures and other memorabilia. Long long ago before Face book was even conceptualized to help people befriend unknown faces and learn about them, my mom wove her childhood home into a colourful tapestry and entertained us with her repertoire of stories. Her maternal and paternal grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews and extended families, her school, teachers, friends, house helps and role models, some of them whom we have never seen, even in pictures, gained a new lease of life as she recollected them contextually from time to time. When members of the extended family share anecdotes about the unknown dimensions of familiar people, it feels like thumbing through a well worn favourite book inundated with nostalgia!

Long before Simba-the lion king started making the rounds in the world of children; Saamba did the rounds in the Kalathur household. That is how her Paati, Smt Walambal Srinivasan, would call my mom Syamala. My mom, who was ailing was left in the care of her grandparents when she was merely eight months old as her mother was in the family way. So, for her, her Paati was a second mother and she was her Paati’s little lamb who followed her everywhere. She would accompany her Paati when the lady milked her favourite cow Chimizhi (there were employees to milk the rest of the herd). Watch her clothes when the matriarch bathed. Keenly observe the way Paati would draw her Bindi like a wide thick horizontal line with Kumkum, soon after her bath, even before draping her nine yards of sari.

The grand lady commenced her routine by hydrating herself with a little pot of lime juice before she lit the fire to cook scrumptious meals for her brood. She would turn out meal after meal and ensured that no one in her radar went hungry. She cooked relentlessly, special meals for guests, healthy food for the convalescing, something savoury for a pregnant daughter, some therapeutic specialties for the girls who were receiving postnatal care, baby food for the infants, some junk food for the teenagers, filter coffee, buttermilk or lemonade for the workers among other chores.

Yet her own meals were far and few as she was always on the call of duty. My mom recalls that the only food her Paati relished was the mango. It did not matter if the fruit was sweet or sour, she would eat a couple of them in place of lunch. Her naughty grandchildren would toss the seeds of the mangoes that they had eaten on her leaf at the end of the meal. In the meanwhile, another KK would drag the grandfather to the dining area and show the heap of seeds on the lady’s leaf. An unspoken communication would ensue amidst the fun, resulting in reaping the choicest fruits for the following day. As usual, Paati would share it out in the family and eat the one or two that remained.

If you ask my mom to define her grandmother in a nutshell, she would say her Paati was a unique woman who did not possess one mean bone in person and persona. Kudos to the lady! More memories to be shared!