Padmajav’s Weblog

I sat staring at the Rose bush. It was beautiful. Every summer, the first thing I did on visiting my ancestral home was to run to the back verandah to look at the rose bush.

It was enormous. At least 15 feet tall, it towered over us, over the tiled sloping roof of the house. And pale pink roses bloomed all over the bush. Been in the house for generations, nobody really knew who planted it. My grandmother claimed that it’s been the same height from when she’d been a young bride of eleven, 60 years ago.

Whenever I squabbled with someone, I sat on the floor of the back verandah to look at the rose bush.

And always, after the first ten minutes of staring at it with teary eyes, the blurred pink & green mass focused slowly to form a sharp image of the many petalled pale pink roses.

And my heart soared.

Hearing a noise behind me, I turned. My uncle stood there, with his newborn daughter in his hands. Thrilled, I ran to them. He was always my favourite. Youngest of the lot, he’d stuck to the place with his now-single mother, after all his older siblings had flown off to greener pastures. Not that he minded. He was content living in this small village, with all the familiar people, traveling 5 kms to teach in a school in another village.

In my younger days I used to wonder how he did it. Isn’t he missing out on all the fun of a city life? I used to ask him. The comfort of an attached-bathroom, for instance. He used to smile and say, he could build one here anytime he wanted to. But will he get to walk by the serene lake every evening? He’d ask. Or will he find the joy of walking in the fields and visually marking the line that ends his territory?

I saw his point much later. Sometimes, when I used to travel in an over-crowded bus from or to my college, or crammed for my exams in my balcony where one can hear the non-stop traffic through the night, I closed my eyes for a moment and wished I was either sitting under the tamarind tree overlooking the placid lake or in front of the rose bush.

Funnily I had my first big fight with my grandmother about the rose bush.

While playing in my neighbour’s house, Idiscovered that it was not there just to cheer me up. My friend’s mother asked me, ‘So, How is the famous rose bush?’ She went on to tell me as a child, she used to beg off cuttings of it from my grandmother to be planted at her own backyard and how none of them ever grew. ‘There’s something special about the soil in your backyard’, she said.

The Rose bush was famous, I realized. It was the pride of my family. People in the village talked about it.

I was elated with this discovery. From then on, I started bragging about it to everyone. But that also landed me in trouble. My friends wanted me to take them to see it. I did. Once.

Kalyani, the grocer’s daughter, was about my age, lived in the far end of my street. She was desparate for a glimpse of the rosebush. Excited, I literally pushed my grandmother out of our way, charged through the kitchen with my friend in tow. We burst into the back yard; I turned around to catch her expression. Was suitably rewarded with her awestruck stare. She’s going to talk about it for years, I thought gleefully.

The rest of the day flew by. My mother and her visiting sister were away shopping in a town few miles away. Left to my own devices, I explored every nook and cranny of the house for hidden treasures, climbed a few trees, plucked all the guavas I wanted and ate them raw, without my grandmother’s knowledge. I was so busy having fun I barely noticed her sulking all day.

In the evening when my mother had returned, after I’d claimed all my loot, I sat in the backyard looking at the bush in the fading light. I could hear the women in the kitchen talking in a low voice. My grandmother did most of the talking. After a few minutes my mother came to sit beside me. One look at her face and I knew I was in trouble. Maybe grandmother knew about the guavas. Maybe she’d counted them. I was panic-stricken.

“What did you do today?” She asked me. Should I confess? Or wait for the axe to fall? I stared at my toe. ‘Your grandmother is very upset with you today’ she paused and looked at me. “I plucked only 4 guavas!” I said tearfully.

“It’s not about the guavas, ma”, she said gently. “It’s my fault that I haven’t familiarized you with all the rules of this house” she continued.

“You see, she’s a very old fashioned person. And life here is not like Madras. It’s very different”

When she broke the news very gently to me I was horrified. In all my 8 years of existence, I’d never heard of anything so cruel. My grandmother it seems was upset because, I’d invited the grocer’s daughter home. Apparently, people of her caste were not allowed to enter our home beyond a point. Not only did I break that rule, but I led her through the kitchen to the backyard, thus polluting the sanctity of all that’s sacred in the house.

“I wanted to show her the rose bush!” I cried defensively. “And she’s just like me. If I can live here, why can’t she come for a few minutes? Patti is a mean old lady!”

After half an hour of pacifying me, she went back to the kitchen to help her mother prepare dinner.

And I sat staring at the rose bush. Strangely, it didn’t cheer me up this time.

I made peace with my grandmother long before the holidays ended. All it took was a new Kanjeevaram skirt she’d bought me for my up coming birthday. I was in love with the peacock blue silk & my grandmother became my hero once again.

That was decades ago.

Now I sit in my own kitchen sipping tea, waiting for my mother. She called this morning to tell me she’d just got back from her last trip to the village. My grandmother gone for years, it took all the brothers and sisters so long to decide what to do with the huge house and the land in the village. Finally they closed up the house, spent the last week staying there for one last time savouring the house and the village, before strangers took over next month.

An emotional time for all of them. It gives me a lump in my throat, thinking about it.

The bell rings. My mother enters, looking a little worn out. Must have been all the traveling and the emotional strain of goodbyes.

“Why didn’t you rest for a day or two” I ask her. “You really look beat”. Wasn’t sure if I should open up the topic of her trip. Isn’t it better to avoid it now?

She gives me a tired smile. “I had to come to see you today”. She says. Reaches into her bag and produces a newspaper wrapped bundle. “I had to give you this.”

Inside, wrapped in a cellophane sheet, bottom part snugly encased in soil, is a cutting of my rose bush.

Suddenly my vision blurs into a mass of green and pink.

When I was five or so, I was spending my summer holidays in Coimbatore. One fine day, my aunt decided to take us to Ooty. So she somehow got hold of an address from my mother’s family, (I still don’t know how she did this. Nobody had phones and snail-mail would have taken days) bundled us all in a bus to Ooty. The journey is too hazy for me now, but I remember knocking at a door of a distant uncle who was stationed in Ooty then.

Not only they were not expecting us, but they had no clue who we were! He was(is?) my mom’s brother’s wife’s brother(phew!). He’d have probably met my mom during his sister’s wedding years ago. But he was nice enough to take us in for the night, arranged for a sight-seeing trip the next day and sent us back on our way in the evening. His wife cooked us tasty meals and his kids played with us and even came sight-seeing. And after that, I never saw them again.

Now I try to imagine opening my door to complete strangers who want to shack up with me for a couple of days to see the city. My first reaction would be to shut the door on their faces…

Maybe for people living in holiday spots like Ooty, its an everyday experience. But I still squirm to think how we actually barged in on that poor family!

 Or is it just that we’ve been fed too many western notions about having our own space and privacy?

In the past the doors of the houses were always open. People dropped in for meals without any prior intimation. And the kitchen was always equipped to feed a few extra mouths. So much so that there’s a saying that an uninvited guest is God in disguise…

People had all the time in the world to chat up with distant cousins or aunts or uncles. Normally a visit to a relative’s place meant a few weeks or sometimes even months if its a parent or a sibling.

Now we hardly have the time to talk to our own parents. Sometimes living under the same roof! The pace of our lives is scaring me at times. I  look back at those far away days spent in either my grandad’s farm or in  my mom’s village, where summer holidays meant endless days stretched with so much to do. There were no summer camps, no movies, no television.

I spent morningspicking flowers in the garden or in the communal lake, and aftenoons learning to stitch or draw kolams with my grandmother. Late afternoons were for exploring the place with a handful of kids when the elders were dozing. Evenings were fun when the entire household got together for coffee in the open courtyard (or some such spaces) as the sun went down.

During those idyllic  days, anybody dropping unannounced were welcomed warmly, given something to eat or drink and exchanged family news with genuine interest.

Now my 4 year old shuts himself in his room when someone drops in for a visit. Whatever I do to make him share a few moments with the guest is thwarted with ‘I don’t want to!’

I suppose he’s so used to being in a nuclear family that he does not need the warmth of  bonding with people outside his immediate circle.

Whatever it is, these days, an uninvited guest is never a God in disguise!

There was this security guard in my office (not the one in Valentine’s Day story, but same office though) who looked like a caricature.

A tall wiry chap with a big mustache twirling upwards, he made us laugh by just being there. But he had some fantastic logics in life. If at all an award was being handed out to the most innovative thinking in interpreting things you didn’t understand, he’ll win hands down.

Just a sample. We officially closed office at 6 pm. And once the receptionist was off, the security guard took over her desk and answered the phone.

Most of us worked well past 6 and invariably got a little peckish. We usually ordered short-eats from a restaurant opposite or sent out the office boy to get us something like spicy molaga bajjis or bondas from a cart-wala down the road.

Once a colleague who didn’t know a word of Tamil, sent the boy to get her some peanuts. After waiting for half an hour, she called the reception to check if the boy had left to buy the groundnuts at all. The Security answered the phone. Another colleague was sitting at the reception, talking to a friend who’d come to visit him. The following conversation was narrated by him.

Phone rings.

Security: “Hello., Gooood eeevning madam’

……..

“Yes madam, he’s here”

……….

“Ok madam, I’ll send him right away”

Hangs up. Urges the boy who’d been gossiping with him all the while to go to the shops.

Turns around and tells another chap who cleans the office.

” She wanted some internet oil urgently”

What’s that?” Asked the cleaning chap.

“Its for the computers. If you grease it using the internet oil, the computers will run fast & smooth”

My colleague fell backwards laughing….

Recently, I bought a choppu set for a friend’s daughter. Delightedly, she ran away to her room to start playing. After a while, she came back to us, looking puzzled.

“Amma, what’s this?” she asked, holding up a kal-ural. “Its something in which you grind mavu for idli” My friend explained. “But how?” the little girl demanded. We gave her a demo of pretend-grinding.

After she left us alone, my friend and me looked at each other. “She’s never seen one!” my friend exclaimed. “We grew up with these things. Imagine a whole new generation is growing up without knowing a kalloral, ammi or the other stuff used for dry grinding” (my own grand mom used to refer to it as aarikkal, but none of my friends in Chennai seem to have heard of them!) we mused.

It really got me thinking.

Just imagine, my son, for instance would have never seen a washing stone.

For those who don’t know what it is, a washing stone is a cement platform on which a rough granite or sandstone is mounted. Its easy to stand over, spread a piece of cloth to apply soap and then holding one end, beat the cloth on the stone many times, before rinsing it and wringing it dry. I still don’t know the thought-process behind beating it on the stone!

Of course in an apartment there’s absolutely no space for ammi or ural. And with the maids and washing machines, nobody needs to know what a washing stone is.

I remember the two washing stones in the backyard of my grandmother’s. Because the house was always full-up, it was really handy to have two. I don’t remember the maid washing any clothes over there. They only washed the non-paththu pathrams in the evenings, and swept & mopped the house. The major vessels were washed by an aunt or an older cousin in the backyard.

Every one washed their own clothes. A visiting daughter like my mom used to wash hers & her kids’. Wash-times were always fun for us. It was normally done in the mornings, just before people went in for their baths. It was a sort of communal thingy.

I remember vividly how us kids used to pass time in the backyard, either picking fruit or flowers are something equally idyllic. While our mothers and uncles washing their clothes and having their gossip-sessions. While someone drew water from the well, two others would be at the washing stones. Someone else would be wringing the clothes and hanging them dry and some one else would be at the back verandah combing her hair to get ready for office. My grandmother would probably be putting up her feet in the same verandah, drinking her second cup of coffee while taking part in the morning banter.

It all seems light years away! Now who has that kind of time? I always wake up late, do everything in a mad rush before locking up the house to go to school!

If only we still did all these things, we’ll never need a gym!

One of the books I read on healing says that the process of grinding and cooking before the machines took over was very therapeutic. The rythm of grinding, the smell of spices, inhaling the aromas of cooking are all very soothing for a woman, the author claims. I tend to agree, because I feel so de-stressed while I cook.

Maybe we really had something going for a healthy living those days.

Right from eating on a banana leaf to sleeping soon after sunset, we had such close commune with nature.

And we were so eco-friendly too!

There must be some way to reclaim all that while still enjoying our mobile phones and plasma screens!

Chivalrous Chidambaram:

There was this guy once who didn’t know the meaning of chivalry. Being a hardcore feminist during my school days, I really believe in women being the superior species, but we do lack the muscle-power and I’m glad if a person with a bit more muscle steps in when I really need a bit of a help. Chivalrous Chidambaram used to work with me in the same office as I’d mentioned earlier with Paranoid Padmanabhan & Masala Madhavan.

Since we had no office-boys in those early days, we took turns to buy our morning cuppa and run whatever errands were needed then.

Once it was my turn and I was walking back with a heavy flask of tea and a pack of biscuits in one hand and clutched my purse, a sheaf of xerox-ed papers in the other.

I was struggling to open the gate with all the stuff in my hands when I noticed Chivalrous Chidambaram walking towards me from office. With great relief, I waited for him to open the gate and help me with my stuff. He opened the gate and said, “There you are! I’m so hungry!” Carefully pried the pack of biscuits from my fingers, opened and took three or four and ran away towards the road saying, “Thanks!! I’m late for a meeting. If you’d come earlier, I could’ve had the tea too!”

Left me speechless, really.

Driving my son to his school everyday is definitely a trip down memory lane for me.

Its a long drive, through various places of my past. We drive through an old neighborhood where I grew up, through the same road I used to cycle to school as a teenager, past the tree where a group of us used to park our cycles on our way back from school and chat for a while before we took separate roads to our individual homes, pass my school…

The list is endless.

The other day I saw my history teacher waiting for an auto. I stopped, reversed and picked her up. Chatting all the way to school about good old days. I filled her up what’s happening with the rest of my batch-mates and she on what’s happening at school. Which old student stopped by school in the recent past, etc.

Suddenly it occurred to me that I was indeed, very lucky! Most people long for a glimpse of happier times, esp their childhood and here I am, driving through it every day! ( except on weekends!)

So many memories come flooding back after all these years.

Of the lech who used to look from his window when the group of us used to chat on the road. And when he emerges out & literally hangs from his gate, we hastily said our good byes & pedaled away as fast as possible…

Of all the good times we’d had at a friend’s place when I drive past her house. (She now lives in another continent & her family shifted from there years ago)

Of all the Goldspot I used to drink from the pottikkadai, just opposite my house…( We drive past my old house too! And I still have a pic of my brother and me with a friend who was relocating to Canada, just outside the closed shutters of that pottikadai)

Of the afternoons we bunked school to watch movies at my place when my parents were away…

The bus-stop where I used to wait impatiently to go to college when I miss the ladies’ special (again!)

I’m surprised that I can still feel the energy of my youth in those places…

I feel happy & vibrant by the time we reach my destination…

Feels really good.

I just hope this post doesn’t tempt fate and I find myself relocating to Alaska or Argentina in future!

I had my share of classmates who were crazy too…
(Again names have been changed to protect their various identities)
Romeo Ramanathan
This guy used to sit next to me some days and give me updates on his love life when class was in full progress. He had a girlfriend who was in another college in the city. He always referred to her as “my chick”. I used to have visions of a bright yellow baby chick in a frock, sitting on his arm everytime he said that. Since I’d met my Mr. Right back then, he used those conversations to prove that his love was way supeirior to mine…
I never bothered to contend.
Here’s a super statement he once made. I lamented to him once that it was 10 days since I’d seen my guy(That’s how some of us “chicks” used to refer our love interset! Yikes!! I know!) and he immediately piped up. “Oh that’s nothing! I’ve not seen my chick for 15 days!” She was apparently down with chicken pox. I made all the appropriate sympathetic noises and went back to my books. Next day he looked jubilant and was smiling away at me everytime the lecturer’s back was turned. So I had to ask him, “So whats up?”
“I saw her today”, he beamed. “She’s allowed on dates so soon?” I asked.
He looked at me loftily.
“Her mother told her that now that your chicken pox is healed and you can go to the temple…”
He paused for effect.
And she came to see her god…”

I was lucky in starting my career in a very off-beat office. It was hardly an office, we worked from a spare room in my boss’s house.

Almost fresh out of college (I chucked a trainee job in a regular office after getting shouted at by the big boss every time he lost his house keys or some domestic squabble!), I really enjoyed working in a place where there was a great sense of camaraderie. The boss was just a few years older than us & didn’t give a damn what we called him!

Anyway this post is about a fish tank.

A colleague once brought a small fish tank for the office. Another girl (who joined us straight after she finished her college) and me were thrilled to bits! We placed it on the window sill between our desks. We spoke about how calming it was just to look at the colorful fish… We took turns feeding the fish and cleaned the tank together every week…

One fine day, when most of the others were away at a meeting, my friend noticed that one of the fish was dead. . Feeling very depressed and sad, both of us mopped around for the rest of the day.

The boss walks in to check our progress on some designs. We haven’t done it. “Why?,” he demands furiously. “But the fish died” we say in unison, staring at the unfeeling maniac.

“So what?!” he thunders. I cannot go and tell a waiting client his work is not ready because two of my designers were crying over a dead fish! I want the work done in half an hour. Now get your act together. Your time starts now!”

He storms out, fishing his asthma inhaler from his shirt pocket. Soon we hear the tinkling of a spoon from the kitchen. He’s mixing his skimmed milk, to soothe his ulcers.

What a moron! We mouth to each other before plunging into work.

Half an hour later the boss is gone with his precious design.

Not even a word of appreciation for the record time it took both of us to save his face with a client.

The colleague who gifted the fish tank walks in.

“Hi!” We say nervously. All along, we were worried how he ‘d take the bad news. Will he be upset? Or will he get angry? Will he blame us for not taking proper care of the fish?

He walks straight to the fish tank. ” Hey!” He says. “This one out here has popped it”. He takes the tea strainer we use to transfer the fish to a bucket while cleaning the tank.

He fishes the fish, takes it to the toilet. Drops it in the bowl and flushes it while both of us watch in horror.

“So,” he asks after he helps himself to a cup of tea. ” Coming to the pet shop round the corner? We’ll get a new one… “