Two women - Part 1

This is a tribute to two women I watched in my early growing years. Each facing adversity at a young age, each coping with it in her own special way. Wading through the challenges of a blended family, I suddenly remembered these women who had so little, and gave so much. I felt an admiration for them as never before, and a wonderment at how they did it. If I do not honor my ancestors, who will? So here it is, this tribute.

Periyamma

She was in ochre robes and shaved head from the day I remember - perhaps from the days my mother was a young child. My grandmother's elder sister, she was called "Periyamma" (elder maternal aunt) by my mother and her siblings, and Periyamma she became to us all.

She came to live with her younger sister's family after her husband passed away. A young widow, who bore no children. My grandparents took her in, and she helped my grandmother through a dozen childbirths (with about seven or eight surviving) and subsequently, when my grandmother was paralyzed by a stroke, took care of all her children.

True to the customs of the day, she dressed in a hermit's ochre robe, the color of sand. Her head was shaved, and sans a single gold chain around her neck, she wore no jewelry.

My grandmother's house was a mansion for those days, my grandfather a well off businessman who chose to live a simple, devout life. The house had between 15 and 25 people during the days when it was in use - it was a large extended family of my mother's brothers, their children, my grandmother, and my mother who was the youngest child of the family. With servants and visitors, it was teeming with life. It had a cowshed in the backyard, that housed about four cows and two buffaloes, for the dairy needs of such a large family. Nothing was wasted - butter was churned every day from the cream of yogurt made with thick buffalo milk. The remaining buttermilk, that was not used by the family, was sold for a minimal price or given away to the needy.

At the entrance of the house was a giant verandah with cement benches, with a small opening for jasmine creepers to grow. The evening breeze carried the scent of jasmine. My uncle could be found reading his newspaper there, early in the mornings, as he watched people go by on the street.

When one entered the house, there was a living room of sorts to receive guests. Immediately after that was a courtyard, part of which was sunken and housed a faucet for people to wash their feet. This part of the courtyard also had a roof with a metal grille, that let in the light.

Adjoining this area was where Periyamma had a bench made of polished wood, where she sat during the day when the chores were over, napped during the afternoons, and slept in the night. This was Periyamma's bench, the one thing that was her own, the one where I sometimes sat with her and listened to her stories. She sang some folk songs too, though I didn't have a chance to listen to all of them. I was only there for my summer holidays.

Periyamma was the only maternal grandmother I knew. The faint recollection of my grandmother is from the early years of my life, when she spent her days in a wooden easy chair, weak and tired, but thankfully with her speech intact. My grandmother died when I was three. My siblings never got to meet her. But we all knew and loved Periyamma.


She would wake up before sunrise, and creep into the kitchen careful not to wake others. She had a gait where she leaned on one foot and then the other, which gave her a sort of swaying walk. She must have been in her late seventies when I first knew her. She would draw water from a well and bathe, and finish her prayers.

Her early mornings would be spent in the vegetable market on the next street, where she haggled with vendors and brought home the freshest of vegetables. I have fond memories of walking with her to this market - how I wish I had done this more often! She would buy all that we needed, and put them in a plastic basket and carry them home herself - I was her little helper. Her "purse" was a little knot at the end of her ochre robe, where she carefully tied up rupee notes and coins. Us kids would sometimes beg and beg for a coin to buy candy with, and reluctantly she would give us five paise, or ten paise. As for more and she'd genially shoo us away.

The next part of her day would be spent at the butter churn. This old-fashioned churn is an antique now - it had a large pot at the bottom (I think), and a polished wooden pole in the middle. This pole was loosely tied to a pillar and had another rope that went around it, which had two ends, one for each hand. Each day she would put in the cream from the yogurt into the pot, and churn it by pulling the rope with both hands, alternating one hand with the other. While running around, I would pause and watch as the butter miraculously formed and Periyamma took it and put it in a dish she kept handy. Some days I would beg for butter and after some discouragements, would get a small bit of fresh butter, rolled with Periyamma's hands. No other butter tastes as delicious!

Periyamma would then proceed to cook some dishes, or cut vegetables to help my aunts. She was a pickle expert - who made the most delicious tender mango pickle. I watched once, as she lightly smeared castor oil over those tender mangoes, and put them in brine with some chilli powder ("Castor oil?" I winced. Periyamma said nothing - I guess that's where they get their somewhat waterproof crispiness). She was also the resident expert at grated mango pickle ("maanga thokku" as they called in Tamil).

In the nights, she would make the most delicious vaththal kuzhambu, on a stone vessel (kal chatti in Tamil), and over a dutch oven she carefully tended with coal bits that smoldered and had to be burned just right. She would roast brinjals on this to make delicious "gothsu" for her special rice uppuma. Periyamma made some delicious dishes!


Oh, and her special was a time-consuming dish called "paal kozhukkattai". This is how it's made: freshly washed rice is sun dried in a towel until almost dry, pounded manually, mixed with water and steamed, then rolled into small balls. Then, numerous coconuts were grated manually, ground by hand in a stone grinder, and their milk extracted. The rice balls were then meticulously cooked in this coconut milk with jaggery and cardamom added for flavor. Hot Paal Kozhukkattai was made as a special evening snack on one of the days visiting kids like me were around. How much effort this was, I did not know back then. Even in these days with modern machinery, its a lot of effort.

After feeding us all, she would eat. On auspicious days, she would stay in the background, help make the dishes and organize the effort, but blend into the background. Widows like her were considered inauspicious, you see! But she never seemed to care. She would laugh and joke, and has mothered all her sister's children. Not once have I heard her complain.

This most genteel of genteel souls, did not have much support during her last years, though. As she was childless, and as was the wont in those days, she had adopted another sister's son to perform her last rites. When Periyamma was in her nineties, it was decided to send her away to this adopted son's house in Bombay. Had my grandmother been alive, this would never have happened. The people left in the only house she had spent most of her adult life, the people she tended for, decided to send her to this nephew's house in Bombay on the flimsy grounds that her "property", those few jewels she had, was to go to this adopted son. "When he was to get the property," people argued, "why should we take on the liability of caring for this aged lady?"


So Periyamma went to Bombay to live in a small flat, about a tenth of the size of the mansion she had lived in. In this space, she must have felt it tough to do her daily prayers and rituals to the degree she was used to. A year later, when my father visited her during his work travel to Bombay, he was shocked to find her confined to a room, even that last gold chain around her neck taken away. Apparently this nephew's family decided to take away all her jewels, "for safe-keeping" and never returned it. I guess they wanted to ensure that they got their "property" when its owner was in her full senses, rather than look for it later.

After her sad plight became known, Periyamma was brought back to Chennai, and my parents gladly asked her to live with us. Yet, it was a difficult arrangement for Periyamma. A traditionalist at heart, she would refuse to eat until my father was served, even if it was as late as 11 pm. The nature of my father's work was such, that he worked late hours each day and traveled a lot. Periyamma's traditional heart could not bear for her to eat before her son-in-law ate. And she did not feel it right to live in a daughter's house, as much as my father said that she should treat him like her own son, and not care for formalities.

So off she went to another sister's son's house in Chennai. She got the respect she deserved here, but still pined for her old sister's family, the last remaining members of the mansion, whose children she raised. She kept asking about them, and about my mother, whom she raised as a beloved youngest daughter, and whom she had a soft corner for. How ironic that the family now in the mansion, did not want the "liability" of taking care of her, when she had raised, cooked and cleaned after all their children! All in the name of property, those few pieces of gold!

Periyamma passed away when I was in college. She had slipped and fallen, and had a fever for a couple of days. She died in her sleep when she was about ninety.

***

When I look back, all I remember of Periyamma were her smiling eyes and cheerful swaying gait. She was hard of hearing, I remember fondly now. When we whispered to her she couldn't hear, so we had to use the loudest of whispers, which we realized to our frustration, could be heard right across the room, defeating the very purpose of a whisper! She had cataracts that were surgically removed, and wore heavy glasses with thick lenses.

Periyamma did not even own a radio, she owned nothing except her ochre robes and the love she bore for one and all, and that she freely gave away along with her hard work. We grew up on food cooked by her, butter churned by her, and with delicious pickles she made that tasted so good with rice and buffalo-milk yogurt.

Did we even think to ask whether she ate, or sit with her while she did? I think not. Did she mind? Probably not....We were all her children and grandchildren, her family, to whom nothing was held back. She rejoiced in our joys, and did all she could to mitigate anyone's bad mood, and smooth relationships. She has braided the hair of all her sister's children, and tended to the grandchildren. She has cooked for the childbirths of several women in the family, the special diet that was created for lactating women.

Yet these very people went their own ways, with their own lives, pausing occasionally to think of Periyamma but not being able to help her much. If she felt sad at this, she did not let on. She still had a big smile for me when I visited her during holidays, and cheerfully leaned on to my hugs.

When I think of Periyamma's life, I see the kind of courage that most of today's women, liberated as we are, do not have. The kind of grace and fortitude that expects nothing, yet gives everything. She was the queen of queens when it came to her serene attitude, yet she dressed in ochre robes and stayed in the background. She had nothing, not even a purse, yet didn't seem to care. I wish I had saved one of the ten paise coins from her "knot purse" - but like the candy I bought with them, all I have left are sweet memories.

I am sure other families had such wonderful women with big hearts, who gave much and expected nothing. Here is to you, Periyamma! May we all be blessed with your grace and courage.