Two women - Part 2

This is the second part of my continuing tribute to two women I watched intermittently in my growing years. These women had faced severe odds and overcome them all with a grace and style quite their own.

Periya Paati

She was a force of nature, all on her own. Looking back, she must have been at most five feet tall - perhaps about 90-100 lbs. But this frail woman could easily have been an army general, a military dictator or at the very least, a police chief had she been born a generation later.

My paternal great-grandmother, my grandfather's mother, was called Periya Paati (Elder grandmother) by all of us. A woman widowed an an early age, she was a fiesty one in ochre robes and shaved head, who verily terrorized anyone in the vicinity, with her regal bearing. Her weapon was a sharp tongue that tore people to shreds, should anyone dare to incur her wrath.

She was married off at a very young age to a man nearing forty - I am told she was his third wife, my great grandfather having been twice widowed. She bore her son when still in her teens, and at age 16, holding her year old son in her arms, she was traveling on a train with her husband when a cholera epidemic broke out. Her husband was stricken with it, and never recovered. So there she was, alone in the world at 16, with a year old son in her arms....and no means to support herself.

She took refuge in her in-laws place, where she was made to live the life of an ascetic. Shaved head and ochre robes, as was the custom for brahmin widows those days - became hers. One square meal a day, porridge at night, and a straw mat on the floor for a bed. To resist temptation of any kind, this was the tradition for widows of the time. I later heard from my father that she had confessed in a weak moment of waking up in the middle of the night with hunger pangs, sneaking into the kitchen, and hurriedly eating whatever she could find. Sixteen is a tough age to go by with only one square meal, after doing all household chores.

Somewhere through these hardships, her heart must have steeled itself from further hurts, and a sharp tongue became her armor. My grandfather's paternal aunt died childless, leaving him land worth 60 acres, a fortune in India. I don't know much of what happened in between, so cannot recollect with accuracy how my grandfather got educated and married. Periya Paati's daughter-in-law, my grandmother, came from a well-read household and was an avid reader. A genteel lady who could silence people with a look, she hardly spoke a harsh word.

My grandparents had six children, and lived in a village about 3 kms from the nearest town. My grandfather, having seen the effect of his mother's martinet-like demeanor on his dignified young wife, decided to set up a household in his bungalow in the city for his mother and six children. Ostensibly, this was so that the children could have the convenience of walking to the nearby school. The village house was where my devout grandparents took care of lands, and did their extensive prayers. They entertained several holy men in their house, such was their devoutness. The children would come home for weekends and summer holidays, or my grandparents would visit them in the city in their personal covered bullock-drawn cart.



My father told me, with a mixture of fondness and respect, of the iron hand with which Periya Paati ran her household. The six children slept in a hall, with Periya Paati nearby. Sankskrit tuition it was, for the boys at 5:30 am before school; the teacher would come home. And music lessons for the lone girl at the same time. The first wake up call from Periya Paati would come at 4:30am, and if any of the children did not wake up immediately, this would be followed by a bucket of cold water, freshly drawn from the well. Nobody dare complain or cry, for this would be followed with the threat of a caning....and one did not take threats from Periya Paati lightly.


Once the children woke up and bathed, they would be served hot milk and something to eat. The Sankskrit and music teachers would be given piping hot coffee. Periya Paati was a great cook, I'm told, and could also cook fast. After the sanskrit tuition, around 8am would come the first meal of the day, which in traditional Tamil brahmin households will be "lunch" - sambar, rasam, the works. That done, the kids would walk to school.


Around 3:30pm when the children returned, there would be hot tiffin waiting - idlies or dosais or something delicious, like kozhukkattai or uppuma, along with accompaniments and a glass of south Indian coffee. That done, kids were ordered to go out and play. Right around sunset they were commanded to return, made to study, and then it was a meal and lights out at 8pm. Any back talk to Periya Paati will not be tolerated and will be met with a caning.


And so it went, right until the last one, my father, finished his schooling.


***
Periya Paati then wound up the household and moved back to the village, where she reigned like a queen. She would sit in the outside courtyard talking to people, and would not go for meals unless her son personally came and invited her. If my grandmother's mother dared a visit, especially an overnight one, she would be a victim of Periya Paati's sharp remarks, my grandmother having come from a less well off (albeit better educated) family.



Periya Paati observed every ritual with a perfectionism that was perhaps born out of her frustrating early years where she was made to bear the harsh life prescribed for a young widow. Menstruating women those days had to, at the end of their cycle, bathe in the river and taking dips in the water, submerging their heads, 18 times. The alternative was to pour cold buckets of freshly drawn well water on their heads at dawn. I have heard stories of Periya Paati sitting nearby and counting till 18, until my grandmother was duly cleansed!!


She was stern with us too. We were terrified that she would cane us, but she never did. On rare occasions, one particularly compliant cousin got petted by her, but I've never seen her petting her great grandchildren or talk sweetly to anyone. She was a feared and respected person in the village, that was about it....of course, all from a kid's point of view.

Periya Paati carried a long stick, partially for protection from reptiles (it was a village), partially for drying her clothes that she washed daily, on a clothesline well above the reach of others. This clothesline was deliberately inaccessible, and nobody was allowed to touch her until she finished her prayers. On Ekadashi day I'm told, she would observe a full fast - not even water would pass her lips. Apparently at one time, three holy fasting days fell on consecutive days and Periya Paati steadfastly observed her fast for all three  days. On the fourth day, a scorpion bite made things unbearable - that was the one time cries of pain escaped her.

***
This military disciplinarian bathed with hand-drawn well water right into her late eighties and was strict right through. The one time I really felt sorry for her was when my grandfather died. He was nearly seventy. It was my first experience of death of anyone, and at seven, very perplexing. I remember seeing Periya Paati in the veranda on the cement bench outside the house, with a voice still strong but oddly bereft of life: "I never thought I would be around to see this....it should have been me. Why was my son taken away?". She was shaking her head, muttering to herself "I should have been the one taken, God took my son instead, God took my son....".

Her tone and voice on that day stay with me. She was rocking herself back and forth, as if to comfort herself. She was like a wounded animal.

I did not understand it then, but what a cruel way of life hers was!! At an age where women dressed up and lived a full life, she lived the austere life of a widow and was responsible for a son to boot! Surviving on a square meal a day, what might have been her plight? Perhaps her sharp tongue was born of all these bitter experiences, and was a coping mechanism.

My father once laughed out loud reminiscing about her bargaining skills. Apparently she would offer less than half the price the vegetable vendor quoted to her. If it was eight rupees, the offer was three rupees. After several rounds of arguing, the hapless and dejected vendor would agree to Periya Paati's price and get out of the way as fast as he could!

Her sharp speech was her protection when she had none. And she lived like a queen till the very end. She was taken into my eldest uncle's household, when my grandfather died (my grandmother had preceded him), and lived there till the end right up to her nineties and passed away suddenly.

That's my Periya Paati, a royal queen who was dirt poor at one point, and rose to be one who would brook no disagreement. I salute her courage.