Life is measured in Tea spoons

This is a legend in our family archives available only to selected friends. There’s no gloating or hip-hip hurrahs for a small act of mercy done. It dates back to the time when our children hadn’t reached their teens. 

 One hot Sunday afternoon as we were settling down to a siesta our doorbell stridently rang. It was a young dusty famished looking young man with a ten-day old stubble on his face. He asked for water and gulped it down. 

All he asked my husband was ‘give me a job Sir’. His story was a sad one. A Hyderbadi welder, Faisal had been with a contractor in Kochi. The contractor had decamped leaving six workers to fend for themselves. 

Faisal had walked kilometres asking for a job till he was directed to meet my man who had an industrial unit. There was no job to give but we suggested he go back to home to Hyderabad. The cost of the train ticket was the next question. 

Our purses were on their last legs till payday but we decided to scrounge all hidden sources within our walls. Our kids had been promised a treat of Dacca ice cream on the last Sunday of every month. This was Kochi of the old days and Dacca cream or pail I cream was available only in CRH. There were no ice parlours then.  

The treat money was not enough to pay for the rail ticket but somehow enough was found by some strange conjurances. 

His famished look of hunger broke my heart. So, my daughter aged 7yrs was sent to bring him a mug of tea. She came back with tea and slices of thickly buttered bread and jam which he wolfed down.  

Kneeling down he lay down his stack of certificates and said “Sir keep these certificates with you till I return the money you give me”. But we were no cut throats and he was told that if he wanted to repay, he could give it to my father who was in Secunderabad. Touching our feet, he left with a jaunt. Our Shylocks demanded a double helpings of Dacca ice cream for their financial sacrifice.

My father was flabbergasted to have the visit of a young man at his doorstep three months later, with the repayment of his travel which we had proffered and he took along a basket of the choicest grapes. He said he had a job.  

For the year’s our father was there, at Ramadan, Faisal would visit him with the choicest of Hyderabadi cuisine.  

We had forgotten Faisal since my Father left. 7 years later a well looking, well dressed Faisal knocked at our door. We could hardly believe our eyes. He said he was on his way to Dubai and had come to say goodbye. He asked for the choti-behen who gave him tea long ago. She was now fourteen. He held her hand and gave her a small box. It was a pair of the most beautiful jhumuki’s fit for a teenager.  

He left promising to keep in to in touch. But life has a way of moving on.

A thought for the Aging generation.

There are things that grow more precious with age. Old wood to burn, old books to read, and old friends to enjoy.

Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind it, it doesn’t matter.

Actually, life gets more enjoyable the older you get. The hardest years in life are between ten and seventy. One cannot help being old but one can resist being aged.

Remember that when you were born you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way that when you die, the world will cry and you will rejoice.

Age is a mirrored kaleidoscope. When people tell you how young you look, they are also telling you how old you look. Age is not a youthful friend but a sorry travelling companion and it’s impossible to get rid of the pesky image.

A Chinese proverb says that a woman who tells her age is either too young to have anything to lose or have anything to gain.

Once a foodie with great appetite for happy foods, you know you’re over the hill, when you develop a taste for oatmeal, kanji, or wheat flakes or toast.

When a woman tells you her age, it’s alright to act surprised but don’t scowl. When people tell you how young you look, they are most likely calculating how old you are

Don’t be fooled. Forty is the old age to youth and fifty-five is the youth of old age. There’s many a good tune in an old violin or guitar and great comfort in a cosy chair.

Friends, you begin to know when you’re growing older when your children begin to look middle aged. Their sixties tell me I’m aged.

You’re growing aged slowly when you look forward to a dull but quiet evening That’s the age when you know all the answers but nobody is asking the questions

I’ve come to the strong conviction that there’s no future in being aged but the wheel has to rotate of on its own volition.

On Committees and time pass

 Apart from the mad rush of the mad rush of traffic, nothing has held our land together as committees. 

Just even last week a blurb from the higher echelons of the treasury said that a committee has been appointed to look into the anomalies of pay revision for State pensioners. It’s a perfect weapon to prolong or kill any forward payments.

 A committee is a group who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done. So, add a few, professional scatterbrains who have no ideas of the matter at all.

Just imagine, if Moses had a committee, the Israelite's would still be in Egypt never having crossed the Red Sea. Or imagine had Columbus had an advisory committee he would never have been able to cross the Atlantic but sit on his ship in his home port.

Seating is important at a committee meeting. Friends should sit side by side to formulate strategies, and block out scattered opposition.

Having served on various committees I have formulated a set of stringent rules never to be broken if you’re invited to join a committee.

Never arrive on time, for this will stamp you as a beginner to be looked down but well-heeled members don’t say anything until the meeting is half over, then they’ll look upon you as wise.

Be as vague as possible so that you don’t irritate others. If others are dithering about the problem suggest a sub-committee to be appointed. Use your finesse to move for an adjournment and this will make you popular as the tea and snacks are served.

You’ll never find a monument dedicated to a committee

 

Grandparents and Grandchildren

‘Tis said that the simplest toy a small child can operate is a grandparent. Its only grandparents who can remember and preserve the generational veins of a continuing connectivity.

The grandparent’s job is to give their grandchildren
wings and roots, so much so they form the web and woof of what children do to
society. No grandparent can ever watch but painfully a grandchild being
corrected. Grandparents are the magic talismans for their grandchildren.

Grandparents sort of sprinkle dust over the lives of little children. According to a child a grandfather is a man grand-mother.

Grandmothers are the repositories for children’s doubts. If mother says no, ask grandmother. Children like being with grandmother for she smells like all the smell of happy foods,

Being a grandparent is Gods reward for growing old. They take babies for a priceless cuddle and warmth of unpretentious love. A grandchild is the press secretary of a grandparent.

Every grandparent has the only perfect child and they are the parents who have a second chance.

Before she can sit back and relax from mothering her young, a woman becomes a grandmother and the scenario changes.

It’s often quoted that God could not be everywhere and so he invented grandparents

The legend of Pussan

Calling cats by their names is no doubt a difficult task. You may think I’m mad as the mad hatter to write about cats whom some of you abhor and aren’t interested in their ancestry

We had a cat of indeterminate ancestry, a kind of Tabby cat with dark brown stripes on a generally white background, with blazing blue eyes.

He mewed his way into our home, maybe discarded by his mother or maybe decided to run away from the rest of the pack. We couldn’t call him Jasper or Himansu or even duplicate Biden’s cat Socks in the White House so we called him Pussan which sounded like Russian.

My youngest son and Pusan jelled together like butter and Jam which both liked. But Pussan showed his early preference for fish at all meals. He would cock a snook at rice, veggies and curry and would be sulking for half a day outdoor as no pets were allowed into the dining room at mealtimes but Pusan’s preference was smuggled out very cleverly to ease his offended psyche.

Pussan relaxed and snoozed in the boy’s rooms calmly listening to the musical endeavours. His bushy tail which outdid any modern brush swayed to the rhythms or maybe he was circulating the air from his cushion.

Pussan grew round and tubby as well-fed cats always do for, he never ran to catch rats or cockroaches. Live and let live May have been his political policy. He was never curious as cats I presume are normally are. He was rarely game for a cuddle with strangers but would unexpectedly leap onto a lap which was shelling peas into a bowl

Pussan broke every human law of gravity by spending his leisure time if nothing more important was happening terra-firma by skimming up the mango tree to catch hapless sparrows, or the laws of levitation which even a Houdini couldn’t imitate.

Pussan defied any description of being a real cat. He was on friendly terms with Fluffy our Pom. Fluffy had not decided whether he was a dog or a goat for he was on reconciliation with my Bai’s goats. So Pussan joined the confederation of peace makers. Very often on hot afternoons one could see Fluffy at his afternoon siesta and Pussan cuddling by his fluffy side.

Pussan was a clean cat for he enjoyed wiping himself top to toe and enjoyed doing it

But the day dawned when my son left the homestead for greener pastures and Pussan felt orphaned for I had no time to cuddle him

To get him over his sulks we decided to send him to a place where he could meet his next of kin and may be have his fill of seafood. It had to be done and we cajoled him into the dicky and dropped him about 35 km away where there were plenty of thattu-kadas and many of his kind loafing around.

But the traffic roared and Fluffy danced a gig on his hind paws for in strolled Pussan, baggy kneed, one ear missing but the glare of his eyes was enough to his hegemony. He resumed licking his thumbs, and filled his feline gastronomy with a bowl of fish

But left forever when the Chinese crackers and fireworks was too much for him and maybe he had no sympathy for the Chinese infiltration. He left for a quieter world.

 

Thangassery a sheaf of memories thro the eyes of a ten-year-old

 It was about the 16th century that the Chinese discovered the sea route to Quilon from where they carried on a lucrative trade. They were outdone by the superior power of the Portuguese, and they in turn were driven away by the Dutch. The turn of events in history which is unexplainable brought the British East India company to keep its stranglehold on the sea coast as a stepping stone to establish a hegemony over India.

Thangassery was an enclave of about 200 acres of pristine coastal land ideal for setting up a township dear to the hearts of the foreigners. As one waveform domination bypassed another the foreigners probably decided to keep away from the local Malayalee’s, to settle down with their desi relationships to create a new home away from their land

I remember entering Thangassery thro the arch that proclaimed its uniqueness from the humdrum Kollam or Quilon as it was called. My father decided to settle down for a few years to educate my brothers and myself, in an English medium school and so it was.

 I used to walk along the rocky sea coast along which fisherfolk had taken a foothold. More enticing and rather scary was the cemetery with gigantic tombstones commemorating those men who had come from afar and lived and died in Thangassery. Dutch names engraved in marble indecipherable to the Indian tongue.

 Today I hear that the heavy tombstones have been purloined, to be used as flooring for houses nearby.

 The Light house keeper satisfied our innate curiosity by letting us climb to the top to view the blue sea and ships sailing on the far horizon. It aroused the spirit of adventure in many of us

I remember with nostalgia names and places of long ago. Dr. Krishna Pillai who had three jars of medicinal mixture, one a light pink, one a dark pink, and one a white one. For minor consultations to him one would be administered to whichever illness was complained about. There was never doubt about its efficacy for minor illnesses.

 The Lulu Mall was probably an avatar of Ravi Stores which stocked everything, and a shop where most households had running accounts for come payday and go pay day were a part of finances. Very few of the residents bothered about their tomorrows.

At the junction where two roads bifurcated, young Romeos would assemble in the evening for snacks and chukku kaapi from Shenoy mobile snack cart. I can still savour Kooni Mariam’s toffees sold outside our Infant Jesus Anglo Indian school. Kooni Mariam’s sweets were five pieces of jaggery and peanut chewier sold for 1 Anna.

 Speedy vehicles were rarely seen on the roads of Thangassery except the lucky owners of bikes. The owners of these were envied by the hoi polio and cars driving from outside to deposit children in school or parents who had their small sons boarded in homes of friendly hosts.

Our evenings were spent running to the small beach behind the Mount Carmel convent, and we kids and teens, classmates, friends, and cheery neighbours could wade into the waist deep briny sea. We children collected clay from under the rocks, and caught tiny colourful fish using towels. As the sunset, we shared pink ice-lollies with friends.

All was not fun and frolic in Lent. The divinity and sanctity of the season was the procession of the Way of the cross round the entire town on every Friday during lent. 

Sounds of piano music we’re heard when Ms Sheela D’Couto thumped at her piano encouraging the young to appreciate western music. She was the first Anglo woman of Thangassery to become a graduate. She taught perfect Kings English.

 The young boys of the community were experts with drums, guitars and flutes for they must have had latent musical genetic genes from their forefathers.

 Christmas was a time of fun. Groups of us serenaded as Santa’s and his cohorts carolling our hearts to earn a little pocket money. For the budding teens the East West club was the focus of merrymaking. Kids were not admitted as strong liquor like arrack was the celebratory drink. The famous Thangassery twists, jives, and rock roll, set the rollicking festivities aglow from Xmas eve to midnight on Xmas day. Those nights when whole of Thangassery looked like a fairy land of dreams where gaily dressed young girls with beautiful make up danced with handsome companions.

 Unforgettable were the sights and sounds of old Tangy. Another memory that never fades is of the famous Carmel Bakery, owned by Mr Andrew James. The aroma of freshly baked buns and pastries had many of us crying for more. Carmel Bakery wedding cakes were a sight to the eyes and a taste to the tongue. The rich and famous from all over had their offspring’s wedding cake from Carmel Bakery. It was narrated that Carmel Bakery made the wedding cake for Central Govt minister Henry Austin’s daughter’s wedding. It was also said that the Kochi famous Mr Chackola wanted his daughter’s wedding cake to be made by Andrew D Cruz who refused to make it in Kochi. The final compromise was that the cake was made in Thangassery and transported to Kochi. The sons of the owner of Carmel bakery had the nicknames like Roti, Bunny etc

 Thangassery was famously once in the news when Thangassery girl Janice Spinks was declared Champion Hurdler.

 Anglo Indian young girls and boys became proficient for their skills as office secretaries. At that time very few opted for medicine or engineering. Eventually they found profitable livelihoods in foreign countries like Britain and Australia.

 The bounty of the sea can never be forgotten in our homes, like 8 or 10 Anna’s for a kilo of fresh fish and lobsters almost a foot long for two annas almost a pittance today

Thangassery munglish was the current lingo then. Some Munglish notations reverberate in my mind after all these years. A sample reads thus. Rasam was pepper water, Pappadom’s were curry biscuits, liquor was grog, Kanji was rice porridge, non-Anglo Indians were called burgers. I once pestered my mother for bamboo cake, which she eventually found was the Malayalee Puttu, and Mafry was Mathi or sardines fried. The tete a tete of a young couple was called mooching.

 Social camaraderie knew no bounds. Marriages between familiar families were accepted as the young could relate to known social mores.

 Today the old Thangassery is no more for those who lent life and colour to this small enclave have twitched their mantles blue and have gone to fresh woods and pastures new.

 

A picnic to remember. A page from the past

What is this life if full of care?  We don’t have time to stand and stare.

 In my indubitable days of teaching in STC, I desperately to accompany my students when they went out of Kerala on week long excursions. But my dreams never materialised due to circumstances beyond my control.

 And then one day my dream came true when Sr Marie Cecile asked Vilasini and me to accompany the final years to a destination they had chosen, Goa

 The adage that when the cat is away the mice will play literally worked for me, for the man around whom my existence was a rather luxurious one, had gone on a month’s construction project to Tuticorin, and my decision to make hay while the sun shone precipitated my desire though I did miss him.

 My mother in law bless her heart was happy to have her grandchildren to Molly coddle and she waved the green signal. So, I set out like a female Ulysses looking for Ithaca.

 My companion was Vilasini well renowned as a guide for college excursions and me a novice. We were told that arrangements made by one of the girls, for our stay overnight in Mangalore and later in Goa, was made by her cousin

 And we set out with a bus full of budding rosebuds waiting to bloom, full of the joie de vivre. With prayers and laughter we drove off to green pastures.

 Miles and miles away and all their singing and cheering, lunchtime meant a break. Somewhere on the highway we saw a gushing stream and they pleaded for a break. Bikers on their way stopped to gaze at the buxom girls and had to be threatened by the driver and Kili.

 Night shadows had us in Mangalore to bed for the night in a school room on school benches. The only source of water was a tap in the garden. So bathing was by candlelight and moon light. There definitely was a broken misunderstanding as Jeeves would say.

 We hurriedly saw the college Sr Therese Marie studied in and a magnificent St. Alosius college and church.  We drove next day over hill, plain rocky roads and farmlands and landed in Panaji old Capitol of Goa. Our girls screamed in delight. What I noticed was the sloping verandas in home stead’s brimming with verdant growth, and ancient well-preserved churches at every turn of the road.

 Then again evidently there was miscommunication or some kind of voodoo for our bus took us to a seaside hillock called Dona Paula. It was a small town where we saw young men lolling mindlessly probably sipping feni in the cool sunshine. Our destination was a small school on a hillock cheek by jowl with a Govt fisheries project on the side.

Amid grumbles and tears a comedown from hopes of decent beds and bathrooms we settled the girls, soothing damaged egos and personality blips. Miraculously food packets from a hostel nearby arrived. We finally settled on benches to rest our tired bones. All was quiet till about the time witches usually fly. there came a thunder bolt so deafening as it rolled from hill to sea in atomic blasts wave after wave.

 Vilasini and I found ourselves clutched by the shivering hands and curdling cries of our wards. The sun rose the next morning as tho the apocalypse of the night had never happened.

 Some wanted to go back to Kochi but good sense prevailed when we were told that it was a common occurrence and many Goan’s believed the thunder was commentating the suicide of a beautiful maiden called Dona Paula

 But the sunlight of the day and hours of roaming the streets of the town without much supervision was a boon for our young wards. Bike taxis a new concept for us, bike riders could be hired to take a passenger or shopper to one’s destination

 They went wading in the placid sea waters supervised by us who didn’t know the ABC of swimming. Shopping for strange Goan artifacts, like soap on a rope, and religious icons were on the agenda. So was a visit to the cathedral to view the casket which had once contained the remains of the patron saint wasabi experience especially when we walked on the terracotta flooring where thousands had walked. It seemed to be a hallowed floor too.

 There was a celebratory dinner and then it was time to head back home after buying bottles of wine in beautiful glass containers as mementos but we were warned that the excise officials would-be lying-in wait to arrest us for contraband liquor for we had no license. But we were happily advised to layer top layer of our suitcases with lingerie and the bottles of wine to lie dormant at the bottom of ladies’ things.

 Sure enough we escaped as bootleggers no doubt but it was all in the game. We drove into STC at midnight in pouring rain