Granny Tales

  

Long long time ago, in a village far away lived a grandma. She lived in a farmhouse with lots and lots of animals and birds. In the mornings she woke up to the chirping and cawing of the birds that nestled in the trees of her front garden. Honey bees and butterflies buzzed around the flower beds throughout the day. Swans and ducks swam in the ponds while cows grazed the green pastures with herons alight on them. Grandma had a lot of farm land, with fields of paddy, coconut and coffee. Everyone adored her especially her grandchildren. They visited her during the summer and then grandma’s little cottage would wake up to a new kind of chirp, the chitter chatter of young children. They were a boy and a girl. Whenever the children visited, they accompanied grandma on her daily walks in the garden. They would go rambling through the meadows across the streams to the fields. One day as they were strolling through the fields, far away they saw a cow eating the paddy! The girl called out, "Look, a cow is eating away your crops," and went on her way. But the little boy ran to the field shouting, " Look, a cow is eating our crop, granny," and chased off the cow. The story certainly grim, was not one from the Grimm Brother’s Tales, but frequently recounted by my grandma. Well, there was somewhere a moral but it was lost to the animated ten-year-old mind whose imagination went wild with the picturesque description of grandma’s cottage.

Morals do get lost to young minds and often the lesson elders want to teach gets lost with them. I remember the times when my dad tried to inculcate the value of hard work and diligence in me with the story of Hanuman’s ‘Mission Sanjeevani -Save Lakshman.’  He had to lift an entire mountain and carry it to the unconscious Lakhmana because he was not diligent and alert to the instructions given by Jambavan. Dad did always end the story with the proverb “Madiyan Malachumakkum” in an ominous overtone. But to my young scattered brain all I could take away from the story was the majestic easiness with which Hanuman flew with the mighty mountain in one hand and his bludgeon in the other. I wanted to be like him.     

On one of my visits to my uncle I was witness to yet another pearl of wisdom getting sprinkled the wrong way. It was his evening routine to check on his sons' academics and one day he made his younger one write down what he learnt in English so far. The kindergartener promptly wrote down all he knew, which were a few alphabets in smaller case and that too some random ones. Getting all worked up since the child had not even learnt his A, B, C, Ds even after going to school for more than a year my uncle started recounting with grave seriousness the tough life the boy might have if he did not study well. Coming from a middle class family of farmers my older generation never had the luxuries of life and education was certainly considered as the ladder towards better living. Since they had rubber plantations my uncle told his son that he might have to become a rubber tapper if he did not do well in life. But much to my uncle’s dismay the six year old got extremely delighted as he could then finally own a bike if he took up the job!

It was not for the stories that I was excited to be at my grandmother’s house. Located at the heart of a township it had none of the appealing charms of a village farmhouse that the grandma in the story had. But the house had its own charm that none other could have.

Though built in a ten cents compound, the house had its own rally of animal friends. There was the dog, Tipu, named after Tipu Sultan I guess, the cat, Rani, carrying the name of Jhansi Rani with her litter of kittens, and numerous hens and cocks. The hens were kept in a coop at the backyard and were let out only in the evening. It was one of my many daily chores to feed them and collect the eggs from the coop. I did it with so much diligence that my dad would have been proud of if he had known.         

Animals were not the only residents there. There was my uncle whom I dotingly called 'Chinchayan,’ Bindu cheche, my childhood companion and all the chettans, cheches, uncles and aunts who would visit the house. My grandfather, 'Appachan' had died by then. But I remember waking up with him early in the morning to have the special black coffee, then have a share of his wheat porridge in the afternoon and those countless trips we had to the Indian Coffee House for those delicious vegetable cutlets, red colored ones with beetroot.

with Bindu cheche

There I became the Huckleberry Finn of the town enjoying myself playing in mud, climbing trees and petting the animals. I was indeed a busy body feeding and taking care of the fowls and the feline friends; going grocery shopping with Bindu cheche; dusting and dabbing knick-knacks and voluntarily assisting Bindu cheche in her housework.
                             

Later when Ammachi, as I called her, moved to her farm house, I enjoyed the serene beauty of the countryside. The master teacher that she was she taught me to love Nature and everything in it. On my stay there we took morning walks through the pastures and rubber plantations just as the children in the story did. We collected cashew nuts, checked on every plant and tree, supervised the workers in the plantation and fields…

She was a wonder woman who could take with her bare hand cow dung. I admired her pluck. Living in the modern society always on the look out for  infections and contagions, to me it was indeed an act of bravery. With her I learnt to milk cows, operate hand rubber roller, thresh the grain from the straw and many more.

                                             

Musing on those bygone days, I know the errands I ran were inconsequential to the ‘Chettans and Chedaties’ working in the fields. Yet those chores boosted my confidence. I felt valued and important and above all worth living. Now when my daughter grieves of her overprotective grannies bombarding her with their care and concern and frequent 'NOs and DON'Ts.' I realise how blessed I was to have that one figure who encouraged me to venture new things and stand on my own.

I would wait eagerly for the weekends and the vacations so that I could be there. It was the sheer comfort of the carefree life I had away from the burdens of routine monotonous life that made the place so appealing.  The frequent expeditions I had riding on the saddle of my uncle’s cycle, the countless visits to the local cinema talkies… With no forbidden fruits, at Ammachi's, I was in Paradise.

Over time Ammachi had changed her dwellings. She moved from the town to the countryside and at some point later in her life she had come to reside in an apartment near my parents. No longer a child myself, but a mother of two, I still yearned to be at Ammachi’s. Me and my two moppets would wait for Friday evenings so that we could go to ‘Ammachi Flat,’ as they would name it by then. Old and fragile, confined to her room, she continued to weave her charm, now on my kids whom she called ‘Perakha’ and ‘Manga’ as she couldn’t remember their names. Now she is gone and Ammachi House has ceased to exist. Looking back across the years, I have realised its not the house that brought me joy but the people and the warmth they carried in them.