Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Welcoming the Triumverate


No, not the trio from the celestial world, Brahma-Vishnu-Siva, setting foot in the Garden City - not in its present format definitely. It will be my grandsons, next month,  from the US:  Ashwin, Rohan, and Rishi. The first two from Arizona, and the third from California.

Snatching the phone the other day from his mother (our elder d-i-l) denying her the privilege to convey it, an excited Ashwin (11) announced,  “Thatha, we are coming to India next month.  And you know, I have learnt a new song and will play it for you when I come there.” 

Yes he is an upcoming pianist, under the tutelage of the great-, great- grand-daughter of Mozart. True perhaps because in her house I counted seven pianos belonging to different eras when I last dropped Ashwin for the class.

You have a piano at home, Thatha? he continued
We have a harmonium, beta. You can try your hand at it, I said as a consolation.
But in harmonium one hand stays busy with the bellow, and I use both the hands at the keyboard.

Before we could work a way out, Rohan(7), the younger one who by then squeezed himself closer to the mouthpiece, said aloud in a me too gusto, “Thatha, I scored two goals in the last Sunday match against Jack’s team. You remember Jack?”
Yes I do, but Jack and you were in the same team, always fighting for the centre-forward’s position, right? 
Yes, but now he has moved from Scottsdale and joined another club.
So, your position as centre-forward is now assured?”
Yes Thatha.
Any fresh injuries, Rohan?
No, Thatha, just the usual ones.
Okay, you scored two goals, but what about the opponent?
Five, he said somewhat reluctantly, hinting that I had better not asked that question.
Don’t worry,  when you come to Bangalore we will practice together so that on return you will hit goal after goal, okay?
So you have a soccer ground. Thatha? 
Not exactly, but we have a basketball court.

He started laughing. “You know Thatha a basketball court is much less than half of a soccer ground. How can we practice there?”
“Sorry sunny, but you have to make-do with that. That is what boys here do. In fact even elders play cricket in that space.”

That was the upper limit for my d-i-l to be on the waiting list. She reminded them, “Now my turn,” and picked the receiver from them for a talk with the lady of the house (LOH). I went for my shave and bath. Back from the ritual, I found them not even half way through their chat - milk overflowing at the kitchen, regardless.

About half an hour later, I got another call, this time from San Jose, California. It was Rishi (7) - my younger son’s son. “Thatha, we too are coming there, around the same time,” he said, rather overjoyed. “The network is strong among kids too”, I said to myself.

"Delighted, Rishi. By the way congrats again. I watched your prize-winning speech at the school  - a gist of Steve Jobs’ famous speech at Stanford University.  I liked your body language better. I still can’t say I followed 100% of what you spoke. Your diction, accent, style everything has changed since my last visit."

Aside from a bookworm, going by his interests and inclination, Rishi can be termed a saint in the making, true to his name. So I asked him, “Rishi, can I buy for you any more of Amar Chitra Katha?  I know you are through with the Tell Me Why… series of books.”

Before I could continue, my younger d-i-l, listening to the conversation in speaker-mode, interjected from the kitchen. “Appa, don’t buy him any books. He has a complete collection of Amar Chitra Katha, and is up-to-date on Chota Bhim as of last month. In addition, these days he insists on his dad to take him to the Library, instead of to his earlier haunt, Restaurant. And finishes about 10 books in 15 days - of the Harry Potter and other varieties, each running in 200+ pages. So if you must buy, take him to the bookshop for him to select himself.“

Yes, now I am a little busy drawing a vacation plan for them. To begin with, the division of labour has been drawn. LOH has assigned me the caretaker job for the children, as she and the two daughters in law frequent Orion Mall, Commercial Street, Mantri Mall and the new Elements Mall in Thanisandra. For the last one alone, she has allowed me to accompany them with the kids so that I branch off with kids to Sapna Book shop there to have a dekho at their 100,000 book collection, as the three ladies invade the mall.

As for the one-day and two-day trips outside Bangalore, LOH and I are still to arrive at a consensus, If I suggest Jog falls, she comes up with another name. When I propose the Nagarahole resort, she has a few others lined up. No doubt we will draw up one finally.  After all, next week we will cross 42 years of togetherness, and these little disagreements are of no consequence, and are aimed at only to give the best fare to our sons and families.

V.V. Sundaram
20 May 2015

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

A Date with the Dead


“Sundaram, our uncles have decided to sell their ancestral house, and request us to empty our household items stored there before it changes hands. Can you travel to Palghat and handle it, please?” asked my eldest brother. Those were the items with which we had migrated to our maternal grandfather's house when our father's flourishing business collapsed overnight, thanks to World War II. 

Chudamani, my friend in the village, accompanied me to the decades-uninhabited house that awaited a full-blown sneeze to collapse. He checked the rooms on the ground floor. I went upstairs and tried to climb the attic with a jump-start. It was too high. I found the table and chair that stood by me in my school days still there. I placed the chair on top of the table and barely managed. 

The attic was poorly lit, and the twilight added to the darkness. I felt the dust-ridden items one by one, braving bats, lizards, centipedes, and scorpions that mounted a joint assault at my invasion into their unhindered lives. 

First I chanced upon the set of ten king-size Tanjore paintings (kept one on top of the other upside down so that the glasses stayed safe). I could recollect they were embossed with gold. ‘A solid few lakhs, to begin with,’ I said to myself.

Still groping, my hand reached for a large utensil with ‘ears’ to hold by. It was used in the bathroom, for the maidservant to fill water from the well for all of us to bathe. Suddenly, attired in pancha-gachham and uttareeyam, bright vibhooti on forehead, my paternal grandfather surfaced from out of the utensil, smiling at me. “So you are Sundaram, aren’t you, my child,” he asked. I was both struck with fear and drawn in by his affection. When he died my father was not even married; thus there was no way he could have placed me. Anyway this was no time for logic. 

“Yes, I am. And from the photo I have seen at home, you are my Kunjanna Thatha, aren’t you?” “Yes I am, my child. I used regularly this and a host of other utensils that you see around here for feeding the poor until in your father’s time this particular one found its way to the bathroom. Promise me you will donate all these utensils to the Grama Samooham for mass feeding during religious festivities.” “I shall, Thatha,” I reassured him. He vanished into the thin air.

With pimple-like sweat from head to foot, I looked up through the solitary glass roof-tile for light and, if possible, fresh air as bonus. The branches of the mango tree above were dancing merrily to the late evening breeze. As I tried to enjoy more of it, I saw Krishnan Kutty, the handyman of the village balancing on a branch plucking mangoes. (Every season he plucked from all the five tress at our backyard. In return Patti gave him a basketful of assorted mangoes and a four-anna coin. He never grumbled, but he was hard-pressed for money.) His eyes fell on me casually. Instead of extending the customary smile at meeting someone ages after, he stared at me, followed by a volcanic eruption. “Did you know why I had to commit suicide, Sundaram?” I was ill at ease at his calling me by name. I wished he didn’t place me after such a long gap. But he did. “But you are alive, plucking mangoes,” I retorted. “No, I am his ghost. You villagers gave me such a raw deal for my work that I could hardly subsist, let alone get married. That is why I had to take that extreme step.”  

“Sorry friend, I didn’t know it. You know I have been away for many years. Anyway, tell me what can I do for you,” I asked him off-guard not realizing that there was very little I could do to a dead.  “I have borrowed several times from your grandmother vettu kathi, spade, axe, the entwined rope for climbing the coconut tree, the multi-hooked trap to dig out kodams from the well-bed. Look around the attic. You might stumble on them. Hand those over to the President of the Grama Samooham, and instruct him to… No, he might change his mind and keep them for the Samooham. Better still, give them to Chudamani and ask him to donate these to Velu who visits the village regularly looking for odd jobs. He can hardly afford to buy these.” “I shall, Sir,” I added the salutation unwittingly. But then they say the dead are to be treated with more respect.

Enough of it, I said, the sweat now turning into a stream. Let me get down; let the buyer of the house take it all, I murmured, and headed down. Now the chair was missing. “Oh my God, what elemental force is loitering around here? Is it the neglect of daily puja in the house for years that is causing this?

No sooner did I utter the word puja than I heard the drumbeat of Chendai from beyond our backyard. It was Friday, and the time 7. Ponnu Thai, the midget, maidservant for many houses in the morning, and an ardent Devi devotee otherwise, was still kicking and continuing with her Friday pujas, I guessed. Yes, as children, we dreaded most the Friday nights with the drumbeat, sound of the oracle wielding her sword, and screams and howling that let our imaginations run riot.

With a full-blown bright red sindhoor, Ponnu Thai confronted me, fully in trance and wielding the oracle-sword.  She smeared vibhooti on me, and asked me how on earth could we think of selling the house. I clarified that it was not mine; it was our grandfather’s. “You... telling me?’ she asked, her sword getting a little closer to me. I pacified her saying that it would in all probability be sold to someone from within the village. “Well that is somewhat heartening,” she said a little pleased, and asked me to continue the good work I was doing. I reassured her. To this day I am figuring out what that is.

Hardly had I got over this bout when I saw a chair surfacing all by itself up the stairs in slow motion. This terrified me to the hilt till I saw Chudamani’s head underneath - struggling to balance the chair. “Where did you take the chair?” I asked him in desperation.  “I wanted to check something in the small cellar in the kitchen store-room. The opening was at four feet high. Why? Anything happened?” he asked. “No nothing, just like that,” I said regaining my composure. With utmost care we brought down the ten Tanjore paintings and took them to his house. Under bright light we found all the gold pieces having disappeared, and the hapless paintings staring at us stripped.

I shared with Chudamani disposal instructions exactly the way I received them, but as though they were my brainchild.

“Should we just have one final check to be sure nothing is left out,” Chudamani asked. “No, not necessary,” I replied, substituting in time my real answer, “Never again.” 

19 May 2015




Wednesday, May 13, 2015

SRISHTI ROUNDUP


A few loyalists asked me, separately, “How come Uncle we don’t see your post, of late?” I  smiled it away. The real reason is that I have a new Mac Mini desktop. It has TextEdit rather than a Microsoft Word that I am used to. The font proves a strain on my eyes, and  I have not been able to fix it at a default setting with a larger font. Believe me, I have even attempted it at different times of the day. Anyway, not your problem. (This is when I remember Siva Paturi (702), now in California. He would just fix it in a jiffy. “Remembering us for a selfish reason, Uncle,” I hear you mutter, Prashanti. No, not at all. Far from it.)

                                       * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

These days the day starts in B Block with your being woken up by the  rhythmic sound of a new Yoga teacher, “Ek…, Do…, Teen…, Char…,” as he guides his adult students in the Basketball court at 5 am to synchronize various steps. Or, occasionally by the commotion of cricket., basketball or any other game children choose to begin the day with. Which of the two cracks it depends on what time you regained your sleep after the 2.30 am wake-up call of the  stray dogs heading home after a prowl. 

It is summer vacation, and children have a gala time playing various games at all conceivable vacant spots. Skateboard seems the ‘in’ thing this season where an instructor guides children of all ages the nuances, as their parents or grandparents keep a concerned vigil for any mishap. The hitherto deserted swimming pool is in full splash. The easy-going seniors (and not the so aged as well) continue to relax with their select groups at the bench in the toddlers’ play area, watching the young ones enjoy the swing, see-saw, or merry-go-round. Simultaneously these elders engage themselves in conversations on a wide range of topics. The group is getting popular by the day, so much so that each one makes it five minutes earlier to grab a seat before his/her friend does. Their present demand is to uproot the solitary bench in the car-park area of B Block and install it in the park. “In that God-forsaken car-park area,”  they argue,  “you get no more than the smell of what is cooking in the adjoining first-floor flat”.

This is also the time when ceremonies are planned that involve children. Rightly so, Dr Satpathy and Jayashree of A Block performed the Upanayan of their son, Aryaman (Sun), in their home town in Odissa. (The elder son is Chirag (Light). Very thoughtful of you Satpathy to name them after sources of energy. Yes, no doubt children ARE a source of energy.)  Back in Bangalore they held a reception in Malleswaram which was well attended. The menu aside, the star attraction of the event was the sooo cute Aryaman with a tonsured head sporting a two-strand of hair as tuft that the occasion demanded. Did someone whisper into Satpathy’s ears suggesting something for nazar na lage? Anyway, Aryaman that evening could easily have passed a screen test for a child artist for Sant Gyaneswar, Tukaram, Kabir, Tulsi Das, or who have you. 

In sharp contrast to all this merriment, alas there are some children who are burning their midnight oil preparing for a host of  All India entrance exams. One of my morning walk friends’ daughter is right now busy shuttling between various cities to appear in  X number of tests in Y number of days. “Is it a record?” I asked. “No, hers is for Medical. It is more for the Engineering stream,” he clarified.  

The city’s garbage collection centre seems to have resurfaced at its old place - this time with a vengeance. Those who go out to fetch milk early morning would seem the most affected. That probably is the time when sorting job is at its peak.

The long-awaited suspense is over. The shopping cum residential building completed opposite our back-gate will have two shops - a Chicken Blast and an Iyengar Bakery. The liquor shop patrons will now have a wider choice for a bite  - the usual pakodas from the old shop, or chicken pieces from the new one.

V.V. Sundaram
B-703  
13 May 2015


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