Trichy Veedu
My mother, aunt and I went to Trichy at the start of this year.
We’re selling the house I grew up in. The house they grew up in; amma and her siblings. So everything I was feeling, they were feeling a hundred-fold. As we unlocked the doors for the last time to the only home my grandmother had known since marrying at 17, she stood far away in Chennai, overwhelmed by nostalgia and deep sorrow. Having lost her husband last August, I can’t imagine or articulate what she must have been feeling.
They may never be able to convey the depth of it in words but you would have felt it, standing beside them, looking up at a once-handsome, sprawling house that had now shrunken and become “paazhadanju pochu” — as my aunt repeated over and over, under her breath and suddenly aloud.
Towards the end of its time this house saw its quota of tragedy and then some. But oh my, her glory days were almost boastful in its joy.
I would go there every summer as a little girl. The floors were red oxide and I had a yellow wicker-basket full of toys that came down from the loft every visit. Choppu sets complete with a velli kodam and differently shaped spoons and karandis, dusty plastic packets of balloons, various sound-making objects, and an elongated plastic girl-doll with thin velvety orange hair whose eyes never matched. One eye would get stuck inside the socket or squish towards the side, but her long black lashes were obstinately prominent.
Food was aplenty and timely. The backdoor of the kitchen opened out into a wash area with a well and a thennan-thoppu. It became less of a thoppu and more of just one tree in time but for me, it was Eden.
At night my mother, younger sister (my chithi) and their cousins would be in the kitchen even as my grandmother and her sister tried in vain to usher them out. Within minutes the attempts were abandoned and replaced with the combined chatter of all the women as they cooked together. I would listen to all the gossip, remedies, laughter and opinions, chiming in with my own.
They found me at once adorable, hilarious, and smart (mouthed). I was never shy, constantly curious, laughed and talked a lot even for a kid. Especially in Trichy it seemed, where my mother was frequently lauded for producing a fair-skinned, english-tongued, bright-eyed angel. Their words, not mine. Apparently this meant I would be a doctor and most likely marry one as well. They haven’t struck out hope on the doctor husband, but as for the other assumption — how cute.
The TV was almost always on even when nobody was watching. If it wasn’t that it was the old transistor radio that was dutifully covered with a lace-trimmed cloth. The TV would be covered too when not in use. Dust would gather, amamma said. Dust gathered on the framed photographs of my parents, my chithi and her husband, and all the grandkids — each of us got our own frames; somehow amamma never tired of dusting those off nearly everyday.
I especially remember going to sleep at night. The two bedrooms were occupied by my amamma, thaatha, Uma pemmi and Ashok maama. The rest of us slept in the hall on the red-oxide floor, on paais. We would all lie side-by-side, watching the last of the Sun TV serials in the darkness, talking in snatches till we drifted off. Amamma woke at the crack of dawn before anyone else and I would stir as her feet passed me by. Then I’d sleep-turn to amma, chithi, or achan sleeping beside me, snuggle into them and fall back asleep. Only to be awoken gently by amma and the the smell of hot filter coffee soon after.
There were many people in this small house with a big heart. Between the coffee, food, Cinthol soap and Gokul Santol powder, the aromas lingered.
I remembered everything.
The exact meter of chithi’s laugh and how she konjified me with abandon and adoration. Which tumbler was thaatha’s and which of the identical steel dabba’s held the special snacks that were in stock only when grandchildren visited. Sessions every evening out on the verandah that ranged between Ilayaraja to me singing kuzhal-oodhi manam ellam or alaipayudhey as though my music miss taught nothing else in class — to idle chit-chat.
I remembered my tiny chair that I rocked away on as I learnt to play pallanguzhi and paramabadham.
Pallanguzhi with Uma pemmi was my favourite.
She only had the one hand, her left was paralysed but she was so deft as she scooped out the shells and mimicked actions to indicate the empty ones. I nearly always lost. Sometimes I cheated but would immediately feel bad because she didn't have the faculties to realise a ten-year-old was cheating at a game with her. After the first few times I stopped cheating and lost gracefully. I think this was my earliest memory of remorse and sympathy. And being a good sport about loss.
Paramabadham was fair play though. You could make it all the way to the top, be one roll away from winning and — “haiyyoo! poch po! Periiiiiya paambu kothirchu!”— and all the way down you would go, morosely placing your coin at the starting line to start over.
Umma pemmi had really cool coins for the game; smooth, oddly-shaped ones in different bright colors. They seemed like pebbles but weren't.
(Making a mental note to should ask her what they were, where she got them from) And the daayam (dice) was long and cool to touch, not round and plastic. It made a very satisfying sound when I rubbed them together in my palms before flinging them onto the floor. Cling-clang-clink-clinggg!!!
Some days my fancy turned to carom.
Ashok maama was the carom pro. He couldn't speak a coherent sentence, walk in a straight line, or drink water without wetting his shirt. But when he sat at the carom board, his whole body went taut, his eyes focused, he pursed his lips and his fingers stopped trembling.
Growing up with them made me a better human. Made me raise my head to wave an overly-loud “Hi Ashok maama!” when some kids in my Chennai apartment called him “that strange man who stares”.
I smilingly told them he was my uncle and he meant no harm and they immediately muttered apologies under their breath before we scuffled back to playing. I remember love rumbling in my stomach, replacing the shame that rumbled in my throat.
Even though amma and I have countless fights today because we don’t understand each other, I wonder if she sees the bits of her that are a part of me. Achan and his family gave me brazen courage and spirit while amma and hers passed on an unending capacity to love, sacrifice and see the world through only kind eyes.
But standing amidst the soon-to-be ruins of the house that we are saying goodbye to, I see my family through my mothers eyes. Then my grandmothers. “What happens after us?” “What have I ever given them? What is enough?” “Will their life end between Chennai and Trichy before I’m ever able to take them on a plane?” “Ammu, what if I die before them?”
Now the eyes of all my grown-ups are laced with worry and sorrow. Not for the days gone by but for the inevitability of destruction and goodbyes.
Amma, Uma pemmi and I stood in front of the gate and said our goodbyes. There were no final parties, no hay days, no everyone sitting together one last time and reminiscing, no inflow of money to ease the burdens — medical bills and responsibilities mounted while limbs started wearing out under the weight. So here we were, performing a surgical strike. No time for much else, we were on the evening train back the very same day.
If I had one wish, I would bring everyone back to the verandah of the only home they have called their own and listen to everyone’s laughter while the radio was tuned to All India FM.
We have sold a house they grew up in. I did, too.
There were no tears from any of us. Only a flurry of procedures, lighting of lamps, many many photos and videos, taking it all in and then — silence.
The building was crumbling and empty but I could only see exactly where the old transistor radio went, and the teapoy (a word I learnt from my Trichy family) holding a piping hot tumbler of fresh filter coffee for thaatha to get to after reading the paper, while laughter, music, and the scent of amamma’s Gokul Santol lingered in the air — forever.
