The Dealmakers

 For some inexplicably strange reason, human beings as a rule resist and almost resent change of any kind. Time was when people believed that they don”t  make them like that anymore.Of course, such people always have  irrefutably logical reasons for such an attitude. An oldie but a goodie. Diehard tendencies to cling to the hoary past including material possesions  have provided many a hearty laugh, going forward on a positive note..

The old order changeth, yielding place to the new. But there are instances when it doesn”t. The rice ladle and the idli kadai  that I bought from the store lost their handles within the year and became unusable, But the cookware and utensils that  mostly comprise  my kitchen  have been given to me by my mother as trousseau. She in turn got them from her mother more than half a century back,Many a tumble, many a knock have they taken, but not a dent , nary a scratch, They have lasted a lifetime and are good for many more years to come. Modern cookware is sleek and stylish but sound of body and sturdy of constitution, these oldies can well stand on their own.

Old folks are old fashioned. Being old fashioned has got to do with being  traditional. Old fashioned in atttitude, upbringing, value systems, lifestyle choices etc.etc. Being traditional and old fashioned  was the core of middle class  social climate of thirty years ago. Not misuse and throw but save  and stretch available resources to the maximum to optimize utilization. It was this mind-set which led my mother to lovingly preserve her mixer grinder for years on end.” No offers on exchanges for me”, she would say.” I won”t trade this trusted one for some new fangled,unknown one “.” My seasoned kitchen - mate  ”, she would proudly tell her friends.” It has a long way to go hopefully”.

As if to give the lie to her words, soon after, the mixer packed up, that too while mother was in the midst of her kitchen chores. The old faithful sputtered and shuddered before collapsing totally. The mechanic came and pronounced that the motor needed to be rewound. “ A costly affair”, he said. “ Better go for a new one”. But mother was unfazed. “ I’ll call in my brother S to help. I’m sure the mixie doesn’t exist which he can”t repair”.Now a word about Uncle S. Uncle was the biggest collector of old electrical gadgets. He specialised in bread toasters and mixers. The greater the degree of breakdown, the better because  he could occupy himself pottering around with it. All the household gadgets that were faulty found their way into his collection, plus the hand -me-downs from friends and relatives.

It was one of these “ eccenteric “ gadgets that Uncle offered generously to mother in her hour of need when he came to collect the mixie for repair.. Of course, he duly warned that sometimes the lid came off the jar while grinding  and flung the contents onto the user”s face!  Predictably, Mixie  No.2 did not work for mother and she went after Uncle, hammer and tongs. Amidst this state of kitchen chaos, there were exasperated sighs all around, with father  persuading mother to buy a new one. But mother stuck to her guns.  “I’m sure S can repair it. Why waste money on a new one?”

Then one morning, Uncle S turned up. “ I’m sorry my mixie conked out on you, But don’t worry. Your mixie is as good as done because I’m going to Delhi where spare parts will be available at Ajmal Khan Road. Meanwhile, as a stop-gap, you can use Mixie No.3 which actually belongs to my sister in law. She’s moving abroad and she couldn’t bring herself to dispose with her mixer, which she won in a cookery competition years ago. Knowing my partiality to oldies, she has left this mixer with me”. And with that grand announcement, he plonked Mixie No.3 on the kitchen table.” I’m sure it will serve you well till I return from Delhi with your kitchen-mate”, was his parting shot.

Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without. Three cheers for a generation that sincerely believed that they were saving for posterity and went all out to get a good bargain.

Cruiser Comet

A Regular Warhorse

 Uncle K was a distant relative. An ebullient, kindly soul, the only passion in his life was cars. Like vintage wine, he liked them old and seasoned. “Nothing like an old warhorse”, he would joke. Uncle K was an old time resident of Bangalore Cantonment. He lived in a cute, little bungalow with a stately portico. All old Bangaloreans possessed cars. Like ornaments embellishing a beauty, Uncle also owned a car  which adorned his portico. Being a frugal man, he preferred second-hand cars   which came cheap. They therefore were permanently in a state of repair.  If the clutch worked, the accelerator did not and so on. This provided Uncle with a ready excuse for not taking his family out and thereby saving on fuel. It was a joke that he fancied diving under his car to driving it. Kids in the family clarified prepositions with a joke,” If Uncle K is not on the driving seat, he is under it “.   Uncle liked nothing better than to potter around his car. Cleaning and wiping the car was a routine exercise never to be missed. Like a mandatory visit to the doctor, Uncle’s car was routinely pushed or pulled to Nambisan’s garage, almost every other day because it needed a tinkering job. The mechanics of Nambisan’s garage were his best chums. “These guys can hold their own against any technician from even General Motors“, Uncle would comment enthusiastically. Uncle was constantly changing his cars. One day it would be a Morris Minor only to give way to a Plymouth after a few days. Father would joke with mother, “What is the CCV (the current car in vogue) “.  We had occasion to wander into Uncle’s automotive world when some guests came to stay on holiday. We did not have a car and they had to be taken around. “ Do you think we can ask K his car to take our guests around,” father asked mother to which her reply  was that she really could not say because she had never seen any of his cars on the road. After much deliberation, father decided to take a chance and borrow Uncle K’s car. Much to everybody’s surprise, Uncle was expansively generous when approached. “Sure, sure, why not?” he said. ”This Hillman here is a regular war-horse. You can do miles with her engine purring like a contented cat. A ride in her is as smooth as a Mediterranean cruise which is why I call her,” Cruiser Comet   ( CC, for short ) ". There’s one minor hitch however”, he added, pausing significantly. “The fuel tank has rusted and it leaks.” He produced an empty petrol can and asked father to directly connect it with a plastic tube to the carburetor.  “You can easily do ten to twelve kilometres with the contents of this can. So plan your trip accordingly”, was his parting piece of advice. That was how Cruiser Comet (  CC ) arrived home  on a sacred mission.  We planned a tour of Vidhana Soudha and Cubbon Park after considering CC’s fuel capacity. Mother, the guests and I piled into the back of the car. Father was at the steering wheel with Ravi, my brother by his side.” Hope CC at least starts,’” Ravi piped up most inappropriately making our guests look slightly apprehensive. “The battery in his previous car drained because he didn’t use it  for months”.  Despite Ravi’s apprehensions, we had an enjoyable and uneventful trip to Vidhana Soudha and Cubbon Park. Ravi was the ever- faithful assistant to father, holding the petrol can on his lap. A plastic tube draped through an open window by his side connected the can to the engine through an opening in the bonnet. We must have looked an odd sight because some passers-by stopped an d stared. Never one to stop making wise-cracks, Ravi said, “I feel like a nurse administering drips to a patient.” Our collective euphoria was short-lived however. As we approached Queen’s circle, CC decided to show off her tricks. She stalled and sputtered before grinding to a dead halt just ahead of the intersection.  Father tried repeatedly to restart the engine. Like a stubborn ox, CC refused to budge. Traffic was whizzing by in an alarming manner. We all got out hurriedly to  enable the men to push CC to the road- side. “Why did I ever rely on K’s assumptions and suggestions,” cursed Father under his breath. “Apparently I have miscalculated the mileage that this car can give.”  So saying, he walked off to the nearest petrol-bunk to fill up the plastic can. He soon returned with a full can and we resumed the brother-hold-  can routine. All of us sent up a silent prayer as father inserted the key into the ignition. Lo and behold! CC sprang to life however and we reached home without further ado. CC was duly returned to Uncle K, the next day with father giving a blow by blow account of her exploits. Maybe it struck a sympathetic chord somewhere   for Uncle offered to drop the guests at the railway station in CC, of course!  Father agreed and Uncle drove the guests to the railway station, with all of us  packed like sardines. As we drew into the station parking lot, Uncle seemed a little ill at ease.  He turned to father and said, “You won’t mind if we have to leave quickly? Father looked a little perplexed. Uncle hastened to explain, " I want to leave before the parking lot gets filled up because then I’ll have a problem negotiating CC ". “Why”, asked everybody in a chorus. Uncle K shot back in a serene matter of fact tone, “Because CC can’t go on reverse. Her reverse gear does not work "!

The Early Years

 So that is how Narayani stepped into the folds of the distinguished RSA family,little knowing her altered status  which was to place on her tender, young shoulders the responsibility of running a household in keeping with the stringent requirements of a rigid patriarchy even while upholding and fostering the social and religious traditions of a large extended family.At the tender age of eight, Narayani was just like any other Brahmin child bride of the early twentieth century, Schooling did not extend beyond the first or second standard, depending on the age, at which the girl got married.it was not considered necessary for a girl child to be educated- all that she needed to know was calculating the milkman and dhobi’s dues. She was reared and trained for the societal important twin tasks of child bearing and running a household which also involved doing heavy domestic chores. In the stifling milieu that was the lot of the Brahmin girl child, Narayani’s  intellect and talents were like a flower in bloom. Music and books were the dearest companions of this young girl at an age when other girls would have been  engrossed in fineries like jewellery and clothes. Not to say that Narayani was an ascetic. I, her granddaughter observed that she had a fine taste in jewels, clothes and utensils which was exhibited when she systematically went about the task of acquiring items for her daughters’ wedding trousseau. In that age of intellectual darkness, grandmother developed a taste for classics like The Three musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo.  She knew all the tales of the Bhagavatha Purana. Her recall and narration of scriptural stories was astounding, putting us, her grandchildren, who are living in the digital age  to shame. She had a thirst for learning and knowledge which was insatiable. In her old age, when cataract dulled her vision and she could not read, she would request her grand children to read from these books.  She read and reread, never bored never tired.

As was the custom in those days, she waited for puberty to go to her husband’s house. The initial years of her married life were tense and filled with anxiety because  the birth of her eldest child, my mother, was considerably delayed. In those lonely, long years,  music was her close companion. Shakespeare said, “ If music be the food of love, play on”. Well, music was the stuff that Narayani’s life was made of and those nimble fingers danced on the harmonium keys even as she sang in G, pitch 5.

PLUMBER PAVADAI

KILLIJOSIAM EH......?

No one knew  how he came by  that strange  moniker  Pavadai but that is  how  everybody  knew him. In tamil,  the word means a long skirt that girls wear. Near our  apartments was a colony inhabited by domestic  workers, electricians and other petty  vendors. 

     Pavadai  was no different.  Most of the  time,  he would be seated on a bench facing the road, smoking  a beedi  and watching  idly the passers-by. “ I have done my first year in plumbing in the Polytechnic”, he boasted. So we started  using him for our  plumbing jobs. But  we soon found that it was an  idle  boast. 

        Pavadai’s  fortunes started  looking  up when  a water crisis  hit  the city. Water  in our bore well sank so low that it could  not be  pumped to the overhead tank at one  go. The pump would get heated; so it had to be switched on  and off  intermittently, a task that  was tedious  and  time consuming . The apartment  association decided to appoint  a plumber to  do  the job. Pavadai  agreed to do the job after  demanding a hefty  salary.

   Sometime later, the rains poured and our  bore well became full. The pump was also working okay. It was then decided to dispense with Pavadai’s services. But who was to bell the  cat? Pavadai,like many of his  ilk was bad tempered. However, much to our  surprise  Pavadai went off meekly  when told that  his  services would no longer be required.

   We were  not yet  done  with Pavadai. On Day One of the new routine, the water pump packed up, refusing to budge  like an obstinate mule. After  trying everything possible,  an SOS was sent to  Pavadai who responded only after  repeated  calls. When  he ultimately  turned  up, Pavadai  couldn’t resist rubbing it in, “ What, Sir? You couldn’t even  manage  one day without  me. These pumps are rusty,like  horses, they need some coaxing and cajoling  to work”. No one knew  Pavadai’s  trade secret  but he soon had the water pump whirring to life. 

So Pavadai made a comeback with  renewed honours  But we were  not yet  done  with  Pavadai. The odd home chore be it cleaning or changing a tap required Pavadai’s services. Radha, my neighbour sent for  Pavadai one day. “ Pavadai, you know that we have an apartment at Besant Nagar? “ of  course,Amma”,he scratched his head.” The apartment has been  vacated by the previous  tenant. It requires a total clean up. “Certainly, Amma.I will  need to purchase cleaning materials  like Lizol, Pril” and he enumerated a whole list of cleaning  products  that he would want

“ Also Amma”,scratching his head.  “An advance of Rs.1000 to buy some cleaning material.  “ You are charging a bomb”, said Radha. “OK Pavadai but do a good job”.  “Consider it done. Amma, you know me for some many years. Have you ever had cause to complain?”

  Radha  however had plenty of reason to complain when she went to have a look-see of the  apartment before the  new tenant  moved in The entire apartment  was dusty, looking  as if it had not been  swept for ages and the bathrooms  were  filthy. “Oh, my God!” thought Radha, putting  her hand to her head. “What has Pavadai  (not) done? How will  I get  the  house  cleaned up before those people  move in. Just let me get my hands  on  that rascal”.

          But  Radha never managed to  lay her hands on slippery  Pavadai who showed a clean pair of heels  after pulling off the “ job”. No doubt he had his reasons to do so because folks needed  sometime to forgive  and forget! As for  him, he had forgotten the whole business with the first glass of the fiery liquid as it went down  his throat in the neighbourhood Tasmac  shop. But these upper  folks were so silly, making such a fuss over  small  change.

          Things  continued  in the manner  till the  next water crisis. Once  again,  the rains failed us. Wily Pavadai  saw fresh business  opportunities  in the widespread  water woes. He handed in his papers. He then  hired a small kiosk and put up a signboard  that read, “ PAVADAI  PLUMBINGS- BOREWELL FORECASTS MADE HERE. His business  reached new window highs.Despair drove people to approach  him for advice on whether to  sink a bore well or not. 

     Pavadai had a general  rule of thumb to carry out his business. He procured  a talking parrot. Whenever  somebody approached him with a problem, he would refer it to the parrot. “Killisami”, (-parrot god) Pavadai would  address  the  parrot  in tones of great respect. “ Sir wants to  know your  divine  views on whether to sink and bore or not”. After a  pause,  the  parrot would intoned in a deep voice, “Aama”,(meaning yes ).If the parrot  kept  quiet, it was  taken  as a negative. Pavadai  would  then  elaborately  convey  the parrot’s decision to  his  clients. Whatever the dispensation, the people  took it  as an  Oracle. 

   Pavadai’s  fame as a water diviner spread  far  and wide. People  travelled from  far to consult him. His  success rate was astounding. Who cared whether  the man or the parrot  showed the way. All that mattered  was Pavadai prospered. “Thambi”, said Pavadai to the young scallywag, his assistant  rubbing his hands gleefully. “ Killisami  has brought  us money and fame. l must pay  my debt to him. What better way than to build a small shrine near our shop and install him there on a golden perch. Also  our people love gods. They can offer prayers to Killisami and gifts when they come to consult me. A Double  Whammy -:) a God for them and gifts for me”.

    So that  was  how the Thaneer Theriyum ( the Tamil  moniker for one  who knows where water is ) Killisami Aalayam in Visalakshi  Gardens, Mylapore came about. And water diviner cum  godman Pavadai made good hay while Dame Fortune showered  smiles on him. But as the wise old Tamil saying goes, neither  good nor bad times last long, they are cylical by nature. Consequently Pavadai  fell upon hard  times. Fewer people  came to  him for  business. The shop and shrine- both  were a deserted look. My maid reported that he had  rubbed the local councillor the wrong way, having gone  wrong  on a critical  bore well  prophecy. “That  councillor Periasamy is after his blood because the lakhs  that  he sank into  digging a bore well just sank without  a  trace of water. Ever since, no one comes to Pavadai  any more, Amma”, she said. “ As you  sow, so you reap”, she concluded with an air of wise finality.

       Then one day, Pavadai brought down  the  shutters fully and finally. He just couldn’t  carry on any more. I also forgot about the whole business, involved in my own affairs. Months slipped by and it was  election time again. It was again a time of promises of plenty and propaganda of the powerful. Elections were the  hunting ground of the opportunistic and the idealistic, the gold-digger and the do-gooder alike. A van carrying  drums,trumpets, a mouth organ,musical instruments et al  we parked outside  our apartment  block. On the  sides was painted  in bold  letters, the caption, Isai Vazhi Therthal Prachara Kuzhu(Election propaganda through music). Pavadai was conducting the orchestra and singing a song which  went somewhat as below : 

Come one, Come all.

Vote for drinking water.

A plate of rice,

Electricity  and  surpluses, 

Perks and prosperity. Vote  for Change,

A bigger and better  Tamil Nadu !!!!

Pavadai  had found his calling!

One Up for the Kallidaikurichians

One up for the Kallidaikurichians

 Around the year 1920 a lot was happening in the political landscape. The country had been seared by the bloodbath of Jallianswala Bagh. The winds of social awakening and political change were sweeping across the country. Men and women were quietly coming in batches onto the streets, braving vicious lathi charges, even firing and going about their job of waging a non violent silent battle for their motherland. But deep, down south, in the quiet town of kallidaikurichi, away from the hurly burly of politics, life went on at an unhurried pace. Men tended the land while the womenfolk washed and cooked and young girls played Hop- Scotch on the river banks.

Elsewhere in a house in Vaithiappapuram street however life’s routine had given way to more exciting things.Preparations wre underway for the marriage of two youngsters- the eight year old Narayani with seventeen year old Sahasranamam. It was to be a grand traditional wedding- Narayani’s father Viswanathan was a man of considerable means and he was forging an alliance for his eldest daughter with a scion of the most affluent and influential family in Kallidaikurichi- the RSA family. In keeping with the stature of the two families and the traditions of the times, a five day marriage with festivities and feasting was to be held. The pandal kaal was  erected and a grand pandal was put up.  Those days, marriages were elaborately extended affairs.People and priests alike took their time in  chanting mantras and completing various rituals. One early photograph of Sahasranamam thatha shows him standing near a vintage Ford car. One can imagine the young bridegroom smartly dressed in a dashing suit going around Kallidaikurichi  perhaps in an open Ford car on the wedding eve.  Petromax lamps carried on their heads by men dressed in white twinkled along with the night stars.  Colourfully  dressed and decked women carried fruit and sweets trays, their excited voices  blending into a steady clatterwith the shrill notes of the nadaswaram.All the relatives, close and not so close gathered to usher the young couple through an endless series of nichyathartham, jaanavasam, kasiyatrai, and of couse the most important ritual, the muhurtam. Seer bhakshanams were made in fragrant ghee, distributed to the sambhandhis and partaken with relish.  Children ran around and played in wild abandon oblivious to the gentle, not so seriou rebukes of parents and elders. Silks rustled and jewellery glittered.  Clearly Kallidaikurich was in a festive mood; an important marriage was taking place.

But the child Narayani was too young to absorb it all. A precocious child, blessed with a sweet, singing voice, she was probably thinking and rehearsing some note or tune while the festivities were going on.and as if a complement to her abundant musical talents, a vocal music concert of none other than the legendary Sangeetha Kalanidhi  Kallidaikurichi Vedanta Bhagavthar was organized. Elsewhere also in Kallidaikurichi, Narayani’s cousin was also getting married on the same muhurtam.  Maha Vaidyanathaier’s kutcheri has been arranged on the occasion.  Kallidaikurichians, by nature musically inclined had gathered in large numbers partly in curious expectation to hear the great man from the more modern and culturally progressive northern parts sing. But slowly the crowd at Vaidyanathaier’s concert started thinning out. Vedantha Bhagavtar’s resonant, melodious singing was drawing the crowds.

I never found out if this was true. But the story definitely did the rounds, circulated for the most part by Gopala Thattha, a shadow character in our narrative.As Gopala Thattha would say gleefully, “ One up for the Kallidaikurichians...!”

Along with Narayani’s trousseau and seer, Gopalan, trusted lieutenent of Viswanathan Thattha accompanied the gifts and valuables to the groom’s house. In those days this was a common practice. But Gopalan Thattha stayed on in the household, living out his life under the hospitable roof of the newly weds.