Tales from a granny

“They were our neighbors. The father was a government official and so, obviously, they were well off. The first time he brought it home, the entire compound had gathered inside their house. The women of his house had their faces splattered with a huge smile that their hands could henceforth be given the rest they needed. The next day, I walked off to their house with a bag full of grams. I handed it to my friend and asked her smilingly if it could be ground to a powder. She herself still knew not how to operate the machine and the both of us figured a mechanism half an hour later and emptied the contents of the bag inside the jar and as we switched it on, it swirled for a few times before bursting off in a puff of smoke. A few minutes later, I looked into the burnt jar and saw that the gram had been powdered but not in the way I had wanted!”

This was a story I was audience to as I stood in the kitchen roasting curry leaves in the stainless steel pan, en routé to the preparation of ‘Paruppu podi’. The story had been told by my grandma as she had started readying the mixer for grinding the grams.

Apart from the fact that I would be spending priceless hours with my mom and my grandma, the two other factors that excited me on the entire length of my every journey to my home from my hostel were:

• The delicious food, of course, which never failed to add more fat to my waistline and made me struggle for a minute or two on the night of my departure with the same jeans pant that I had gotten into easily before my visit to home
• The tales that came out so easily from my most favorite storyteller and always made me gape in awe at the life she had lived

“I think that the distance would have, at the least, been about two to three kilometers. And I couldn’t carry just one pot. A family of ours required a minimum of two pots of water. Hence, I would start from my house with two pots, walk for the stretch of two kilometers, fill them with water from the corporation tap and then rest one in my hip holding it with one hand while carrying the other in my other hand, walking back the two kilometers again taking care that the water did not spill. All this at the age of twelve. And I would have to get back to doing my household work at the house where I worked immediately. But look at your sister now.” she paused waiting to see if my sister heard her and continued ”I am sure that she would have done all these better than me.”

I let out a chuckle as my sister let out a grunt, an angry stare at my grandma, and walked out of the house to the terrace.

The tale had been a result of one hour’s pleading of my grandma to my sister to fetch the clothes that had been pinned to the clotheslines on the terrace for drying. My sister had been replying with ‘In a minute’ for every statement of my grandma’s, absorbed with the Tamil dubbed Hindi tele-serial she had been watching. Finally the tale had presented itself achieving its purpose.

It amazed me by and large as to how come my grandma had a tale ready for every single instance that presented itself worth talking about.

There was a tale about how the ‘Kadalamaavu sambhar’ was a regular at most of the Brahmin food-stalls in her days and how the recipe had been passed on from her two earlier generations to her as she poured a steaming spoonful of the same on my neatly arranged idlis one night.

There was a tale about how the Carnatic legend M.S.Subbulakshmi had performed during one of the ‘Margazhi’ seasons at their residential compound and a comment on how easily accessible and down-to-earth the celebrities and artists were in her times compared to the hype that preceds the visit of even a small television anchor nowadays as I pointed out an article on the ‘Margazhi  Music season’ in the newspaper to her.

There was also a tale about how her mother would only buy milk that cost 50 paise and would avoid buying milk that cost 55 paise as the 5 paise saved would help her out with other food materials as she shut the door having paid our milkman his monthly charge for delivering half a litre ‘Aavin’ milk everyday morning – 625 rupees.

Be it an ‘Arisi upma’  or the Taj Mahal, be it a ‘Phulka’ or the economic inflation, be it a ‘Sikarne’ or T.V.Sundaram Iyengar – the founder of T.V.S. Motors , be it the ‘Mullu murukku’, ‘Rava laddu’ or the Indian National Congress’s history, she has a tale. 

A tale that always has me spellbound through its entirety.

A tale from a lady who had lived in a pre-independent India, in a post-independent India, in a coming-to-terms-with-westernization-India and in a searching-for-its-culture-having-submerged-deeply-in-westernization India.

A tale from a lady who could make me aware of up to four generations prior to mine and make me feel proud being the newly (!) sprouted plant of our family garden.

And the interesting (or perhaps, not so interesting) fact is that this amazing old lady that I have mentioned above isn’t the only old one having her heart filled with tales that span decades and generations.

Every single lady and every single man with wrinkled hands and feet, with labored breaths and bent backs, with arthritic knees and walking sticks, with insulin injections and faces weathered by time – every single such lady and man have their hearts filled with innumerable tales that span decades and generations.

All they yearn for in the sunset of their lives is a patient ear that would hear them out.

For these people who have toiled so hard in taking care of themselves and in taking care of our parents, for these people who have been indirectly involved in the process of us having been endowed with the best of genes, I guess dedicating a little time off our daily lives shouldn’t be much of a compromise. Though it is an act of gratitude in the tiniest measure, it would be a heartening gesture to these souls burdened with more than just the tales.

And well, frankly, does listening to a story hurt?!