Category: A10 — AMMULU STORIES AND OTHER FUN FOUNTAINS

‘ Ammalu, it dawns on me that our marriage has been a failure. I realized it late but better late than never. What shall we do? You are always ready with novel ideas to solve problems, come on, tell me what shall I do? If we get separated, our children won’t spare us. Our daughters -in -law will mock at us. Our grandchildren will laugh at us. Suggest a method by which I get a life -partner, acceptable to all and helpful to you. And tell me quickly, please’
‘Can you wait tell the dawn next, SP?’
‘Sure. Having waited all these years, one night hardly matters’
‘Good boy. Go to sleep now. By the first meter -gauge train tomorrow, go to Pollachi. Tomorrow is the weekly cattle market.
Buy a cow. Hire someone to tow her to our house and you walk behind. A short walk will do you good. Enjoy your walk by her. Pet her, keep patting on her back. To her ears, you can hum your music or poetry, but not in English. Tamiz preferred, Malayalam accepted.
Once she comes home, shower all your affection on her. Let her gain, what I missed. She will give us fresh milk everyday, warm, right from her udders. If you want to be still closer with her, you can wash her, taking to the village pond.
You can graze her on its bank. You can even milk her by your own hands, when they don’t shiver.
I will be happy, she will be happy, you will be happy.
And I will be spared of the frequent nagging. Your girl friends too!
How happy the world will be with one trip to the Pollachi cattle market!
Om Shanthi, Shanthi, Shanthi’
————————–
‘Ammalu, whichever side I turned to, I see only your face.
Are you Parasakthi or Badrakali?’
‘I’m neither. I’m Ammalu, an unsophisticated village woman’
‘But why do I see your face and not the face of my friends, Kamu, KalyAni, Karthyayani?’
‘Oh, that is because I’m your wife and you have some experience about my unsophistication and village manners’
————————
How long are we married, Ammalu? 30,40,50 years? Of course, how long we lived together is not important. How we lived, how we are living, that alone is important’
‘We did live happily, we are living happily and we will continue to live happily if you continue with your crankiness’
‘Ammalu, you are starting a quarrel, as usual. If you talk about my mild abnormal behavior, I can talk in volumes about your abysmal intelligence ability. I’m on the peak and you, where? No trace, Ammalu. You are no where in the intelligence map!’
‘If intelligence was my criteria, I would have chosen Sir, C.P. And not a high BP, BASP’
‘BASP?’
‘Below average SP’
 
 

 
 
 
 
‘How many times haven’t I told you Ammalu, that I don’t like needles?’
‘Not needles, noodles. This is for my mom’
‘That old fashioned bird wants to peck a new fashion food, the needles?’
‘Don’t unnecessarily needle me about noodles. These are noodles and not needles’
‘An Appa Iyer School third stand -thrown out, is questioning my
Oxford English ?’
‘No meaning in arguing with you, SP. The one who doesn’t know the difference between his own wife and another man’s wife will never understand the difference between needles and noodles’
‘Ammalu, dear, hurry up. Amma, our Amma, will be waiting’
‘Our Amma?’
‘She is my Amma first; then only yours. She will be waiting for –‘
‘Needles!’
————-
‘I can’t wait for hours before the dining table. Choose one plate, either Parippu vada or uzunthu vada. Any one plate’
‘Ammalu , Parippu vada is crisp, gives fun while biting. Let me say it is like a girl friend. Uzunthu vada, is so, so. Soft, not sportive. Let me say, it is like a wife. Give me some time to decide which to choose’
‘Let me say, you deserve neither wife nor girl friend. I’m removing both the plates
————————————-
Ammalu, in the olden days, wives used to address their husbands, respectfully, as ‘naathaa!’, ‘aaryaa!’ etc. lovers now address each other as ‘baby’. I’m just mentioning casually’
‘We are not in the olden days and so, I can’t address you as you casually mentioned. I can call you ‘baby’, if you like. Get me a feeding bottle, please. It is available in our Chettiar shop’
—————————————–
Ammalu, when I married you 4 years ago, you were like a priceless, fresh, fragrant flower. Now, I miss something in you’
‘You are, for me, still a priceless fresh, fragrant flower. I miss nothing in you now but a zero from your memory. And they say zero has no value’
————————————————
‘Ammalu, you know that I can talk  seven languages, four indian and three foreign. Call me for assistance when your friends come for Navarathry Kolu. I will be in the side room’
‘All my friends know the language which I know and which you do not know. You may therefore enjoy fresh breeze under the corner banyan tree. I will send word for you after the womenfolk disperse
———————
 
 
 

Ammalu and my pre – marriage habits.
On the first night after our wedding, I told many things to Ammalu but neither I can tell you what all I told her nor you will be interested in hearing that. But, one thing I told, which was nothing but truth, I want to share with you:
‘Ammalu, before marriage, I used to tell one or two lies’
‘That is Ok! ,’ she replied, magnanimously.
On the second night, I told her, ‘Ammalu, before marriage, I used to smoke one or two cigarettes, occasionally.
‘She was not very pleased but replied courtesy,
‘That is Ok’
On the third night, I told her, ‘Ammalu, before marriage, I used to enjoy a peg of scotch whisky with my friends, once a while’
Her face turned reddish, then black but managed to console me by saying, ‘it is Ok’
On the forth night, I told her, ‘Ammalu, before marriage, I had one or two girl friends’
I thought she would burst my head but said smilingly, ‘it is Ok’
I was surprised and also pleased. ‘I can take this girl for granted,’ I thought and smiled back.
She was watching my moments carefully for a week but said nothing. Emboldened by her silence, I told her, ‘Ammalu, I am sure that you have pardoned me for my pre- marriage bad habits’
‘Why don’t you get married?,’ she asked, smiling again.
I was stunned. I stood up from the bed and asked her, ‘what! We are married, Ammalu!’
She retorted, ‘who said? Your habits are continuing. I’m leaving for my mom’s home . Tell me when you are married, so that I can come and stay with you.
I fell on her feet and promised, ‘no more cigarette, lies, wine or woman’
‘Ok, but I can stay only on one condition,’ she replied again magnanimously, ‘you should not say a word to me about your Pre- marriage days. I know what you were and what you are. I also know that a dog’s tail would never get straightened even after treating in a pipe for a hundred years’
‘Thousand or hundred, Ammalu?,’ I asked her quoting the Malayalam saying where it was mentioned thousand years.
‘A hundred for dog,’ she replied, ‘but a thousand for you!’

 
How many fingers do you have ?
I have ten. One of them, got cut, while performing a rare act of cutting vegetables.
Just one finger, out of ten, partially and temporarily became less active. That hardly 10% disability played havoc and I had to depend on Ammalu for many of my routines, ever for transferring water from a bucket to the valley at my lower back for the purpose of cleaning.
Ammalu is my heart beat, but it was not a pleasant idea to hear the beats within the walls of a place where privacy was of paramount necessity.
Anyway, that experience taught me a big lesson and brought me closer to her ( her inevitable company in the wrong place in wrong time, not withstanding).
This was what happened.
In the climax of our closeness and romance, she told me, ‘you are my finger!’
You don’t expect such a claim from your sweet heart.
‘You are my breath’ or ‘You are my life’ or ‘you are my everything’
or she could have even said, ‘you are my ration card’ as that was a precious possession, those days. Instead, she said, ‘you are my finger!’
I screamed at her, got out in anger and sat under the banyan tree in the village corner. Ammalu too went to meet her mother to discuss how to control my anger.
Her mother, who had received several BMIL ( best mother in law) prizes, from her club, gave a simple advice.
‘When he cools down, request him politely, to cut vegetables’
Lowering her chin and smiling, like a wife receiving her husband returning from Dubhai along with a trunk full of gifts he had accumulated from his toiling of three years, Ammalu came near me and pleaded, ‘could you kindly cut one lady finger for me?’
‘Why one, I will cut a hundred Ammalu’. I agreed forgetting that she was still on some finger!
I did cut, not the lady finger but my own!
While undergoing problems in holding pen, pencil, umbrella and other umpteen items, I mentioned, casually to my wife, ‘I never realized that finger, a single finger is so important that I had to depend on you, even for my minimum needs. Without finger, one can’t live a quality life’
Ammalu’s face became like a tomato fruit, wax polished and stored in a freezer with a glass window in an American store.
‘That was why I told you that you are my finger’
She said, gently, gracefully.

After many years, I met my old friend Appunni Nayar in a wedding party. Those were the days when terylene shirts were the fashion of the day. In the sweating Madras May wedding crowd, Nair was posing and flirting, wearing that uncomfortable shirt, which indeed was glistening.
‘Shirttu kasari, sundarakuttan! Evidunnu kittee?’ I admired his apparel, ‘lovely shirt, who gave you?’
The second part of my compliment was close to nonsense. He had every right to get irritated, but he didn’t. He replied proudly,
‘Nammudae ammaayi Amma thannu’- our mother in law gifted!
His instant reply shocked me. I shot from my seat like a missile. How can we have a common mother in law unless we had married her daughters. And my wife had no sisters!
“Did my mother in law give birth to a girl, after I married her only daughter? I can’t believe,’ I expressed my doubt and surprise.
“When was your marriage?” He threw an innocent question.
“Some thirty years ago”
“In thirty years- time, what all a woman can’t do, SP?, ” He laughed and expressed surprise at my deficiency in the knowledge of the world affairs,” poor guy!”
I rushed home and asked Ammalu, “you knew your mother had gifted to this world another woman like you, after you left her home?”
“I didn’t,” she replied with least seriousness and asked, ” so what?”
“Ammalu, you ask me, ‘so what’ ?”
“What is your problem?,” she asked me without raising her head, ‘what all a woman can’t do within thirty years?”
Ammalu, late said that had she a sister, I would have somehow known about it. And then she explained how the confusion arose.
In the olden days, the Karnors, family heads and even local kings used liberally ‘nom( we) instead of ‘Jnaan’ ( I or me), to show their importance. Anxious to maintain the tradition, Nair uses the archaic grammar. He is however, careful, while talking to his wife after she scolded him, ‘erappae!’, when he ordered, ‘nom varuunu, sayanam theyyarakku- ( we are coming, instead of ‘I’m coming’) make the bed!’.

Just for fun, Ammalu, can I call your mom by her pet name and bolt through the back door?’
‘Front door is better. She keeps her walking stick near the back door’
——————————–
Do you have any objection to my wearing ripped or truncated jeans, Ammalu?’
‘Not at all. When shall we go to shop?’
”Why we’? I can go alone and buy’
‘I know. But, I would like to choose mine, fit to my size, to my liking, count the hole size’
‘Are you mad, old woman? You are going to wear jeans and that too ripped or truncated?’
”Share him whole and hole’ – was my mom’ s advice, when she sent me along with you, a century ago’
————————–
Ammalu, I’m tender-hearted, unlike you. So treat me kindly’
‘Who said I’m not tender -hearted? You keep away from my friends, I will treat you kindly’
‘Suggest some other practical solutions, please’
‘Sure. Climb the coconut tree in our back yard, pluck some tender coconuts ‘
‘Wah, what a tender -heart, yours!’
————————-
Slip of the tongue, not memory loss!
I told Ammalu that I had been to Ammini’s home on the way back from the Chettiar shop, last evening.
‘No, you went to Paru’s house,’ she corrected.
‘How do you know?’ I enquired.
‘Whole evening yesterday, I was in Ammini’s house’.
Now, I was confused. To which house did I really go. I called Ammini. ‘Didn’t I come to your house, last evening?’
‘No uncle’, she replied.
‘Uncle? Suddenly I have become old for you?’
‘Yes, uncle. You have become suddenly old. Ammalu told me for the past three days you both didn’t move out of the house’
‘Ammini, forget the uncle business. I’m now more worried about Ammalu’s memory loss. She told me that whole evening yesterday, she was in your house and she never lies’
‘Ammalu told you?’
‘Yes’
‘Then, she too has memory loss. I will call her aunty, not Alamelu’
‘Hei, wait a minute. Now, I’m worried about your memory loss. You forgot my wife’s name. I will call you auntie’
‘Slip of the tongue, not memory loss. Your wife is Ammalu and you are SP’

“Welcome, hearty welcome. come in please. There, on the wall is Yesu, our Kartha ; here on the table is your rosary. There on the left is your bed room and here on the right is your wash basin.–bye the by when are you returning ?”
“Damn with your ‘here’ and there’. Tell me where is my son.
Tell me who you are. Tell me, before I enter my son’s house, who are you to ask when I would be returning ?”
“Will tell you, Sir.
I’m Ramu’s mom and–”
“Hei, stop there. No more telling business. I will tell now. I’m Ramu’s dad and how dare you to tell me that you are my wife?”
“You, my hubby? No, Sir. I never said so. But I’m Ramu’s mom”
“But how, how, how, without you being my wife?”
“Ramu calls me ‘mom”
“Many boys and girls call me ‘dad’. You mean to say that I am their dad ?”
“How do I know? That is your problem”
“Tell me at least, where is my daughter in law Rohini ?”
“Rosi is your daughter in law now and not Rohini. I am Rosi’s mother”
“I refuse to accept; tell me where is Rohini?”
“If you refuse to accept, it is your problem and if Rohini is not here it is her problem”
“Tell me honestly why did Ramu marry Rosi, when she was already married to Rohini?”
“How do I know ? That is his problem”
“Every one has a problem here except you, I guess”
“Wrong, Sir. I too have a problem-You here when Ramu, there— where, I don’t know”
“God, my God, where are you?”
“There Sir, on the wall and your rosary -”
“Yesunathar pesinaal avar enna pesuvaar?” She sings.
“Yesunathar pesinaal avar enna pesuvaar ?” He too sings!