Mathan bharani
The ceramic storage containers which we called ‘Baranies’ were widely used in Indian kitchen and I hope those are still in use. Pickles were the primary item stored and then curd, buttermilk.
With a brightly polished exterior and neat interior, maintenance was easy.
‘She is like a ‘mathan bharani’ -means she is short with a rich middle part’
‘And he, like a ‘murunkaikai! Like a drumstick’
‘So what ? They didn’t seek a divorce three or three years after wedding. They have been living together for thirty years happily, quarreling morning and evening’
‘Quarreling morning to evening and living happily?’
‘Yes, you expect a married couple to quarrel throughout day and night?’
‘I don’t, but wonder what will they do rest of the time?’
‘Don’t ask silly questions. When I say they lived happily, I have covered the rest of the time’
‘Oh, now I understood, a bit. Quarrel is only an external symptom of internal togetherness!’
‘Say, togetherness. Don’t say a word more’
‘Oh, now I understood completely’
Category: A12– Everything under the Sun
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Behind every shine
If you are shining and spreading light, there is someone behind you burning and turning into charcoal. It could be your wife at home, who makes your food and bed and after feeding and putting the kids to sleep, awaits for your late return from the office. It could be your parents, who burnt their life and turning into charcoal and struggling to survive. It could be even you, yourself, burning your life for shining and in the process getting aged faster.
But, one thing is certain. For something to shine, something else has to burn and turn into charcoal.
Our animal sacrifices in the olden days, were the symbols of this idea. In parched area, to find water in a village well, they used to sacrifice an animal. May be a superstition. But, even superstitions are based on some thoughts, experience. You may accept or not. Many traditional thoughts, I don’t follow. That doesn’t mean that those thoughts were absolutely hollow. If I don’t accept, I reap the good or bad of it. That is all.
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Pathu pavan
‘Pathu pavan, how much? Pathu pavan, kudukkalam’. Worth ten sovereigns- what? Your Ammalu stories? Ha, ha, I won’t get pathu Kasu – ten paise.
Then, what is that worthy stuff you have other than your friend circle?
Sleep- slept for about three hours, at a stretch, after returning from the hospital. Amazing! Sound, dreamless, Devine sleep!
What is so big about it?
Man, people like me, who don’t get good sleep at night only know it’s value.
After a good sleep, where else did I go, other than kitchen? Megh’s coconut water bottle and mixed nuts were waiting. I love both. She had bought a carton of twelve coconut water bottles for me, from the Indian Stores today.
But btw, I miss the excitement of enjoying the drink on a hot day, from the roadside vendor, after bargaining the price.
‘Ettu roopaya?, I used to bargain to the lady with blue or red sari, at a Chennai street corner, holding a nut ready to be beheaded by the big blade of the koduval, big knife in her other hand.
‘Eight rupees for a tender coconut? There are eight trees in my house’ I explained.
‘On veedu enkae Saami? Where is your house?’ She enquired. Only inquisitiveness was behind that innocent query.
‘Hyderabadlae. Onkalukku Habsiguda theriyuma ? I tried to give her a word picture of the geographical location of my house. When I raised my hand and head to explain the height of the dome of the Osmania University buildings, she cuts me short and said,
‘Kashtapadathae kannu. Ankae poi. marathilae eri thanni kudi- don’t struggle (to explain. Go to your place, climb a tree, collect the nut and drink the water). Giving me no chance of offering an extra quarter, she turns to another customer and enquires,’on veettilae evalavu maram irukku kannu?’
How many trees are there in your backyard?
I didn’t like that Chennai woman , calling the other customer too as ‘kannu’ or dear !
The coconut water here, costs $4.00 per bottle. No bargaining. But the Panjabi shop man gave some discount for the bulk purchase.
Don’t know whether it was because I praised his hair style. ‘Kannu’, in the reverse direction, but not damaging!
Kannu, as you know is eye. ‘You are my eyes’, you would have heard boys lying to the newly wed wife. I too called Ammalu so, but rather loudly. Someone in the crowd heard it.
– a 9x9x9 – (means a nine yards -wearing Mami of 9×9 – 81 years old)
‘Kannum illai, Mookkum illai. Mariyadaikku, marathakamae nnu koopidu- don’t call her as your eyes and nose, call Marathakam . I was hell shocked!
Marathakam was the name of a friend! Those days we had no girl friends, only friends!
The 9x9x9 didn’t stop with that . She exhorted Ammalu, ‘Marathakavalli manasaa samarami pademti- why don’t you sing that song starting with ‘Marathakavalli–‘
I was left with no option but to sit till the end.
When the song was over, 9x9x9 enquired,
‘Mappalae, pattu eppidi- how was the song?’
Even today, Ammalu sings that song to harass me!
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Ammalu is always right
‘Had I waited for a few days more, I could have obtained a better wife, says Kamakshi’
‘Was she in the waiting queue to marry you?’
‘I don’t think so’
‘Then why is she worried now ? Is she prepared to leave her husband, five children, nine grandchildren and come with you, if I vacate my seat for her?’
‘I don’t think so’
‘Then why did she say that?’
‘No, Ammalu, she didn’t say that’
‘But you said, she said so?’
‘No, Ammalu, that was my imagination’
‘Ok, had you waited for a few days, months or years or centuries more, do you think you would have got a better wife than me?’
‘No, Ammalu, I don’t think so’
‘Good. Go and bring two packs of milk. I will make a super coffee for you’
‘And some pakoda too’
‘Sure, for your next round of imagination’
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My navel is nothing for her!
Glad to inform my friends that the first chapter of my treatment was over today, with the last dose of the Harmone injection. Originally, six monthly doses were prescribed, now reduced to four. So much so good.
What the nurse pushed into my system will play havoc for a few days, I know from experience. She too knows that from books but she smiled intentionally while unintentionally, I looked into her eyes. Her concentration was on my navel area around which she would select a holy dot to push in the powerful medicine.
‘Do you know the value of my ‘thoppul’ or naabhi ? I wanted to ask her. Were a male nurse, I would has asked, but not to a female. My time is bad. Why invite problems?
For the nurse, male or female, It is only a scar on my abdomen, called ‘umbilicus’. There are many scars on the body and this is one among those!
No, lady with a syringe needle in hand, it is not just a scar. It is a perpetual monument to remind my relationship with my mother!it is the holy spot which connected me with her, through the umbilical! She nourished me through the cord which was sticking to my navel, which you now call a ‘scar’! Had I the wisdom which I have now, when I was born, I would have preserved a piece of the long chord and worshipped. But another lady of your clan, holding a pair of scissors in her hand, cut it off merciless.
I was about to get up from the exam. table and grab the hand of the nurse when appeared before my eyes the ever enchanting form of Anantha Padmanabha, reclining on a multi hooded serpent, a long lotus stem projecting from his ‘naabhi ‘ at the top of which was a blooming lotus on which was seated Brahma with four heads turning and looking at all the four sides ready to create, men, women, animals, birds, insects everything , everything!
‘Anantha Padmanabham aasrayae’ I wanted to sing.
No chance, no words were coming out. I wanted to tell her at least, ‘my naval is my center of gravity. What an amazing brain it was to suspend me to my mother’s womb through a chord, from the exact center of my body? Praise to Him!
‘Yesunathar Paadinaal avar enna paaduvar?’
No luck. No words were coming out of my mouth.
I was not moving out of the table!
Time was running out. Other patients were awaiting some on wheel chair, some slanting on the arm or shoulder of the life partner and some simply looking at the roof wondering what past crime or habit, brought them there. The nurse looked at my pulse, which was precise to the text book reading .There was no need for Megh to see my pulse as her natural brain scanner which records every vibration in my internal cells and external skin told her that things were perfectly normal with me.
So, she whispered into my ears, Appa, ‘chakka pazham – Jack fruit’, which I like most, but for which, there is a ration card!
I got up from the table with a jerk, like the Kalpathy or Perinkulam chariot, given a push from the back by a huge pachyderm, like lazy Ammalu, wasting her time reading Ananda Vikatan and Kalki, when a picture of Ammini or Paru, Karthyayani or KalyAni , drops from the gaps of the pages.
When I walked towards the gate, through the long corridors, the nurse was watching from the back, till my shadow disappeared from her sight.
‘When is his next appointment?,’ she enquired the reception girl.
‘Over; no more shots for him’
She thanked Saint Patrick as it was his day yesterday.
Ps. Below is a drawing of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, to show the navel as the center in the circle – drawing from the Internet.
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Ramu and me
Ramu:
Mama, my elderly friend was happily humming to himself when I went to say hello to him on my way back from the murukkan kadai (pan shop )
Me:
May be enjoying the absence of his wife.
Ramu:
No, enjoying the absence of your posts in the FB.
Me: oh!
Ramu:
Mama, my desk-top had a stroke and am not able to copy and paste with my iPad.
Me:
How did you pass your matriculation without knowing copying ?
Ramu:
Who said I cleared my Matriculation exam?
Me:
Then how did you work and earn?
Ramu:
Who said I have worked and earned?
Me:
If you have not studied, earned and married, how did you become such a stupid ?.
Ramu got up from his seat and exited,
Yelling,
“It is better to tolerate what you write than what you utter. Let me buy a new laptop and read the rubbish you write.” -
Let the Spring come to your life and stay ever
U
Next to grave yard, hospital, specially cancer hospital is the gloomiest place in the world. It is a dry land of all negative thoughts. Mostly old, disabled, deteriorated mentally and physically people come there. Some of them see rays of hope in the wilderness. Many see nothing, only a huge vacuum. Some, who have been specially told to wind up their show are alarmed initially but slowly settle to the naked truth that man is mortal and he is one among them. He is not there in this hospital, in his home, in this word, the next year, the next month or even the very next week! Unbelievable, but true! He, as a father, as a husband, as a son, as a master, as a friend – all those merits and qualifications are gone, as he, himself is not there!
His identity as a living being is just to be wiped off with the speed of the hand movement of a boy who clears the image he has drawn on the sand bed!
Amongst such a gloomy men and women, I see the medical doctors and paramedics here, fully trained to infuse enthusiasm, fresh energy if not hope into the mind of the patients. They are always seen in a pleasant mood, going and meeting the people in their seats smilingly, hugging them, joking with them, patting them and helping to get up from their bed or seat or to board the car. The doctors, encourage the patients to ask questions and answer them unambiguously. Awesome is the attitude of the staff here.
Three fourth of my Radiation treatment is over now and I’m left with only 11 more daily sessions. Hopefully that too will be over in another two weeks and then the follow up remains.
The effect of the Harmone injection will be there for another four months in my body during which the tiredness and other side reactions will continue.
We neglect our body as there are more important things to be attended to! We neglect our wife, as there are more important things to be attended to. We neglect our food, we neglect our sleep, we neglect every thing and finally find one fine morning that we have become a dry leaf ready to fall down from the tree and vanish.
And remember, I didn’t neglect my body. I have been living a quality life as a child, as an adult, as an old man. Still, I landed here. Fortunately only here. Had my inner damage had been a few inches above, as my Urologist said, I won’t be writing this. Swamy Saranam!
The Spring has come to America. Let Spring come to you all, wherever you are and stay ever.
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The last shot
Glad to inform my friends that the first chapter of my treatment was over today, with the last dose of the Harmone injection. Originally, six monthly doses were prescribed, now reduced to four. So much so good.
What the nurse pushed into my system will play havoc for a few days, I know from experience. She too knows that from books but she smiled intentionally while unintentionally, I looked into her eyes. As a duty- bound para medico, her concentration was on my navel area around which she would select a holy dot to push in the powerful medicine.
‘Do you know the importance of my ‘thoppul’ or naabhi ?’ I wanted to ask her. Were a male nurse, I would have asked, but not to a female. My time is bad. Why invite problems?
For the nurse, male or female, It is only a scar on my abdomen, called ‘umbilicus’. There are many scars on the body and this is one among those!
No, lady with a syringe needle in hand, it is not just a scar. It is a perpetual monument to remind my relationship with my mother! It is the holy spot which connected me with her, through the umbilical! She nourished me through the cord which was sticking to my navel, which you now call a ‘scar’! Had I the wisdom which I have now when I was born, I would have preserved a piece of the long chord and worshipped. But another lady of your clan, holding a pair of scissors in her hand, cut it off merciless.
I was about to get up from the exam. table and grab the hand of the nurse when appeared before my eyes the ever enchanting form of Anantha Padmanabha, reclining on a multi hooded serpent, a long lotus stem projecting from his ‘naabhi ‘ at the top of which was a blooming lotus on which was seated Brahma with four heads turning and looking at all the four sides waiting for the signal from the boss at the deep bottom to start creation.
‘Anantha Padmanabham aasrayae’ I wanted to sing.
No chance, no words were coming out. I wanted to tell the nurse at least, ‘my naval is my center of gravity. What an amazing brain it was to suspend me to my mother’s womb through a chord, from the exact center of my body? Praise to Him!
‘Yesunathar Paadinaal avar enna paaduvar?’
No luck. No words were coming out of my mouth.
I was not moving out of the table too.
Time was running out. Other patients were awaiting some on wheel chair, some slanting on the arm or shoulder of the life partner and some simply looking at the roof wondering what past crime or habit, brought them there. The nurse looked at my pulse, which was precise to the text book reading .There was no need for Megh to see my pulse as her natural brain scanner which records every vibration in my internal cells and external skin told her that things were perfectly normal with me.
So, she whispered into my ears, Appa, ‘chakka pazham – Jack fruit’, which I like most, but for which, there is a ration card!
I got up from the table with a jerk, like the Kalpathy or Perinkulam chariot, given a push from the back by a huge pachyderm or like lazy Ammalu, wasting her time reading Ananda Vikatan and Kalki, when a picture of Ammini or Paru, Karthyayani or KalyAni , drops from the gaps of the pages.
When I walked towards the gate, through the long corridors, the nurse was watching from the back, till my shadow disappeared from her sight.
‘When is his next appointment?,’ she enquired the reception girl.
‘Over; no more shots for him’
She thanked Saint Patrick as it was his day yesterday.
Ps. Below is a drawing of the Vitruvian Man by Leonardo da Vinci, to show the navel as the center in the circle – drawing from the Internet. The picture of the navel too from the Internet.