Women Who Influenced/Moulded Me - I

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I had been thinking of writing about my grand mother for a long time now! I had mentioned her in my post about our reading habits which was influenced by her when we were small!

I grew up with my paternal and maternal grand mothers until I was around 10 years old.  My parents were in Hyderabad with the other 4 children! It was common in those days...children growing up with their grand parents for some reason...or is it because of too many children (!) I don't know!  I don't remember much about my paternal grand mother.  She was very very orthodox.  Now, I am ashamed to think of it...but it was common in those days! I had separate dresses, no, not uniforms, but normal separate dresses for wearing for school.  I was asked to remove them after coming back from school in a closed verandah, tie a towel, go to the bathroom and wash my hands and legs and wear the household dress.  I had very long thick hair and the two plaits were tied with threads taken from banana stems (Vaazhai naar).  Many children wore this! She used to feed me green moong dhal juice...moong dhal soaked for sometime and  ground raw with coconut and a little jaggery,  almost everyday!  Then sit in front of the gods and sing Purandara dasa kritis with her.  We used jalra for rhythm. She was a widow and maybe that was the reason, she was very strict in following these rituals.  I still remember those songs! Just the two of us lived in the independent ancestral house! As far as I remember, she was a very nice lady. 

Jaalra/thaalam

I used to visit my maternal grand mother's house in the holidays, mostly.  I stayed with her later during my 5th standard, for a long time, after my other grand mother died.  The atmosphere in this  house was entirely different.  Many members were there...my maamas, maamis, chikkammas etc.  We were hearing Hindi film songs from an old Murphy radio...a whole library of books were there...English, Kannada and Sanskrit.  My grandfather (he too was not alive then) had a printing press in Udupi, where we lived.  They had a book shop also for selling mostly religious books in Kannada and Sanskrit.  By the way, I am a Kannadiga (this news is for the new readers!).  Let me write about my grand mother first!

As was the norm in those days, she used to get up early in the morning.  We had a cow in the cow shed.  I remember her milking the cow, holding a vessel with her knees! I remember doing pradakshina and namaskara when the cow delivered a new calf.  The whole family did it! Then she cleaned up the place...I don't remember any other people helping her! After taking bath, she would go into the kitchen for cooking for around 10-15 people in a choolha (mud stove...two holes on two sides and one round in the middle...the middle one is just for heating purpose) and a kumutti stove with charcoal or cow dung balls!      My maamis, her daughters in law helped her in cutting vegetables etc.  No servants.  So the ladies had to do all the sweeping, swabbing, washing clothes and other cleaning work!  My grand mother used to have food only in the afternoon.  After cooking breakfast, she used to take buttermilk and then lunch in the afternoon.  At night, just fruits!

Our kitchen was very clean.  Grandma used to clean the stove with cow dung every evening as was the practice then and draw a small rangoli over it!  This picture is just to have an idea.  In a shelf above the stove, the home made pickles were kept in huge porcelain jars. 

We call this kumutti.  This is made of iron.  We place charcoal and burn it.  Milk, coffee, water etc. were boiled on this stove.

After finishing the cooking she used to sit in the verandah and read the Kannada newspaper, 'Navabhaaratha'.  I remember her round Gandhi spectacles! She was very particular about knowing the current news.  I still remember her happiness when she read and heard in the radio about Yuri Gagarin landing on the moon.  She was so happy! Then she cried when Kennedy was shot.  She used to read a Kannada magazine 'Kasturi' which was nearly like our 'Readers' Digest'.  I think this nature of hers had influenced her children and then us, in reading newspapers and magazines and other books later.

We used to sing bhajans with her, in the evening while making pradakshinas around the Tulsi plant every evening! I don't remember her telling us stories but my mother was very good at it, esp. mythological stories.  She was an encyclopedia in that!

Though she lived  at the time, when most of the widows were not allowed to wear blouses, she wore them.  She used to stitch her underclothes by herself, by hand.  Though she was also orthodox, she was very fond of Mothi, our dog.  Normally, he was not let inside the house.  (Older people never touched dogs!)  But if it rained heavily with thunder, she was allowing Mothi to sit with us in front of the God in the Pooja room when we recited 'Arjuna Palguna partha..' a shloka to protect us from the thunder! An iron rod was thrown out in the open yard to block the lightning!

She loved carnatic music and FILM music too! Mukesh and Rafi were her favourite singers! She was a very good cook.  My aunt (chikkamma) says that my rasam tastes like her rasam.  I was in 10th Std. when she died! I don't remember the taste of her cooking at all now! Our family had left Udupi when I was in 5th std. I had visited gandma once or twice during the holidays, later. She used to make the children sit in the pooja room and compelled us to take a ball of ground neem leaves' paste and buttermilk, in the morning, once a month! It was compulsory.   If any child starts eating too much, she used to make a gothsu of red hibiscus with tamarind, red chilli etc. Place a plate full of rice and pour this red gothsu in the centre and compel the children to eat.  She used to say that this red rice would stop the children from eating more than is required.

Summer holidays means many relatives with their children (minimum 5-6!) used to come and stay in our house! Then cooking, cooking, cooking!  But it was mostly rice preparations.  Evening fried snacks.  Night again rice with some chutney, buttermilk etc.

She loved watching movies! Whenever she came to Madras to our house,  we used to take her to some Hindi movie.  She was a happy person always.   Though she followed all the rituals/orthodox things, she was modern in many ways.

She died in her 60's.  It was a Dhwadashi day.  She had kept vrath on the previous day, Ekadashi.  Next day, our people eat very early in the morning.  So, she cooked for the family very early.  My maamas give theertha (holy water) before having food.  She took that too.  Then said that she was not feeling well.  She was taken to the hospital.  Within a day, she was no more.  

All these things happened in the late 50's and early 60's!


After finishing this post, I had a doubt. How my grandmother learnt Hindi when she was in Udupi and in an orthodox household.  She couldn't have gone out.  Called my aunt and she explained about it, which is very very interesting.  I think I have to write a second part! One interesting news...she got married at the age of 10!



Picture courtesy: Google

Edited to add on 24.1.14: The second part is here.


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