Women Who Influenced/Moulded Me - II

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First let me thank my friends who liked the first part of this post .  I didn't have a plan to write about her, my maternal grand mother,  in the second part.  But when I spoke to my aunt, she gave me more information which will project her intelligent nature still more. 

I know you will agree that childhood memories influence our life without even knowing that it did so! We had built an independent house, some 18 years back in the suburbs of Chennai.  When his maama visited the house, he said that the hall looked just like his father's (my husband's father's) house in Coimbatore!

Normally, in our houses in Udupi, Tulasi plant is kept in the front side of the house.  Whenever any member of the house went out of the house, we did pradakshina to the Tulasi and then left the house.  It was a habit.  The front yard was huge and the Tulasi maadam where the Tulasi  was planted was also quite big.  And it was just like the one in our house! This was my design! Influence/memories! The only thing is, it was in the backyard, which is the norm in Tamilnadu... (again for the new readers, I am married to a Tamilian and follow 90% Tamil rituals!).

Our Tulasi katte (in Kannada!) was just like this in Udupi.  But it was in black colour!  My aunt (chikkamma) used to draw Shiva Parvathi and Radha Krishna drawings on festival days here, in colour powders, which were very very beautiful. Many small mud diyas were lighted during Deepawali days around the tulasi katte. Tuasi pooja also was done here during Deepawali.

She used to sing some bhajans and we used to repeat them after her, while clapping our hand rhythmically.  No jalra here like my paternal grandmother's house! We used do pradakshinas in the evening singing (I remember 'Shuddha brahma paratpara ram) after her.  She was leading us and we were going behind her like ducklings behind a duck.  I can imagine the scene even now, even though I must have been very small then!

No, I haven't taught my children these songs.  Whenever my mother visited or we visited her, she used to tell mythological stories to them.  I had taught some small shlokas and they learnt some from their school.  But I had got them Amar Chitra Katha books and read them to them even before they started going to school.  I read them in English and translated to Tamil, which we spoke/speak at home. Now, let me go to the story of my grand mother!

My grand mother was very fond of movies, esp. Hindi movies.  I wondered how she came to learn Hindi.  She had come home as a child bride as was the practice in those days...I am talking about the start of the 20th century or a bit earlier!She was just 10 years old when she got married.  She had 7 children later on. She must have studied upto I or II std.  Nobody knows.  But she came into a house where she noticed books everywhere.  As I told you before, my grand father had a printing press for printing mainly religious books in Kannada and Sanskrit or maybe in Hindi too.  I have seen a couple of books in Hindi...Ramayana, I think...they were bound books.  Rest were in Kannada and Sanskrit.  I think she was fascinated by all these books and her husband reading all the time.  My aunt told that she, my grand mother,  learnt Kannada from her school going sons and daughters.  Then started reading newspapers first and then magazines.  After the son and two of her daughters learnt Hindi, she got interested in novels.  They read her Hindi  translations of Bengali writers, Sharatchandra and Bankim Chandra Chattopaadhyaya.  And other authors too. They translated every sentence into Kannada.  Then when Kannada translations came, she read them too, it seems. And when the movies were made on the same stories in Hindi, the children took her to those movies....movies must have been new then!  I have written about the other books which were at home in my post about 'books'.  You can know how my mama subscribed to Perry Mason books and Life magazines from his pocket money etc.  He was getting them by post.  I have seen 1952 'Life' magazine with the Queen Elizabeth coronation pictures!  Remember, English was not very familiar then! I think maama was fascinated by the language!

This reading habit was inherited by my mother and her two sisters and two brothers.  We had come to Madras when I was in 5th std. I discontinued in Udupi and joined here 5th again.    It took a few months for me to learn Tamil, thanks to one of my aunt who was a teacher here.  I have already written about this.  My mother also learnt Tamil along with us and started reading heavy Tamil novels like 'Sivagaamiyin Sabatham', 'Ponniyin Selvan', 'Yavana Raani' etc.  She did it within a year of our shifting from a small town to a big city.  She didn't have exposure to outside world at all until then.   Tamil language was alien to us, until then.  All of us were good in Tamil later!

I always tell others who have children at home that the parents should read books and this will influence the children to read them too.  Now, TV influence is obstructing this habit.  Still people in some homes, still read books!  Reading books in gadgets will not influence the children.  They should feel it, the smell, the texture of the books, etc.  Then they will start loving to hold books!

I was planning to write a post about 'Jallianwala bagh' for our Republic Day.  We had visited this place during our North India tour.  But the pictures I had taken then are in the old hard drive which is under repair now.  So, the 'Republic Day' post is postponed! Anyway,

HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY!

JAI HIND!

Edited to add on 25.1.14: My grandmother's post will go one to many parts, I think.  But no, I have to curb myself from writing more on this subject...others are waiting!

I was wondering how my mother started reading Sivagaamiyin sabatham etc. which were bound books.  I too must have started reading them from my 7th or 8th std.  She was getting those books from her aunt's house (my grandmother's younger sister) which was behind Pondy bazaar in Chennai.  I remember that house...it was like the old type of house with open yard at the back, a cow shed in a corner, with 3-4 cows which were always there (I am talking about mid to late 60's).  We, children, used to go to that house during holidays...they had settled down in Chennai for many years then.  I must enquire who was the bookworm in their house! They were collecting pages from Ananda Vikatan and Kalki which had dhaarawahiks/thodar kathais/series of famous writers of those days (Devan, Kalki etc.).  Every week's episode had pictures of famous artists depicting a scene from the story which gave life to the characters.  Even I had collected pages of stories and bound them later on.  Reading these stories taken from weeklies were interesting than reading books with just letters, because of the sketches of the artists, Gopulu, Maniam etc. who were famous artists in those days.  Whenever we think of Sivagami of Sivagaamiyin Selvan, the face drawn by the artist (Gopulu, I think) will come in front of our eyes even now! Vandiyath thevan and Kundavai from Ponniyin Selvan are still there in my memory, because of the artists.  I don't know who was a book worm in their house.  But they had rows of books in a room in upstairs, mostly Tamil books!  This post has triggered me to enquire more about my grandmother's side of the family!  My mother used to tell us these stories, which she read, later, when we had not yet started reading, with all voice modulations, dramatizing it...no, I didn't get this nature of hers.  I am a very bad story teller!

Thank you for reading this non-stop history of my family!

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