Chez Moi

Music - it is about feelings and emotions, right? My choice of music came under much (friendly, of course) ribbing and I shudder to think what kind of comment this post might attract but I can’t help it.

I heard this song after a long, long time today. And with the first bar, it took me back to the time I heard it on my walkman, while on the train back to Madras from Bombay. It carries with it that gentle sway of motion, the sweet ache of parting and a hefty dose of nostalgia.

So here it is, Ricky Martin with Perdido Sin Ti.

Summertime in Chennai used to be the days of mangoes (raw and ripe) and vadams. Those were the days when the 3 weeks of kathiri veyyil were the only time the sun beat down on the good people mercilessly. Rest of the time, the folks of Chennai were just left to perspire freely and go about their daily business. But most of May was ruled by the dreaded kathiri and children were generally kept under lock and key.

These kathiri days were ideal for the maami past-time of making vadams and vathals. This laborious process would start around daybreak, with the biggest pressure cooker in the household given a spit and polish and put to use. Copious amount of raw materials, enough to make vathal and vadam for most of the population of the Western world, would be dumped into this cavernous vessel and cooked over a slow fire. Once the koozh reached the desired glutinous consistency, it would be hefted upstairs by the family Bheem-boy, after a significant portion was reserved for Tiffin.

After the initial prep, the paatis and maamis of the household would gather around the plastic sheet and start spinning koozh patterns on it. Kids of the family would be given the important jobs of weighting the sheets down with huge bricks, guarding the vathal from thieving crows and bringing back tasters of half-dried vathals on demand to various members of the family.

At the time of the following incident, I was a wee thing of three summers* and as such, was exempt from guard duty. While the women folk were hard at making vadam, I tried to break land speed records by going faster and faster around everything. My gran, the harbinger of doom, kept cautioning me to cease and desist. ‘Keezhe vizhundida pore dee!’ (mind you don’t take a toss) but of course I paid her no heed. Within a few minutes though, there was a loud yell and an almighty crash.

Deciding to step it up a notch, I tried to move faster but my delicate balance could not keep pace and I fell headlong into freshly laid vathal, just as Grandma Doom predicted. This concoction, laced heavily as it was with fresh green chilies, wasted no time in permeating into my epidermis and within a few moments, I was on fire. After running around like a headless chicken, I was grabbed forcefully and dunked in cold water repeatedly till I stopped shouting and the chillies stopped eating my flesh.

It was a while before I was present for the vathal making ceremony.

A few years later, sibling and I were dispatched to the Other Gran’s household for a small portion of summer. As we did not have much to do with ourselves, apart from twiddle thumbs, we generally tried to get out of these compulsory visits. But senior counsel prevailed and dispatched we were. This summer too was no exception. After exhausting the supply of books, we decided to explore the building block. As the children of the flats were playing downstairs, we went the opposite way. Other Gran, being not very au fait with the rules of kid-dom, repeatedly appealed to us to make friends with the children. But as the sibling and I were cool beyond comprehension, we would never demean ourselves by stooping to others’ levels and extend hands of friendship. Thus, we pottered about the joint by ourselves.

Once we finished examining minutely the perimeters of the terrace, we wondered what to do next. Playing tag was the next order of play. I was (and am) generally rubbish at all things sporty while the sibling excelled in most things. He proceeded to run like greased lighting while I huffed and puffed in the distance. Suddenly though, it seemed like he put on the breaks and started moving in slow motion. Even as I watched amazed, he proceeded to give the impression of walking under water. When I eventually reached him, I discovered the reason - brother had stepped on some old granny’s morning work of javvarisi vadam. The old dear might have well been the one we passed on our way upstairs as the steam was still rising on the ones sibling hadn’t stepped on. In trying to get out of his sticky mess, he proceeded to moonwalk all over the plastic sheet, unpeeling himself only after demolishing every single vadam.

This gag cracked us both speechless. After we had finished creasing ourselves, we proceeded downstairs, while sibling left huge javvarisi footprints on the stairs. It rather looked like Bigfoot made of koozh had made his way down. Narration of our mornings activities did not bring forth peals of laughter from the grandparents. Other Gran, modeled along the lines of Wooster’s Aunt Agatha, proceeded to chew bits off us. Our explanations of how the clear plastic with its blobs of goo was camouflaged against the dirty floor was to no avail.

She frogmarched us to the OAP neighbour’s house, to our lasting chagrin (and possibly scarring us for life!) and berated us soundly in front of that shocked lady. We thought the old dear was going to faint when she saw her morning’s work laid to waste thus. I can still hear her anguished splutters and the Other Gran’s outraged squawks.

It seems such a shame that the annual vathal season isn’t practiced with the former gusto anymore. A quintessential part of Chennai life, they provided us with hours of mirth and joy that no Playstation or amusement park could ever give.

Every night, as he prepares to go to bed, P and I have a routine. After a story, I generally make him lie down on my lap and he’ll moan ‘can I go to my bed now?’ Off we’d go and I’d lie down with him for a while, wish him good night and slink away. Last night, I got a rude shock. As I started the ole song and dance, P went ‘can I go to my bed by myself now?’

I was shocked!
‘Why?’, spluttered I.

‘Cos I am a big boy now’, says he.
sigh

One of the best things about growing up in Chennai, IMHO, is the accessibility to one of the best hangouts in the world, Elliot’s Beach. All through my school and college life, this beach was the ultimate cool hangout. There was a hierarchy to the place and one picked up on it pretty soon.

The layout of the beach is such that, there was a low-lying parapet wall, running alongside the bike park area and sat on this would be the sight-seers of various age, shape and size. Where you sit depends on the degree of cooldom of your clique - the closer you are to the Cozee circle, the cooler you become. To be actually sat right at the Circle is the ultimate in cooldom - that normally signals that there are no heights left to scale.

The actual beach, with the sand and the sea, is generally of no importance whatsoever. Unless you happen to be a ‘love bird’, doing a spot of billing and cooing from behind the catamarans and assorted boats, that is. To the regular folks, Elliot’s is the parapet wall and Cozee corner. There is no greater entertainment than watching the odd built bloke and the multitude of wannabe-Salman Khans strut their stuff, atop the latest motorbike.

That was then.

This Summer, when hubby mentioned ‘beach’, I responded with my normal derision. Coming from Chennai, these excuses of English beaches generally strike me as majorly funny and I never want to patronise them. The sole exception was when we visited the Isle of Wight - this being a tiddly island, one cannot escape the beach and I let the cool waters bathe my feet.

My snort was snuffed out when a shiny key was dangled in front of my eyes. Turned out, a female colleague had generously lent us her beach hut for the day. When I quizzed my work mates about Frinton and its beach huts, the resounding ‘wah-wah’s that came my way made me rethink my viewpoint of a Brit beach. In my mind’s eye, I envisioned a medium-sized cottage, something along the lines of those in Fisherman’s Cove and in jubilation we set a date.

On a fine summer’s day, we set off to Frinton, armed with all the usual paraphernalia. The whole caboodle seemed overkill to me, who had gone to the beach for the sole purpose of viewing some eye candy. As that isn’t the tack a responsible mum of a 4 year old is supposed to take, I gamely went along to buy the requisite sun block, Noddy kite, buckets, spade and other assorted gear. With the GPS in situ, we set off on a rare early note.

The miles sped by, as we bowled down the A12, aided by the disembodied voice of the Sat-Nav. After a hour long drive, we finally could see the coast in the distance and I felt an odd feeling of glee. As we neared Clacton, we could see a bit more of the sea and its bluish hue raised my spirits. Buoyed by the vista and A R Rahman, we finally entered the town of Frinton-on-Sea.

The salty air, the brisk breeze and the masses of sand (it was low tide) made me long for Elliot’s and those bygone days. Shaking off the despondent mood even as we drove around the town, I started looking out for cottage #776. To say I was disappointed was putting it mildly. I was expecting designer cottages but what awaited me were itty-bitty plank shanties on stilts!

Grinding my teeth, I looked at the instigator of this plot, who blithely went ‘M promised me there would be deck chairs and things inside so we can drag them out and relax’. Determined to enjoy myself, I started to get our things from the boot, even as hubby proceeded to the ‘beach hut’ to check out our home for the day.

Ten minutes went by, then fifteen and finally, a good half hour. By then, aided by my little man, I hauled out the kite, the hats, towels, spare sets of clothes and enough food to feed those at the beach while there still was no sign of the man. Leaving the thayir sadam to fend for itself, I dragged my son and we went looking for his missing father. To my mounting annoyance, I found him outside the hut, staring at the horizon, with a far-off look in his eye.

Even as I revved myself to come up with a few well-chosen epithets, he turned a curious shade of green. Swallowing the curses, I went with a milder ‘What gives?’

‘Er, Houston, we have a problem,’ he quipped. He finished with a sheepish grin.

‘It seems like I have forgotten to get the keys to the beach hut’.

Maami, Maami, Golu vecha sundal,
Illatti kindal!

I remember getting dressed in my pattu pavadai (silk skirts) and walking up and down our streets with my group of friends during Navrathri. Our job was to go to every house that had kept a golu, stand outside their gates and recite the above-mentioned chant. It normally resulted in the lady of the house coming out with a grin and inviting us in for that Navrathri staple. If the oldies of the house were present, then we were urged to earn the sundal by singing a song dedicated to Goddess Lakshmi, usually to their own peril.

After the resultant cacophony, we were given the thamboolam, with some steaming sundal wrapped in old newspaper. Objective accomplished, we used to rush out with the booty, devour it on the way, discuss the merits of that sundal with respect to the previous house’s efforts and then go to the next house. By the time we finished the street, it was usually dinnertime and we would all be feeling slightly sick. But that never stopped us repeating it the next day and the next, till Vijayadasami.

Why am I prattling about Navrathri and sundal now? Well, last night, when I was walking home from work, I came across many a wicked witch and evil magician walking the streets, armed with broomsticks and wands. The Jack O’ Lanterns gleamed evilly on some doorsteps and the dark creatures were on the prowl. It was Halloween after all, and pretty soon, the ubiquitous ‘trick or treat’ filled the air.

‘Treats’ in the form of teeth rotters like gooey marshmallows, toffee apples and other assorted sticky sweeties that children so love were dispersed at every house. Most of these ‘monsters’ were too little to figure out what the ‘trick’ part of the threat entailed. One tubby skeleton was really confused when I asked him what trick he had in store for me and looked ready to burst in tears as he thought he wasn’t going to get a fistful of chocolates for his trouble.

But the older ones preferred the tricks to the treats. More than a month beforehand, the Council had put up notices in shops, tersely warning the shopkeepers not to sell flour and eggs to ’suspicious looking teenagers’. To me, all teenagers look shifty-eyed at the best of times; how does one weed the ‘regular’ ones from those buying Halloween gunk? Seemed like the local teens agreed with me as some unfortunate souls got their windscreens covered in eggs, despite of the warnings.

Despite the hype and the hungama surrounding the whole Halloween thing, to me, it lacked the magic of our old Navrathri days. We dressed up in our finery and got yummy (healthy!) sundal from most houses. Belting out Carnatic music songs that bore no resemblance to the original in various sruthis was pure enjoyment. Though pain flit across several of our audiences faces, I am sure they enjoyed it too.

But the tiny terrors banging on the doors, creating a din outside definitely seemed to be having the time of their lives. Though they had the parents’ nightmare, sugar rush, to contend with at the end of the day, the accompanying adults seemed to be enjoying themselves as well. Jack O’ Lanterns flickered away and the loo rolls wafted madly in the autumn gust.

Maybe it is just I, getting jaded and old before my time. Trick or treat, anyone?