Tag: mylapore

Posted in Mylapore Musings

6 yards

Posted on by veeskitchen

For years or may be for decades in Mylapore, we shopped for ‘swami’ saris, Navratri gift saris for Sumanglis, blouse pieces to give in thamboolam, pavadai-chattai (lehenga choli) for ‘kanya pongal’ (little girls not come off age) to gift for Navratri etc., from this store popular with the local residents. It used to be tucked in a narrow congested connecting street right opposite the Kapaleeshwara temple street, leading to Kutchery road. This lane of a street is also reputed for Bharatnatyam dressmakers, silver jewelry etc.

This particular cloth store would have no standing space. Cramped, we had to be seated on the floor mat as the sales girls would spread their wares for our selections. The owner was an affable middle-aged man. I always shopped in bulk from here. He never forgot to give me a standard 10% discount. Whenever I couldn’t I would ask my Mylapore friend to shop for me. She and I meet frequently. So somehow or other she would pass on the package to me. Our famous shopping was about the Paalum Pazhamum sari in silk cotton that we all got in similar colours and draped the same day during our first Kumbakonam pilgrimage tour. I gifted my Doha friends also the same. May be my friend told me about what happened to the store. I probably forgot.

So now that the store has moved to North Mada street and is more accessible than ever before, I was here last evening to shop for Navratri. Shocked to see the owner hanging in a garlanded framed picture in the even more cramped place where his missus was in the cash counter. I asked her gently about him and she said that even though he completed his duties as a father and saw that their two children got married and settled in life, he left her alone as he succumbed to a massive heart attack one fine day. That was two years back. There were tears in her eyes as she said that. She is also a grandmother. Otherwise she said, she lacked for nothing. She never knew of textiles or sales. She was here after struggles and she was making it on her own. She was managing fine and she was carrying on his legacy. She asked me whether her husband ever gave me any discount. I hesitated but told her he normally gave me 10% off that she did too. I took it gladly because I was happy she was able to afford that. She is assisted by a strong team of young sharp girls who are on their toes. I remember their faces from years before. Not over 25. They must have received hands-on training from their erstwhile boss and owner. It was such a humbling moment for me to meet this fine and affectionate new-to-business woman who took on the mantle from her husband and was steadying her foot in a very competitive male-dominated world. The mere mention of her husband’s name moved her emotionally I could see. She is still grieving his loss. I asked for her name. Then I realized the shop was named after her: Rajarajeshwari cloth store. As usual I shopped for over half a dozen cotton saris, dozen blouse pieces, pavadai chattais for kanya ponnu etc. Her girls neatly packed everything and gave me extra cotton bags for the gift saris.

It is the kind of understanding that a fellow woman has for another woman: what we two shared yesterday. I was touched by the widowed woman’s love, affection and respect for her husband who was no more. It scared me a little to think of her position. That made me see her vulnerability even more. But she was doing a fantastic job, working for the first time in her life after becoming a grandma perhaps, in her 50s. Its not a huge business with impressive turnover. But it was a decent job that paid well. We took selfies. She took one in her phone too. Moments like this humble us. For the owner and his wife, I felt something. May be the Mylapore connection. Only business interests we shared. But we seemed to have traversed some empty space. We seemed to have connected by some other way in the metaphysical. As fellow humans. This is our culture you see. The woman is not dating again. Not looking for another partner. Living in her husband’s memory. Family is everything. Carrying on her husband’s mission. Why should the world call us a patriarchal society. Nothing good, they want to leave in original shape without tarnishing. They have to contort anything holy and make it vulgar. Sacrilege is the new rationality and justice. As old values live and genuine warmth and familial relationships appear to be not just thriving but get celebrated, I found a new hope for the tomorrow. May be not all is lost. I bid her goodbye. In her I earnt a friend. This sweet down-to-earth woman is someone who I shall go back to. #humansofchennai

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Posted in Drops Of Life

Fragrance Of Memories.

Posted on by veeskitchen

I have decided to add my personal stories in a section here. Most of them are like miracles. Whatever could be grand coincidence I have decided to share here.

Today such a thing happened.

I was buying flowers from a street vendor in Mylapore. I got the three greatest and sweet smelling flowers for my Puja (friday Diya puja) Marugozhundhu, Manoranjitham and Shenbhagam that form the base for many perfumes. Today the woman who sold the flowers said she knew me. I was surprised. She asked me whether I lived in Adam street, Mylapore. I said I could be familiar because I frequented Mylapore my birth place and mother’s home. Of course I grew up in Mylapore.

Then the woman conclusively told me, ‘your paalkaara aayaah was my aayaah. for years she worked for your family. you were young. i used to come to your house with her. you are two sisters. you lost your mother early.’ The woman also called me by name and mentioned our family name – how we are referred to in our community. I was stunned. Then the face slowly became familiar to me. Not familiar actually. I could make a quaint or faint connection that’s all. I remembered the very old lady who fetched milk for us every morning. She had a hunched back. I was too young but her daughter Sokkamma with a polio leg was our housemaid before Kanniamma joined us. Sokkamma was the flower woman’s aunt. I went to Sokkamma’s marriage also somewhere near Tambaram with my parents. My parents got two of our housemaids married. The flower woman said her name was Mahalakshmi. She told me my grandma gave Sokkamma a gold chain for her marriage. Sokkamma’s husband was an alcoholic. She died soon leaving behind a daughter. That daughter Thilaka is now married and well settled. My mother and my grandma used to feel bad for her fate. They were only our house servants but my family deeply cared for them. Mahalakshmi said, that gold chain was with their family for a long time and it helped Sokkamma’s daughter when getting married. I was stunned by the flower seller’s memory. I was also moved to hear about my mother’s and my grandmother’s kind gesture. After Sokkamma, a girl called Kanniamma worked for us. My mother got her married too. In fact she named her daughter, the eldest born, after my mother.

My mother taught hearing and speech impaired middle school girls until the last day of her life. She had a kind of empathy for the lesser fortunate which was unheard of in those days. She was neutral and unbiased. She was far ahead of her times in many ways.

Today is my mother’s 40th death anniversary as per English calendar. I recall this only now and somehow forgot to get it when I was with the flower woman. My mother reaches to me directly. Nobody will believe if I say this. My Mother Goddess reaches to me in a way too that I cannot describe.

Now the time is 11 pm. My mother passed away around 10.30 on July 14, 1982. I observed the thidhi as per Hindu/Thamizh calendar. My sister observed it as per English date today.

Why should of all the days, months and years, I have to meet someone from my past who recalled my mother and grandmother today of all days. Exact day. I have been buying flowers in Mylapore for years and years. Not once have I met this woman before. Never have our paths crossed in 45 plus years. Mahalakshmi said she is 59. Look at her flowers. Her recalling of my name is unbelievable.

An Ambal upasakar told me that my mother did not have rebirth. Today’s incidence is surprisingly having a calming effect on me. Nowadays vibes are getting replaced with a peace in my case. For years I have received strong vibes in waves. Of late as I get older, I have an understanding in my heart that’s all.

This is the second time in a matter of three months, my mother has reached out to me. I don’t even know her really. I am learning more of her through third parties.

My mother was a flower girl who filled our terrace with potted plants such as roses, jasmine, hibiscus. december, kanakambaram, saamandhi etc., that we had no space to walk. Very interested in gardening, she would frequent the Horticulture society that was in Gemini, where she would board her bus back from school. We also bought so much of flowers everyday from street vendors. Roses especially. In the house that my parents built (which is perpetually leased out), my mother planted seven Ceylon (red) coconut trees, mango tree, curry leaf tree etc., and roses and hibiscuses.

My mother helped at least two poorest girls get married when they had nothing. In return Karma saw to that we two daughters married well in her absence.

Years after someone is gone, this is what stays behind. Our good Karma. Thank you so much for reaching out to me Amma. You just told me you are there always for us.

Posted in Mylapore Musings

The Chimney Glow

Posted on by veeskitchen

Watching period serial ‘Stories by Rabindranath Tagore’ (that by itself is worthy of a post), I was reminded of the Chimney light days from my childhood in Mylapore. May be we had this light at home as a spare until I turned 10 or 12. We had no zero watt night bulb then.

I have this memory of filling kerosene in two such small chimney lights for two rooms in my house. That evening duty was mine. Kerosene was in a tall narrow necked glass bottle tightly screwed shut, stored away in a shelf. The wick would be pruned by my mother and both the lights would be readied by 6 pm for lighting. No bedrooms for couples in those days. We slept in rows in the living!!! Sleeping on the handspun straw mat was the comforting bedding ever for me! I have no memory of my parents sleeping alone or together as a couple sorry!!! What a sacrificing life our parents and grandparents led for our sake!

By 7.30 to 8 pm, we would already be ready to retire to bed, because tv was barely there. And also because I had a working mom. We got our first tv in 1977 when i was in class 4 only. Before going to bed, I would light the chimneys sometimes or my mother did. The glass lamps served as our night bulbs hanging from a hooked nail in a corner off the wall that was safe from breeze from the partly open windows and fan and anything combustible.

I still remember the mini chimney lights but i can’t find exact replica images in the net. I will keep looking for them. I used to go to sleep focusing on the small glow from the open top of the glass chimney. The bottom part that held the fuel was metal with a screw and wick. I also think that the chimney glass part with (sometimes jagged) circular opening on top to let out smoke often broke. There are faint memories of pushcarts in the streets selling those glass chimney tops. Or may be we had these in the platform shops in Luz or Mylapore tank. Did we have different colours like burnt orange, brown, bottle green? Although all I can recall from the one at home is plain colourless glass chimney.

Carrying the lit chimney lamp around the home in eerie darkness with shadows lengthening or shortening was another reason to delight! Mostly this was whenever the power was out which was pretty often in late 70s.

If I ever slept with my granny, I would be listening with her to Ceylon Radio Tamil broadcast in the soft light of the oil lamp. Mostly I did this in summer hols. Late evening 9 pm was considered like midnight in those days!!! Watching the chimney shadow flicker on the wall opposite was another childhood pastime as I would doze off into bottomless dreamless sleep that only kids are capable of.

When did we grow out of this chimney light habit? I guess until my mother’s time we had it at home. Later the yellow zero watt night bulb substituted the glass and metal chimney light that used to leave a very light black smoky shadow on the wall.

Slowwwww days and slower peaceful nights. The chimney light era reminds me of such a comfortable age when nothing was done in a hurry. Makes me nostalgic. What a charming old world that was! The dancing flame of the chimney lights on windy thundery monsoony nights surprisingly still stays fresh in my memory…. as the long nights during some power-cut days when we cooked, ate and laughed and lived in the mellow shadow of the chimney glow…