This is a tale of balmy summer days in an idyllic Indian city, a city with big dreams. There were two beautiful houses side by side separated by a lane. Both of these houses were filled with light love and laughter for a long long time. Darker days fell on these houses but todays tale is about those balmy summer days and the lifetime of memories that were made in those houses. The house on the left had the mother and father, the one on the right their oldest daughter who lived there with her husband and three children. I was but a visitor for about 5-6 weeks every summer but I certainly never felt like a visitor, it felt as if i was coming home. That couple in the house on the left were my grandparents.
My ammamma (because grandmother just doesn’t sit well with me) was bedridden as far back as I can remember but her capacity to love was never diminished by her physical state. From the moment my mother, brother and I arrived we were ensconced in that love, a love that manifested itself in the form of food and tears. My Savitra ammamma (ammamma’s sister) had become her constant companion, taking care of my ammamma had become her sole purpose in life and she did it with a compassion that is hard to find these days. She was also the avatar of my ammamma doing everything my ammamma couldn’t physically do, but all she did was at her behest.
There were two full days dedicated to making our favourite foods, the burilu, arsilu and karaposa. Everything was fresh and everything smelled like heaven. The entire household would get into gear for this operation, and my brother and I would flit and float around like carefree birds tasting little morsels of everything. From the grinding of the flour to the melting of the bellam and the mixing of the selividi, it was all done from scratch with the most love and care. Savitramma was the benevolent commander of this army and she wouldn’t rest till the final product was good enough to share with all three families of the house. My grandparents had three children, two of them lived in Madras one of them being my mother. When both the Madras families arrived chaos would ensue but those were the best of times (at least from my rose coloured glasses of a child). Cousins fighting and teasing, sisters gossiping, and ammamma blessing it with her bottomless well of love.
One of my favorite memories was being able to talk to my pedamma by shouting across the street and running over there so I could eat my most favourite palacova. Now you might say that you have eaten good palacova, but unless it was made in my pedammas kitchen bent into perfect little pellets with her fingers you have not eaten a good palacova. My pedamma loved her garden and she would spend many a summer day trying to teach me all the skills a girl should have. From embroidery to gardening and cooking, she did it all with aplomb and I remember fondly the days I would sleep next to her and she would gently chide me about what a tomboy hooligan I was (that was one project she clearly gave up on). But many years later the world decided to reward her with a grandchild who actually likes to do all the things that she never quite managed to impart to me. So there is something to be said for perseverance.
My ammamma and thathas room lead to a big balcony that overlooked the Main Street, this also connected to my mama and athas room. In that balcony grew a jasmine bush that bore the most heavenly flowers and all these years later that fragrance always brings back a flood of memories. My Savitramma would make little flower garlands for me to put in my hair and I would run around feeling like a princess. The days were filled with reading Enid Blyton books, visiting various friends and family and eating all the good food I could possibly imagine. As you can imagine leaving all this behind was never something to look forward to.
Leaving was a heart wrenching process, but it had become just as important as the arrival. My ammamma would start crying the night before we were ready to leave. My mom would join and so would my brother and I. Savitramma would be the stoic one comforting all of us, hers was a hard life and yet as many women of her time she bore it like a queen and still managed to share our pain. My ammamma would give us money in little envelopes before we left, but little did she know that all these years later her tears are what I cherish most. In those moments going back to Madras felt like we were leaving Hogwarts behind. Having had to live in the real world and hold down a job since the age of eighteen, I would gladly escape back to those days of wonderment and joy. When my ammamma died a light left our family and we were never the same again, but she did give us all something precious, a lifetime of memories and an unconditional love that I draw comfort from even today. They say nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days, and that is probably very true, but I say so what? If it helps me cope with the world as it is today, I will use it but I will use it wisely and with the knowledge that as great as those days were living as if the best is yet to come is how I can best honour the ones that have left us.
