An eMagazine for TDRites
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Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2011 17:53:26 +0530
Subject: reminiscences - part 6
From: chandru.sharma@gmail.com
Subject: reminiscences - part 6
From: chandru.sharma@gmail.com
when you are writing or recollecting after more than 55 years the memories come to you in a kaleidoscopic form - all jumbled up and with so many flashing colors. sometimes you tend to mix up dates or names but the events, in isolation, remain correct. the events also get, like the accordion box, jackknived into tiny parts. but it is fun to dig up memories of those days.
our school had two parts, to the best of my memory - primary and secondary. 5th,6th and 7th were located in one corner. i really dont remember anything about the senior side. did they even exist at all for us? our part of the school had a tin roof, may be couple of windows, may even have had two or three dingy fans, walking all the way from mahadana street thru the temple, mandatory தோப்புகரணம் to pillaiar, run thru the rest of the temple and to school. everything else was a blur.the most important events were the lunch bell and the evening bell. return back the same route. khaki shorts and white shirts was the uniform. pens and ball pens had not yet come in. we carried ink pots and nibs. my shirt, as most of my friends', always had blue spots on their pockets.the invention of the pot bellied nibs which could hold ink enabling us to write upto 1/2 a page continuously was, at that time, the greatest invention. saved us lot of trouble. and it was silver color instead of the moronic copper color of the single nib. we got this in 6th. by the end of the 6th we graduated to the earliest form of fountain pens- we had to pump ink and put it inside. and loss of pens became a common feature. of course, causing more trouble at home. i had the gall to pinch my tata's parker pen and promptly loose it with predictable consequences. but i had been, for at least a day, an hero in my class porting a parker.
mornings used to be spent in our huge gardens. i never counted the number of tamarind or mango trees or coconut trees we had. or the number of banana trees. as i learnt first hand the use of these trees i could, in later years, always write very good essays on their uses. every time we had plucking of these fruits we had a gala time. coconut plucking to us also meant going to the oil mill and coconut water and coconut cakes. and within our garden was a mini flower garden with so many varieties of flowers and so many colours. so bright and blooming. we had also 7/8 wells. often in the evenings tata and his man friday umaiyan used to draw water from these wells using a crude contraption( do we call it ஏரி?) and me and ramu had to run fast to direct the water thru various canals and sub canals to the the different plants. we also had number of bamboo and palm trees.
evenings were also spent washing our cows. drawing water from the well, pouring over the cows, slowly brushing them and cleaning them and also the calves. i think we got more water on ourselves than on the calves! and feeding the cows. when it came to milking the cows initially the calf used to be allowed to drink some milk and forcibly dragged from its mother.i had more objection to this than the calf itself. i mean this was so unfair. and some time the cow was taken for breeding. again something mysterious to us. and so many cows changed in our family and we had to get familiar with each of them.
just before naga's marriage i had taken a cow for grazing in the morning. when it was time for it to come back by 12 or so it was not to be found. so a cow hunt started. ramu,myself and tata searched the whole of tdr gradually enlarging our circle of search. hunger pangs were eating our entrails. where did the darn cow disappear? here the ladyfolk were not at all amused. whenever one of us reported back home with a negative report some choice words and admonitions to have lunch first. ramu and me did not dare. 3 p.m. came and went. 4 p.m. at the end a kindred sole whispered to me 'பையா பவுண்ட்லே பாத்தியா?' so i ran to the local pound and found our cow there serenely grazing on some grass. fine rs 1/- to get it released. now to me it felt that someone who had a 'khunnas' (mal intention) against tata had brought and left the cow there. but i dared not tell him that. but how do i tell him that there is a fine? i thought it better to leave the cow there itself and forget about it. finally mustering courage i told my patti and scampered from the house. i believe he paid the fine but only after the pound in-charge got a mouthful from him. but i saw the cow in our shed that night. we did get our lunch by 5 p.m.
a compulsory duty for me and ramu was visiting the post office twice a day for collecting tata's mail. a business man - he was trading in blue bird brand tea - and coffee seeds, he used to get plenty of letters. i have seen letters in roman hindi - hindi written in english. and when the bulk supply of tea leaves or coffee seeds came we had to dry them. they used to be spread all over the house. i loved the tea leaves but never the stink ( sorry aroma for each one of you!) of coffee. ( i have not drunk coffee in over 50 years.) ( by the way too much of mango eating at that age had also given me an allergy to mango!) these had to be packed in smaller packs and then sent to various places. we were totally blank about the financial aspects or what tata was worried about some time.
when my elder uncle - ramu's father - would visit tdr i also had my first glimpse of yoga. he would stand on his stand head every morning for 20 mins or so. he was also passionate about lotus ( i think that is what the name was) lottery. he had to complete a cross word and write a one line caption or something like that. so he would break his head for hours and complete it and at the cost of rs 1/2 every week he would send it in by post. the weekly result would , invariably, find him disappointed. once, however, he won a prize of rs 1/2 and , man, you should have seen his joy. we got sweets that day. not a very healthy return at all in terms of financial investment , i suppose, but in terms of his winning something finally that was a great success.
our home was also a mini zoo. monkeys,snakes,frogs in the well, toads, crows,parrots and many other birds, scorpions and numerous insects. when some city slicker visited our home it was fun explaining the nuances of what harm all these could do to him/her. see that person be generally always on tenterhooks. by the second year even i had become a resident expert. seeing some of my aunts taking the cows out in the garden was really different. how awkward they would be. how the cows would drag them round. finally somewhere i was better. i could also draw water from the wells with ease. score - chandru 2 aunts 0.
mornings used to be spent in our huge gardens. i never counted the number of tamarind or mango trees or coconut trees we had. or the number of banana trees. as i learnt first hand the use of these trees i could, in later years, always write very good essays on their uses. every time we had plucking of these fruits we had a gala time. coconut plucking to us also meant going to the oil mill and coconut water and coconut cakes. and within our garden was a mini flower garden with so many varieties of flowers and so many colours. so bright and blooming. we had also 7/8 wells. often in the evenings tata and his man friday umaiyan used to draw water from these wells using a crude contraption( do we call it ஏரி?) and me and ramu had to run fast to direct the water thru various canals and sub canals to the the different plants. we also had number of bamboo and palm trees.
evenings were also spent washing our cows. drawing water from the well, pouring over the cows, slowly brushing them and cleaning them and also the calves. i think we got more water on ourselves than on the calves! and feeding the cows. when it came to milking the cows initially the calf used to be allowed to drink some milk and forcibly dragged from its mother.i had more objection to this than the calf itself. i mean this was so unfair. and some time the cow was taken for breeding. again something mysterious to us. and so many cows changed in our family and we had to get familiar with each of them.
just before naga's marriage i had taken a cow for grazing in the morning. when it was time for it to come back by 12 or so it was not to be found. so a cow hunt started. ramu,myself and tata searched the whole of tdr gradually enlarging our circle of search. hunger pangs were eating our entrails. where did the darn cow disappear? here the ladyfolk were not at all amused. whenever one of us reported back home with a negative report some choice words and admonitions to have lunch first. ramu and me did not dare. 3 p.m. came and went. 4 p.m. at the end a kindred sole whispered to me 'பையா பவுண்ட்லே பாத்தியா?' so i ran to the local pound and found our cow there serenely grazing on some grass. fine rs 1/- to get it released. now to me it felt that someone who had a 'khunnas' (mal intention) against tata had brought and left the cow there. but i dared not tell him that. but how do i tell him that there is a fine? i thought it better to leave the cow there itself and forget about it. finally mustering courage i told my patti and scampered from the house. i believe he paid the fine but only after the pound in-charge got a mouthful from him. but i saw the cow in our shed that night. we did get our lunch by 5 p.m.
a compulsory duty for me and ramu was visiting the post office twice a day for collecting tata's mail. a business man - he was trading in blue bird brand tea - and coffee seeds, he used to get plenty of letters. i have seen letters in roman hindi - hindi written in english. and when the bulk supply of tea leaves or coffee seeds came we had to dry them. they used to be spread all over the house. i loved the tea leaves but never the stink ( sorry aroma for each one of you!) of coffee. ( i have not drunk coffee in over 50 years.) ( by the way too much of mango eating at that age had also given me an allergy to mango!) these had to be packed in smaller packs and then sent to various places. we were totally blank about the financial aspects or what tata was worried about some time.
when my elder uncle - ramu's father - would visit tdr i also had my first glimpse of yoga. he would stand on his stand head every morning for 20 mins or so. he was also passionate about lotus ( i think that is what the name was) lottery. he had to complete a cross word and write a one line caption or something like that. so he would break his head for hours and complete it and at the cost of rs 1/2 every week he would send it in by post. the weekly result would , invariably, find him disappointed. once, however, he won a prize of rs 1/2 and , man, you should have seen his joy. we got sweets that day. not a very healthy return at all in terms of financial investment , i suppose, but in terms of his winning something finally that was a great success.
our home was also a mini zoo. monkeys,snakes,frogs in the well, toads, crows,parrots and many other birds, scorpions and numerous insects. when some city slicker visited our home it was fun explaining the nuances of what harm all these could do to him/her. see that person be generally always on tenterhooks. by the second year even i had become a resident expert. seeing some of my aunts taking the cows out in the garden was really different. how awkward they would be. how the cows would drag them round. finally somewhere i was better. i could also draw water from the wells with ease. score - chandru 2 aunts 0.
i would say that till end of 1953 most of the gardens in tdr were similar to what i have described. every house had prominent gardens, prosperous and bountiful. and then disaster struck.
end of 1953 was one of the most severe cyclones tamilnadu ever had had and tdr was no exception. 3 days of severe cyclone devastated our small little town. this is the cyclone in which danushkodi vanished. today, after almost 60 years, i can still remember vividly the awful sound of wind and the lashing rain and the utter ravage i saw afterwards. during the cyclone itself it was fun. despite dire warnings from tata and patti and papa mami we two were running to and fro front and back, peeping at everything available. and when the elders were not looking i ventured out of the front door. and in front of me, far away, may be near chatram, lightning struck a street lamp. with a crackle and flow of bright candescent light there was a surge from there till way beyond even the canal in a matter of seconds and i saw in that light street lamp poles bent into 'S' shapes or other odd shapes. stunned i ran in shaking. next night at the back myself and ramu ventured out, opened the garden door. evening 6 i think. pitch dark. no electricity of course. and then in front of us another bolt of lightning - this time it struck a coconut tree. the tall tree was cut into two pieces in a second and before we knew the base part of about 10 feet was charred. we could see the embers and the smoke raising just a few feet away. ( after wards we saw that the ground surrounding the tree within a radius of 10' had also been charred and no plant could ever come up in that place even after we removed the stump of the burnt coconut tree.) we were so scared that our quaking body had to be held by pappa mami . the caning, this time, was well justified, even we knew that we had crossed the limit for if anything had happened to us tata would have been responsible. we stayed strictly indoors for the remaining time.
to be continued..................
luv
chandru
to be continued..................
luv
chandru
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