The scent of nostalgia

The faintly acidic smell of ebony colored tamarind balls speckled with shiny bits of rock salt, make my tongue pucker up in anticipation of the sour, tart sensation; as if I have sucked on a piece of tamarind. The scent of tamarind and rock salt fills me with a sense of dormant excitement, a harbinger of the exciting things that lie ahead. It transports me to the ‘kottathalam’ the huge granite floored wash area in my grandmother’s home, lined with brass utensils waiting to be scoured out with the tamarind mix, until they glisten like gold. That for me signifies the start of the festival. Next to the wash area is the mammoth kitchen, which smells of burning wood and freshly pounded masalas, from the slow cooked curries, gently simmering away on the wood fired open stoves, like a contented elderly matron.

 The night before Vishu, is a magical time when the puja room in my grandmother’s house gets transformed into an ethereal space, filled with brocades and antique brass ware. The scent of fresh jasmine garlands and wreaths of golden hued ‘konna’ flowers hang heavily in the air, mixed with sandalwood scented incense and burning, oil soaked, plump cotton wicks. It is this scent which permeates our senses first, even as we falter in blindfolded, with clumsy steps, like a baby learning to walk; unsure of where to put its foot next. It somehow make the whole experience of actually seeing the beautiful arrangement of flowers, fruits, the deity adorned in brocade and bathed in a celestial amber light from the flickering lamps, more pleasurable; much like how eating a meal off delicate porcelain china, enhances the taste and the overall experience of the meal. 

The much awaited' kaineetam'*, brings with it, the scent of crisp, freshly minted currency ,which are doled out by benevolent relatives. Most childhood festival memories in my mind, feature my grandmother; with her gossamer thin muslin ‘ mundu veshti’* that smells of starch and buttery, mellow sunshine and soft skin which smells of Nivea cream and floral scented talcum powder, always ready to pamper us with gifts and time in equal measure.
Scents and odors, they say travel right up to the emotional or memory making part of your brain and words find their way up to the thinking parts. For me, it combines to turn an experience into a beautiful memory, to last a life time.

* Kaineetam:The popular tradition of elders giving money to younger ones or dependents of the family.

**Mundu veshti: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mundu

A feast for the senses

It is not just any other day to linger in bed, but my eyes remain stubbornly shut, as I coax them to shed the cobwebs of delicious sleep that cling to them. It is the early hours of dawn when the day is still like a coy maiden, with the first rays of delicate, rosy tinted light streaking her pale cheeks.  I scramble out of bed, nudging my sleeping cousins, who crawl deeper into their quilts in response.

The house wears a shroud of serenity, which belies the frenzy of activities that will soon ensue. I sidle next to my paternal grandmother or ‘valliamma’ as we call her, helping myself to the milk biscuits that she religiously has with her morning coffee.  I listen to her going over the things planned for the day, as I dunk my biscuit into her glass of milky coffee and savour the sweet mush. The preparations and the festive air that precedes the festival, excites me more than the actual festival itself.  

When a little girl has her brand new silk skirt, the colour of a ripe pomegranate, trimmed with gold brocade, matching glass bangles that tinkle every time she moves her hands and little jhumkas (earrings) to complete the outfit; she wants nothing more from life- for that day. My cousins and I gather around our grandmother, dressed in our festive finery, which have been carefully chosen by her. She inspects each of us and adds her little touches; a smear of’ kajal’, a touch of talcum powder, smoothing out a ruffled pleat of a skirt. Her apparent joy in seeing us dolled up makes us silently vow, not to spoil our clothes or mess up our hair.

We troop out into the courtyard to help out with the flower carpet preparations, presided over by my grandmother. It is an ambitious project, but then, my grandmother is not known to do anything on a small scale. A talented artist bordering on genius, she has drawn an enormous picture of a little Krishna leaning against an ivory colored calf, a golden flute on his lips, under an arbour of multi colored flowers and creepers . Aunts, uncles, house helps, are all engrossed in various stages of preparations. There is a certain invisible hierarchy that is in play. The minions fetch the flowers and the leaves, sort it according to color and shred it to tiny bits, so that it looks like a smooth carpet when it is done. The more ‘talented assistants’ follow instructions and slowly use the flowers to add life to the picture, sometimes mixing two or three flowers to get that perfect shade. In the center of it all, sits my grandmother orchestrating this symphony of flowers.

It is almost noon and the great dining hall has been cleared of all furniture, cleaned and lined with straw coloured reed mats on the ebony coloured floor. Fresh banana leaves are placed in front of the mats and from a distance it looks like the room is framed with borders of beige and green. The center of the room is lined with a plethora of dishes in gleaming steel and brass utensils. There is steaming hot, fluffy rice to be doused with ghee and salted dal, the colour of daffodils. Sambar the quintessential lentil stew, tangy rasam ; avial, the medley of vegetables in a coconut paste, thorans, crisp, flavourful vegetable stir-fry spiked with shallots and a dash of freshly grated coconut, crunchy papadams and an assortment of chips, pickles, relishes and almost all the sidekicks that make up a malayalee sadhya. For dessert there are payasams; at least two kinds.  The entire family sits down to partake of this festive meal, like generations before us. The dishes remain the same over the years, the people sitting down to eat change; some new faces gets added some fade away.

Towards late afternoon, as the gluttony induced coma slowly ebbs, we race upstairs to the ‘unjal muri’ or the ‘swing room’ to claim the best seats on the swing. It is a huge rectangular shaped room, fringed on all sides with windows painted a mint green, bare except for a huge swing which hangs in the middle. The swing itself is gigantic and can easily hold six of us , painted to echo the same mint green colour of the windows. Most of the paint has peeled away revealing how popular it is with the inmates of the house. A room exclusively allotted to enjoy the pleasures that only a swing can provide. Some days we swing higher and higher till our  feet almost touches the ceiling and everything around us blurs and for those deliciously agonizing moments, it is just us, the wind in our hair and our heaving insides. On other days we lounge on its broad surface, devouring a good book or simply day dreaming, as it gently rocks us to and fro.

After we are sufficiently dizzy and nauseous, but miraculously ravenous enough to ponder on the snacks that will be served with tea; we ambush the harried cook, who is yet to recover from the lunch fiasco. There is pazhampori, batter coated sweetened bananas; plump ,crisp and golden brown and ‘elayada’  a  mixture of honey coloured jaggery and fresh coconut smothered in sugar, sealed in a disc of rice flour dough, wrapped in a piece of banana leaf and steamed till cooked.  The filling transforms into a treacle like consistency lending the perfect balance to the bland rice flour coating, and the burst of flavours as I bite into it is nothing short of alchemy.

The day slowly takes its last bow, amidst games, laughter, lively conversations and creating memories to last a life time.

Onam is perhaps one of the rare festivals that celebrate a demon king and his triumph over the gods. As the legendary king Mahabali who was banished to the netherworld, returns back for a day of revelry with his beloved subjects, how delightful it would be, to bring back our inner child, from the deepest recesses of our mind and spend a day filled with good food, family, laughter, games and the simple pleasures of life.

Happy Onam!

The language of God

  As the car winds its way through the narrow roads of the quaint little village of Elangoor, sandwiched between layers of verdant greenery, spilling on to the sun dappled streets, my son is enthralled by the sheer beauty of the place. Local tea shops, ‘chaya kadas’, the quintessential countryside social hub, that brew fragrant milky tea and gossip with equal gusto, dot the scenic way. Its glass cases are piled high with artery clogging, soul satisfying, deep fried treats; ‘pazhampori’, banana fritters golden and crisp, spicy ‘bondas’, mashed potato spiced to perfection, batter coated and fried.

 Ironically, the first thing I notice is the silence that envelops the place; not the kind that is stifling and weighs you down, but the kind that washes over you and invites you to enjoy the moment. It follows me as we pull into my husband’s ancestral house, to spend a day with his grandmother. ‘Ammumma’ exudes a sense of serenity, an absence of restlessness or agitation; even time seems to glide by her in slow, graceful moments rather than the frenzied, hurried ticking I am accustomed to.

She is a lady of few words, but then, she is one of those people who radiates so much of warmth and positivity that words seems superfluous. Her delight in having us over is apparent in the lunch that she serves us; supervising the cooking herself, so that the ‘naadan chicken roast’ (one of my husband’s favorite dishes) is roasted just so, redolent of coconut oil, crisp curry leaves and toasted bits of coconut and the baby mango pickle, tart, spicy and delicious is taken out of the huge ceramic urns or ‘bharanis’, where they are preserved with a thick layer of oil, especially for the visiting great grandchild.

“I’m a year younger than this house, I’ve lived here all my life” she tells me, mildly amused at my fascination with it. The house, like most old houses where generations of a family have lived their multiple lives under its roof, is full of character. It is filled with unexpected nooks and crannies and echoes of countless laughter, conversation, and memories resonating off of its walls.

She talks to me about her childhood in this house, the mango saplings she planted around the house, of how she loved spending time among trees and plants who are still her friends, of how she has discovered a new passion; collecting exotic recipes. I am humbled and inspired by her enthusiasm and zest for life; the way she has kept her sense of wonder intact. I discover that she has learnt the art of befriending her solitude rather than fearing it or despising it.

As Rumi quoted “Silence is the language of God, all else is poor translation”

I realize then, that she has deciphered the language of God.

The memory keepers

"Has my aunt come?” she enquires. I notice a rare glint of excitement in her eyes. Trying not to show the rising panic in me, I reply in an almost bored voice, as if she has asked me what the time is. “Ammumma*, we are in Chennai, at my house, remember?

“Of course, don’t I know it” she snorts. I’m grateful for the snort, for the semblance of normalcy it helps create. She and I sit in silence, afraid to speak about that which is so apparent, that which no amount of snorts can erase.

“It’s slowly leaving me, like most of my loved ones” she says, more to herself than me. I hug her, letting her sandal infused scent permeate my senses and diffuse my despair.

Ammumma and I

I take out some photo albums from my childhood. She figures in most of them. She fingers each photo, running her fingers lovingly on the sepia toned sheets. These albums are her babies. She has painstakingly filed each and every stage of our growing up years; a true custodian of memories.

She tells me, how I used to cling to her as a little child. I tell her, I wish I still could.

I tell her, how much I loved the lovely dishes she used to cook. She tells me, she wishes she still could.

I take her hand in mine and tell her that my sister and I, are her memory keepers. We will fill in the gaps and put names to blurry faces. We will help her relive her moments of joy and grief, as long as we can. She tells me with misty eyes, that she wants to remember this moment forever.

I want to thank her, for all the lovely memories she has given my sister and me; for loving and cherishing us, as only a grandmother can. What better way to do it than by carrying on her legacy; creating and preserving memories, to last a life time. In the sieve of life, memories are all that remains in the end; the rest gets sifted out slowly, but surely.

* Ammumma: Grandmother, in my mother tongue, malayalam

This time,there

mom's lovely garden

25/04/15; 8:00 am: My sister and I sit in the little patio in my mother’s house, which looks out to the garden, with its emerald green grass dappled with buttery golden morning sunlight, sipping tea and chatting. Ammumma my grandmother, reads us little snippets of news from the Malayalam paper, which catches her fancy. Amma pops in to ask if she should start making dosas, and it seems to me at that moment that “God is in His heaven All’s right with the world” (Pippa’s song by Robert Browing)

02/05/2015; 11:30 am: I am seated on the wide kitchen counter biting into the sweet yet slightly tart baby mangoes, which my aunt brings for us every summer, from her garden. Our cook, who has been with us for over 30 years, is peeling the mangoes to make a ‘mambazha pulissery’* while chatting with me.He stews the peeled mangoes whole, along with a couple of slit green chillies, a pinch of turmeric which clings to his skin like gold dust and some salt. He then adds a silky paste of freshly grated coconut and some earthy cumin seeds, brings it to a boil and takes it off the heat. Then comes a splash of some whipped homemade yogurt.

 He deftly heats   up some coconut oil and splutters mustard seeds some dried red chillies and fresh curry leaves from the garden which he pours on top of the curry. I close my eyes and inhale the fragrance which permeates the kitchen as the spice infused oil hits the tangy sweet sauce and completely agree with Harriet Van Horne who said "Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all."    

                     

15/0515; 5:00 pm: My son and nephew are engrossed in a game of cricket with their grandparents. You can hear their excited shouts all the way down the street. Someone hits a ‘sixer’ and the ball is tossed out of the compound onto the main street. A lady on the street, whose head the ball missed by a few inches, politely asks my dad if he should really be playing cricket at his age. Amma meanwhile is busy pretending to field, while trying to photograph the boys, who seem to defy gravity, as well as their their mothers'. 

Ammumma is trying to coax the tulsi plant not to wither away with water and words in equal measure. I stand apart, etching this scene into my memory, forcing my brain to take in every detail, the neon green cricket ball, the tinkle of ammuma’s bangles as she waters her plants, the look of love glazed with a tinge of pride in achan’s  eyes, when one of the boys bowls well, and I want this evening never to end.

20/052015; 9:30 pm: We are all in the bedroom, our little sanctuary from the unrelenting summer heat. The room is cool with a bed big enough for 5 people to lie down quite comfortably. My sister and I are getting our daily soap fix with big bowls of amma’s tender coconut pudding. Ammumma is on one corner of the bed, her fingers busy combing out my sisters hair. The boys are huddled together in another corner of the bed with my father enthralling them with one of his hugely popular stories and amma is blissfully asleep, curled up like a kitten. I look around the room and realize  that this is one of those rare moments where I am, exactly where I want to be.

“What would we have been doing there, at this time amma?” asks my son tears threatening to well up in his eyes, barely a day after we have returned from my mother’s place. I hold him close and whisper “we would have been creating memories, one second at a time.”  

*mambazha pulissery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dQm52yprNw

Of love and lullabies

While I was growing up, one of my favourite TV shows was ‘The Wonder Years’. The series was based on a wonderful thought that has stayed with me ever since I came across it. ‘Memory is a way of holding on to things you love, the things you are, and the things that you never want to lose’

‘Ammumma’, (my maternal grandmother) was an integral part of my growing up years, and continues to be so to this day. We speak almost every day.  Whenever I think of her, the first images  that come to my mind, are the balmy Kerala nights, when we used to lie down side by side for our nightly ritual of storytelling, sprinkled with impromptu cuddling.  It would be the same story every night; but the sound of her voice, the comforting and familiar fragrance of her after bath sandalwood talcum powder, along with the comfortable warmth seeping in from my toes, tucked safely in the soft folds of her sari, lulled me to sleep. Some nights, after the story, she sang lullabies ; songs that she had grown up with, songs scented with fragrant sandalwood sachets of memories.

The soothing sound of’ ammumma’ singing in her slightly out of tune voice, is one of my most cherished childhood memories. My favourite lullaby was **“omana thingal kidavo..”  Some nights, when I put my son to bed, singing that ever green lullaby, I close my eyes and can almost feel ammumma’s plump slightly calloused fingers, softly stroking my hair.

‘Ammumma’ was a wonderful cook and my sister and I often awoke to paper thin dosas, sizzling on the griddle, oozing with ghee. We often lost count of the number of dosas we devoured, and they disappeared quickly, along with melt in your mouth, freshly ground coconut chutney; ‘Ammumma’ did not know any fancy cooking techniques. All the ingredients she used were simple, earthy ones, often made in her own kitchen from scratch. Freshly churned homemade butter, melting on steaming hot mounds of rice, delicately flavoured fish curry, tart, with just the right amount of heat, butter milk spiked with ginger and cumin. Relatives often asked her, how all her dishes turned out so well and she would simply smile and attribute her culinary success to a secret ingredient, passed on to her by her mother.

Some days before I was to be married, ‘ammumma’ was combing out my hair when she casually remarked “Always remember, even if you are serving a cup of tea, do it with love. You must have the desire to see the people who are eating your food, satiated and content. Good food is one of the very few things in life, that have the power to genuinely satisfy a person. That is the secret ingredient that makes the simplest of dishes ,seem like a gourmet meal”

Thank you ammumma, for flavoring my life with the sweetness of your love.

*Omanathinkal Kidavo (Malayalam: ഓമന തിങ്കള്‍ കിടാവോ ) is a lullaby in Malayalam that was composed by Irayimman Thampi on the birth of Maharajah Swathi Thirunal of Travancore. To date, it remains one of the most popular lullabies in the Malayalam language.[1]

The lullaby was composed by Thampi at the request of the then ruler of Travancore, Maharani Gowri Lakshmi Bayi, to put the baby King Swathi Thirunal to sleep. His birth was a long awaited event for the royal family since it faced the threat of being annexed into British India under the Doctrine of Lapse for the want of a male heir. The lyrics of the poem reflect this sense of relief when it refers to the baby as a 'treasure from God' and 'the fruit of the tree of fortune'.^[2][3]

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omanathinkal_Kidavo

You can listen to the lullaby here:

:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mzh5CmmXfis

A slice of childhood- Memories of my grandmother

It was one of those days when you had to have mangoes in every meal; right from a lusciously thick milkshake the colour of daffodils, sweetened with honey at breakfast, to the tangy and sweet ‘pazhamanga kalan’ (a sweet and tart curry made with ripe mangoes simmered in a yogurt sauce) with which you douse your steaming hot rice for lunch.  Mangoes always bring back memories of my paternal grandmother from whom I learnt the art of eating a mango without having to use a knife. We called her ‘valliamma’, which is a term ordinarily used in my mother tongue Malayalam for addressing one’s aunt, more specifically mother’s elder sister. But to us, her grand children, she was anything but ordinary. I can picture her still, sitting crossed legged in her starched linen ‘mundu veshti’ which smelt of talcum powder and mellow sunshine, holding the reins of  my father’s sprawling ancestral home in her gentle yet firm grip.

valliamma and her grand kids

Valliamma always ensured that each of us children felt special. Whenever we visited, there would always be everyone’s favourite dishes on the menu, as if it was the most normal thing. Fresh   succulent ‘poozhan’ (a river fish common to the region), crisp and fried to perfection for lunch; or a robust, rustic egg masala curry in a rich mahogany hued coconut gravy, which you could mop up with thick slices of crusty bread. There was always that special dish to perk up your meal.

I remember waking up in the morning to her soothing voice, as she sat at the foot of her bed, fresh after her morning bath, chanting prayers. I loved watching her get dressed, readying herself to face the day, and if I was particularly lucky she would let me help her. She would sit on her bed and call for her ‘vanity case’, an antique rosewood box which she would delicately slide, to reveal a mirror cleverly concealed within its womb. I would then play her ‘lady- in- waiting’, handing out whatever she asked for. She had a creamy porcelain complexion and I would watch her massage her face in swift, deft movements and there would always be a smidgen of cream for me to practice my massaging skills. Afterwards we would examine our glowing cheeks in the mirror, faces pressed together.

 But it is during Vishu (the Malayalee New Year festival) time that I still miss her the  most. Whenever I go through my ‘make-do’ Vishu preparations;  buying yellow flowers to make do for the golden hued ‘konna flowers’ or getting a ‘instant’  payasam mix to make do for the creamy sweet ‘semiya payasam’ fragrant with cardamom and speckled with plump golden raisins and slivers of cashew nuts fried in ghee, I think of my valliamma sitting in her enormous pooja room and arranging an elaborate ‘vishu kani’ , with a large urli (brass urn) polished until it glistened like gold, brimming with seasonal fruits and vegetables, gold ornaments, an antique ‘valkannadi’ and ‘konna’ flowers.

The pooja room would be transformed into a magical place with flickering brass lamps and deities adorned with brocades and flowers. It was to this room that she would take us at the crack of dawn, one by one, with our eyes closed and we would open our eyes and take in this wonderful sight. What a lovely way to step into a brand new year.

One of the last memories I have of valliamma which I still cherish, is of us going through my wedding trousseau. Too frail and sick to actually come out for shopping, she insisted that I show her whatever I purchased. I can still picture her childlike glee as she opened each packet and fingered the rich silks and brocades. She passed away just after my engagement. I know she would have loved to see me as a bride and I would give anything just to see that look of love mingled with a tinge of pride, as I stand before her in all my bridal finery; the same look I had seen in her eyes all those years ago when we pressed our faces together to look into her mirror.