Memoirs.....Musings of a sales guy at heart.....

Village Life and what it teaches you....

Guys, I had touched up on this in my earlier blog but want delve more in to this...

I was born in Perumal Koil a small village with probably a population of around 500 at the time of my birth. This village is around 7 KMs from Thiruvaiyaru on the way to Kumbakonam.

This village also boasts of Sri Jegathrakashaga Perumal Koil, where Thirumangai Azhwar visit is recorded and he had penned a poem in praise of the presiding deity. This temple is one amongst the 108 abodes of Lord Vishnu in India....And I was born in my ancestral home which is facing the temple wall.

The front side of our home is the temple and back side river Cauvery flows...can't ask for a better place, right?

I studied my LKG and 1st std at my village primary school and shifted to Dalmiapuram where all 4 of us did our schooling at Dalmia Higher Secondary School. I was there till my 7th std. We were raised by our maternal uncle who was working with Dalmia Cements in their distribution division. Few things about this place which are still enshrined in my heart. This place was built for all those who were employees of Dalmia Cements. It was a residential colony of sort. And the factory was also with in the colony. The Colony had different types of homes....for lower level employees, middle level managers, factory workers and the senior executives. The GM had a huge bungalow. The senior level had some sort of independent villas with shared compound walls.  The middle level had apartments. My uncle was given a home which had thatched roof. Decent space with a bathroom and a toilet. The walls were not fully covered and one can climb the wall and peep in to the neighbors...You can hear whatever is spoken in others house...so no privacy at all (but still my uncle produced 3 kids in that environment!!)....this has led to great bonding with fellow residents. In our uncles home (thatched) we were around 8 in total. Four of us school going. Just 5 minutes of walk...come back home for lunch and then return around 4.30...we never starved for food but the food was limited as the family had to be run with the income of my uncle...8 to be fed....And my uncle was a character...very handsome and with a short fuse temperament...had this huge craze for radios...those days it was valve based radios...and used to come in big sizes too...there was no FM...you have to keep toying with the knob till you get your favourite stations..and it was limited too. Trichy Akashwani and Radio Ceylon...and Radio Ceylon was the choice of almost all the Tamils...he used to change the Radios at will. And he had a very big weakness for cards-gambling. Used to travel to Trichy only to gamble at the City Club and if it was his day he would come home with a big smile and bag full of sweets from the Lala shop - their dhood pedas was just out of the world...during my Trichy days in DIL I used to frequent this shop and enjoy the pedas...but my uncle was also very partial...he was in total unconditional love mode with my elder brother and elder sister...more than the love he showered on his children...but there were days when he returned losing all his money at the club, gambling....and it used to be awful at home with screaming and shouting...and I became his punching bag....dont know why but probably he wanted to take out his anger on someone and I was his choice.

In Dalmiapuram, the school was a great place. The school was not only great for academics but also for cultural events. R.Jambunathan, our neighbor, (he became my brother's father in law later) staged Sri Shankaram, the story of Adi Shankara, and it was still etched in my memory. My brother did the role of Sahasrawani (Saraswathi) in that and my uncle acted as Kabali....both did very well...My uncle stole the show. Also Jambu mama formed a light music band called 'Sweet Seven' with my brother as their lead guitarist and his son Muthu Kumar as the drummer. My sister fell in love with Muthukumar and my brother to Muthukumar's sister despite huge protests from our grandmother (Maternal). This band was a huge success...My uncle was a great guy at heart but the gambling was his undoing. The management of Dalmia decided to do away with the 'thatched roof' houses and built apartments called 'Silver Jubilee Colony' and moved all those who were in the 'thatched roof'. My uncle and all of us moved to this new place and it was just awesome those days. We were given corner flat on the second floor with two rooms, kitchen, bathroom and toilet. And my uncle by then had 3 kids of his own with the boy as the eldest followed by two lovely baby girls. Still myself and my younger sister continued there for another two years. 

Meanwhile, the PT master, was given the task of staging a play in the school and he picked me up along with my classmate Ganapathi Raman aka Dorai brother of Kalyan...I had a very good role and dont know why, my uncle completely against my acting. I remember, when I had to go for the rehearsal he bashed me up and stopped me going...dont remember finally what happened but I acted in the play and did a good job. 

In Dalmia the faculty were great. I remember, one teacher, Nataraja Iyer, who used to teach us Social science, used us to go to his home and get his coffee and snacks...Couple of occasions I drank some portion of the coffee and filled it with water and with a straight face handed over the flask to him. Probably after a couple of days he would have realised the foul play and stopped sending me...fortunately didnt get caught.

There was one Ambi's cafe in Dalmiapuram and adjacent to that is Solai's shop selling cigarettes, tobacco, toffees, bananas (in TN every single petty shop used to sell banana) et al. My uncle used to send me to this cafe to get doas to be delivered to him in his office. Ambi's Dosa was yummy and divine...but I never got to taste it as there was no 'paise' with me...and the hotel guys used to roll the Dosa in a plantain leaf, and cover it with news paper and put in a plastic bag to carry. I would take out the roll, open the top portion, peel of some dosa and happily eat that and fold it back and hand over to my uncle...again fortunately it was never noticed by my uncle.

My uncle used to fast on Saturdays and my grandma, his mother, used to make special kheer made from moong dal and jaggery and just for him. We children used to keep looking at our uncle enjoying that with a smile and chatting with our grandma and eagerly hoping some small portion would be left for us to taste...yes, there were days we used to get some portion of that and wah, it used to taste like Amrit....my maternal grandma was also a great cook. Strangely my uncle used to address her by her name and not as Amma....and he always held her responsible for his sister-my mother's death....my uncle was so fond of my mother and not so much of his another sister...and losing his beloved sister made him to vent his ire on people like me and his mother. As my elder sister and brother resembled our mother, my uncle was so attached to them and would not say a word against them.

Diwali was a great festival in Dalmia. As money was always tight, just a day before Diwali we used to get our new clothes but the preparation of sweets and savouries would start a couple of days before in every home in the colony...the whole colony would be engulfed with the aroma of ghee, sugar, oil, what not..even in our home...my aunt and grandma, would be at it and whatever comes out of the kitchen-no comparison. In Dalmia there was a company canteen and a company run stores too....and in the canteen they had a chef who would come home during Diwali to make this particular sweet called 'Jhangri'....another delicacy of Dalmia. 

On the day of Diwali, we visit all the elders at their homes looking forward to their home delicacies and along with that some paisa as 'Ashirward' by the elders. It would be around 10 to 25 paise... enough to buy some local stuff....and would last for few days and probably one dosa at Ambi's cafe...And all the kids joined by the seniors boys go on a yatra to the main road near Raja Talkies bursting crackers....Diwali was never the same after Dalmia....

As kids, myself and my classmate Dorai would always be sent by our folks to buy some stuff from the grocery shop. And outside the colony there were few shops selling groceries n veggies and every family had a running account there. Some time we would be given cash to get some veggies too...one occasion - etched in memory....Dorai and self wanted to see the movie running in Ambal talkies and didnt have the money for the tickets and we decided to do some naughty stuff...we went to this Raja stores and gave our list...Dorai had the big bag and he kept the bag open and I pushed some potato in to that without the knowledge of the store keeper (shoplifting)...the idea was that we would split the income from the potato later. But unfortunately someone in the shop noticed - after getting a mouth full and some 'ear pull' we were let go...but it was so embarrassing as it happened in the presence of some known guys...but nothing major happened.

During my 6th standard, a new GM took charge of Dalmia Cements and his daughter, Mahalakshmi, joined my class....it was my first love...love at first sight....such a sweet looking face...but I left Dalmia after my 7th as my uncle was unable to manage with so many of us...left Dalmia with my younger sister to pursue our studies from our village. Mahalakshmi, are you on FB?

My brother did a 'katha kalakshepam' with his dear friend Venkatesan in one of the cultural events there. People still remember that for its humor spiked with film songs.

Dalmia's gift to our family is my sister and brother in laws....such sweet souls and also lots of friends. My brother, since he studied till his school final there and also worked in Dalmias in their ceramic division after his graduation from St. Joseph's acquainted lots of excellent friends and some of them he is still in touch. My take from Dalmia is one very dear friend Kalyan...Though he was senior to me in school, he became a close friend to me at a later stage. His second younger brother Dorai was my classmate. 

I can write huge volumes on Kalyan but later. Like Sriram said to Guhan in Ramayana, Kalyan became the 5th sibling to us. He was part of our family....its difficult to find such souls...

Kalyans family was huge. His dad, probably, was getting similar income like my uncle and he has to manage a huge number at home...but Kalyan's mom, wah....ever smiling and full of love...

The learning from Dalmia, when I look back, is all about relationships, openness and sharing....great attitude....It was like the proverbial 'Vasudeva Kudumbam'. Some of the faculty members of the school were like family members...

I am still unable to figure out why the name of Dalmiapuram station was forcefully changed to Kallakudi Palanganatham? Dalmia, the owner of the cement factory provided jobs to 1000s....of course he got the work done from them and also made money but not every businessman was so generous. If someone had lived that life, they would vouch for the kindness of this great soul Dalmia!!!

Earlier we used to visit our village only during summer holidays and have a gala of a time, playing with all the friends there and eating the summer fruits...Jackfruit was our favourite and the one from our temple was the one we used to look forward to....Summer holidays used to fly off in no time. Like us there were other kids used to come to village to their grandparents/relatives home. There was this guy Sridhar who was studying in Pandanallur and his sister Malathy. From another family, Jegath and his sisters from Chennai used to come there for holidays. The Chennai guys were different and well protected but we were typical villagers....the break fast used to be 'Pazhaya Sadam-previous nights rice soaked in water-fermented and mixed with butter milk with some pickle)....this is very filling...go out play around come back, have a bath with the water from the well at home and have lunch...again go out and play....we used to play 'gilli danda' and it used to be such fierce battle with the elders being part of the play...my dad and his age group used to be part of the teams....wah, what game it used to be....another game was volleyball and at home 'pallanguzi' -mancala-bean hole-very popular in villages...We used to get some small rolls of movie films and run it by projecting thru some glasses and sunlight-lots of singing and dancing....we left our village and shifted to Trichy around 72-73 and till then our home had no electrical connection...it was manged with kerosene lamps only. But we had a huge house...

But life became different when we went back to the village to pursue our studies....I got the admission in Government Secondary School, Ayyampet. From my village there were two routes to go to the school. From January to June the rivers would be devoid of water and we used to cross the river and take that route....through the fields...slightly shorter. The other route is via Ganapathy Agraharam, probably a KM longer but a proper bus route but we never had busses to Ayyampet those days and some used to go by cycle and people like us walk it up and down. It was around 5 KMs one way to the school and return also. 10kms of walking every day. But we never felt it. We would be around 10 from our village and as we keep moving from each village en route, few would join the walkathon to the school. By the time we reach the school we would be roughly around 50 to 60. The school was co-ed but both the boys and girls used to feel shy developing any kind of conversations with the other. I was special there as I had the pedigree of coming from slightly superior school (Dalmia)...So when we come back from school it would be around 530 in the evening. Wash, pray and finish all the homework, eat and sleep. No time to play...and we had a lovely lady as our neighbor in the village. Kamalam Mami, who was blind but lived all alone. She would come to our place, sit on the 'thinnai' - steps leading to our home, we would surround her and she would start telling us stories from all the epics. We grew up listening to the stories of Mahabharat and Ramayan from this fine elderly blind lady. She was of my grandmother's contemporary. I have already written about the tough time we had in the village and am not going to repeat it but share some other stories.

This neighbor lady had a son and few daughters but all of them lived away in different places..married and settled...her son used to live with her but left her to live with his daughter who was working as a nurse in another village. the son was not a great guy and some fight between them and she decided to manage herself. She used to get the support from her daughters and managed her life quite well. All by herself. Salutes...but we as kids didnt understand and many a times played pranks with her but come evening we would surround her and listen to her lovely stories. And around 730 she would say good night and leave for her home. Never realised those days how her life would be all by herself being completely blind...

In my village Pongal was the festival we always looked forward to...1) The schools would be closed almost for a week so no walking to and fro and 2) our favourite black sugar cane which is available only during this time, would be available in abundance...all our family members were crazy on sugarcane....can keep munching on it whole day....

In our street, which used to be the only agraharam from one end to the other end, during my time, cut down to half the size as many had left the village for greener pastures. So the street starts with our house, followed by Kamalam Mami's, Bhagavatam Mami's, Dhadi Iyengar's (he had beard and was the 'baricharahar' - cook- in our temple and hence the prefix-dhadi means beard), Kannamma Mami's (richest in our village), Saraswathi mami's (all alone with both her daughters in different places) then a small road leading to the river, and the house of our village Munsif Santhanam Ayyangar and the last house being that of Kannan...(this guy lost all his money fighting court cases against the Munsif). Only these many families. 

The otherside, parallel road was the main road for the buses to ply and we had around 25 houses on that side.

Kannamma mami used to live all by herself but she had good income from her agriculture lands. The village Munsifs family was a huge one with around a dozen children of him....

Kamalam Mami was all alone, Bhagavatam Mami sold their house to a guy from the neighbouring village who kept his concubine, in that house ( first time an outsider in to the Agraharam!!), Dhadi Ayyangar and his wife as their children were settled in nearby villages, Kannamma Mami, all alone and Saraswathi Mami also all alone. Munsif house was like a mini school with more than dozen members and Kannan's lived with his mom. Kannan's mom was a very enterprising woman and used to grow vegetables in their backyards and sell it at a very low price to people like us. This Kannan was probably in his 30s when we were kids, but we used to address him by his pet name Kanni. Once he took us to the river for our bath and the river was not in full flow...it had only small pool of water but stagnant. We selected one such pool, myself and my two sisters, and suddenly I started getting drowned---just shouted his name and he somehow grabbed my hand and pulled me out...once I came out, he game a big slap on my face and more than us he was the one who was perplexed-god knows why?

He is such a great soul...once my grandma was all alone and went to the river for her morning bath. Again it was the time when the river had only small pool of water bodies and after her dip when she came back home she realised one of Diamond ear stud was missing. As none of us were available, she caught hold of Kannan and this guy immediately rushed to the river with one fisherman and his fishing net, and managed to retrieve the Diamond stud....My grandma's only prized possession... Am saying this here as during that period Kannan was just managing his living without any regular income...The diamond studs were finally given to her four sons, who in return sold it and shared the spoils....sad... 

My family were the trustees of the temple. One of the job of our home is to hand over tokens to 'Yatris' who come from other places for darshan at the temple. The token would entitle them for a 'undakatti' means curd rice. Our temple chef Dhadi Ayyangar, was a great cook. The 'undakatti' made by him was nothing but steamed rice with the starch fully present mixed with probably a small cut of curd, cooked with the rice together. The moment this is made, he would make few 'undakatties' and keep it ready for distribution. On top of that he would make a small impression and pour some, chilli powder, made specially by him. Guys it should be eaten hot and when one does, he would go crazy as the taste of this simple food is mind blowing. Also during the Margazhi month, there would be morning special pujas. They would offer 'pongal' to the lord and that also is a Dhadi Ayyangar special. We used to get up early during this period, just brush the teeth and run to the temple to get this prasad....oh, it was just divine...on special occasions, Dhadi ayyangar also made 'puliyodharai' (tamarind rice). All Ayyangar specials at the temple...he was lean with a hunched back, but when it came to cooking, he was all energy and best in his class!! The 'madapalli' (kitchen) in the temple is a full fledged one but no gas stoves, no mixer grinder et al. Just the traditional way of making batter and fire wood for cooking. The water is always from the temple well. Dhaadi for making the prasad and Bhattacharyar for doing the puja at the sanctum sanctorum. The two of them are inseparable....twice a year the temple used to conduct their annual festivals with concerts in the evening and three time free food for all the devotees. I also remember 'kumbabishekam' conducted in the temple which was a major festival for not only our village but the entire surroundings...our village was, to my knowledge, very crowded with devotees from all over and it was fun for kids like us. Dhadi's grandson Raghu became my very close friend but he used to come only during festivals and holidays...But lost touch with many of them.

My gang consisted of around 4 to 5 guys of which Udhay kumar used to come only during holidays to our village as he was studying in another town.

Myself, Murugesh, Sundar aka soosai (dont know why he was called in that name) and Gokka aka Govardhan....I still keep in touch with these guys and especially Muruganandam...We were so close those days and they literally used to feed me. Kumar was a sprinter...every family used to be known by their profession in the village. 

Our local saloon is where all political news used to be discussed. I have taken lots of interest in politics from a very young age. Our postmaster Narayanan used to buy tamil weekly Kumudam and our saloon owner Govindan, used to get tamil news paper, Kalkandu, Dina Malar and Ananda Vikatan weeklies. I would visit the saloon every day to read the newspaper and weeklies. But can't be open about this to my grandma as she would not allow us to enter home without a bath.

During my school days I was a strong supporter of Kamaraj Congress and also Shivaji and Shivaji was a staunch Kamaraj supporter and star campaigner for Kamaraj Congress-but my village was full of DMK and MGR...Not a single friend of mine was a Shivaji fan...oh, I had very tough times with these guys fighting who was superior but that fight never became personal, unlike these days. When I was doing my 10th or 11th, I was in the forefront, campaigning for Kamaraj Congress.

Those days, when you enter 10th standard, you have to choose electives. One of the electives was  diversified engineering and that division was managed by 3 lovely teachers...Ilangovan who owned a theater also in the nearby town, Gopalakrishnan who owned a lathe factory and Rao. They came to our class, and hand picked students as many would not opt for this course due to its manual work involving carpentry and machines.  Ilangovan spotted me, Arivumani, Jaffer Ali and Malik and told us that we should join this course. And it turned out to be excellent for all of us as this department was in a separate block opposite to the main building. We were given special treatment by these three...Also I joined the NCC not for the love of it but to get the Poori bhaji which used to get served on the days of NCC training. 

I was also part of the boys scout---once we were taken to the Thiruvaiyaru Thyagaraja Aradhana, a  festival to celebrate Saint Thyagaraja's anniversary where carnatic musicians from all over, would congregate and perform, lasting for 3 to 4 days. Samadhanam sir was our PT teacher and he was the incharge of this trip. First day we manned the pandal and that night few of us, without informing our teacher, went for a movie..An MGR movie (thedi vandha mappillai)--me despite being a Shivaji fan-and were caught red handed on return...we pleaded..prostrated at his feet but he packed us off...we were all part of this scout and were looking for the excellent food which is normally reserved for the day of the Aradhana, especially the 'payasam' (kheer), and felt so bad that we were thrown out...another lesson.... 

We never used to get new movies in the near by theaters but have to travel either to Tanjore or Kumbakonam for the same.

 

We had some gem of characters in our village. Postmaster Narayanan and the temple priest (bhattacharya) Ranganathan.

Ranganathan was a very young guy and though he was the Priest at the temple, once his daily rituals at the temple get over, he would come out with us to roam around and also for movies to the neighboring town.

once our neighbor Kamalam Mami fell ill and I was on the other side of the road hanging out with my friends and the moment I heard this news, borrowed the dhoti from my friend, draped it, got some money from the postmaster, and boarded the bus to bring her daughter in law from her place of residence, which was around 20 kms from our village. I had never been to that place earlier...but somehow managed to reach that place and brought her to our village and by the time we reached it was almost 10pm but the old lady was still awake and the moment she realised her daughter in law had arrived she got her life back.

Sbe blessed me so much for bringing her DIL and with in a couple of days she left with her DIL to her sons place.

I finished my 11th in Ayyampet school...during my 10th and 11th two guys, Ramakrishnan and Sundarraman, joined our school from the nearby town Thiruvaiyaru...we became very close....I also remember few teachers...one our own Engineering class as mentioned earlier and the others are Narayanan (English), BR (Maths) and Aranganathan (Tamil). This Tamil teacher was so good in his subject and we used to enjoy his class. And he was made incharge of one cultural event in our school and he picked me to perform. I acted as Ashoka and did a kathakalakshepam with a guy called Kaka, this is the same thing my brother had done in Dalmia and I justed cut and pasted it fto suit Ayyampet. Also when I did the Ashoka role, my classmate, who was a special child that time, did the role of a woman whose character made Ashoka to convert to Buddhism. He also did a great job...In our school, almost 30 to 40% were Muslim students and they were allowed to come in their lungis. Once there was a elocution competition conducted by a cooperative bank in Kumbakonam and I was sent by my Head Master to represent our school. I asked my dad to give me some meat on the subject and my dad obliged and wrote down a two page speech...I went to Kumbakonam by bus from our village and with a relative went to the auditorium. I was the last one to speak and after a couple of minutes I forgot what I byhearted. I took a deep breath and started spinning on something....but the speech was well received. I didnt get any prizes but one member of the jury, called me separately and asked me whether I follow politics and when I said yes, he patted me and gave me a beautiful pen. Next day in the school assembly my HM called me and appreciated my efforts, took out the pen and with pride showed it to the entire assembly. Proud moment. Also I stood first in the final exam of SSLC in our division scoring 501/600. So Ayyampet was good to me.

So after my 11th I left my village to pursue my PUC in Trichy but came back to my village later and went to Ayyampet again to do my Typewriting and shorthand course. I appeared for Typewriting higher cutting short the lower grade exam and passed too. By did not pursue my shorthand. 

Till next time....

Yours forever lovingly