The front door was always open. This was tradition. Once you opened the front door in the morning, splashed water in the front yard and drew your kolams, you did not shut the door until evening...not even after that mysterious time, the "lamps-have-been-lit-time" that everyone was so concerned about.

"Don't comb your hair...the lamps have been lit!"
"Don't cut your nails...the lamps have been lit!"
"Don't lie down.... the lamps have been lit!" She used to wonder.... what "lamps"?! The word carried an impressive image of warm, deep, dark brown punctured with bits of teardrop shaped light, a picture that reality did not match. The house had electricity throughout, for goodness' sake! It had always been so...except of course during those way-back days the older members referred to as "in that time"...a mysterious term, bearing a whiff of some other strange universe, at times attractive, at times thank-god-we-were-not-born-then, at all times different.

Well, there were lamps, but only in the puja room.

"Lamps-being-lit" was a major feature of daily routine here, viewed with some awe and plenty of smirking by her brother Arjun and her, here in Rampuram for the holidays. A mandatory dose of castor-oil the third afternoon after arrival ("to clean out all the muck you people eat in the city!") being another standard high-spot.

Rampuram......a small town and a must-visit every holiday, either in part or in full, during the days when the children were young enough for the parents to make all the decisions about their holidays. And the children, reprehensibly but naturally, for a while enjoyed being the big city types in the small town. The children-from-the-big-house sort of thing. Big House? Actually, it was Her House!

People always referred to Chinakka as Her.

Chinakka......matriarch, head of the family, bully and general busybody.... the original "If-I-want-your-opinion-I'll-give-you-one!" type. Which she did. Unstintingly, without any hesitation....and constantly!

Chinakka had had a husband once. The sort of man who chooses the busiest times during any function-being-held-at-home to ask his wife to get him "half a cup of coffee"! But Chinakka's demure demeanour as she handed him his coffee fooled no one. Loud displays of authority are easy. It's where the real strength lies.... that's what matters! Chinakka had had no children, and her husband had had the good sense to die, leaving Chinakka the house, the mango and coconut farms, a small but thriving "milk business"....and the chance to get on with her life. The husband was now a large, dusty sepia-toned photograph in the main hall. A photograph adorned with a worn out looking sandal-wood garland someone had been given at some school function, and, in turn, had, for some obscure reason, handed over to Chinakka. The husband wore a black overcoat over a white shirt, open at the neck. He also sported a turban, a small black bindi on his forehead, and tiny gold earrings. His face wore, apart from a predominantly sulky expression, a luxuriant pair of moustaches. A rare thing in those days.....and probably his one sop to male vanity!

Arjun and Meera's paternal grandmother had been Chinakka's cousin and closest friend. As young girls they had gone to the same little school; both had studied till Class V, both had watched a few black-and white mythological films in the tent theatre in their village. And both, wearing identical pavadais, had been solemnly escorted by their family retainer in their family jutka to various navarathri celebrations in their village. They had both married within a year of one another. Chinakka had come to Rampuram as a bride, never to leave again. Her friend had travelled, lived in cities and sent her son to city schools. The women had kept in touch. And Arjun and Meera were the special, very s special, grandchildren of a very special friend, now long dead. They visited at least twice a year, and their mother, Pushpa, was far more afraid of Chinakka as a mother-in-law figure than she had ever been of her own mother-in-law. Chinakka's younger sister, Lalitha....known all over as Lalithakka, had been part of Rampuram for as far back as Arjun and Meera could remember. Lalithakka's fate had been decided summarily by the usual great-aunt or uncle who take these decisions in most families. She had been told years ago, that since she had not had either the good sense or sheer luck to get married when she should have, she could move to her much-older sister's house, and make herself useful. "After all, " the family pillars had intoned, "Poor Chinakka...she is All Alone and so Helpless!" Exactly on what basis this conclusion about the "helplessness" of Chinakka had been drawn was a mystery to everyone. Because the whole world knew that Lalithakka did and could do nothing to "Help" Chinakka in any way. There wasn't a soul alive who'd have the temerity to imply that Chinakka ever needed help.

So Lalithakka had been sent here years ago, and had become one more satellite, (at times, a slightly rebellious one), floating around Chinakka's sun.

For years, the children were aware that emotions in the Rampuram house were always on a seesaw. One never knew who was going have the last word. Lalithakka, however, had over the years made an important and useful discovery. She had learnt that righteous grief, as defined in bad luck, unfulfilled dreams, or sheer sorrow, can be a very powerful weapon if wielded the right way.

If Chinakka's arguments showed a definite tendency to swamp her, as they did frequently, all Lalithakka had to do was look at her feet, sigh and say tremulously: "All right, Akka, it has to be as you say. What do I know after all? What have I seen of life, only taken shelter under the shadow you have provided me...." A broken sob or two would enhance the effect, and Chinakka, trapped in her image of strength and self-reliance, would retire, vanquished. Something was wrong with Lalithakka's horoscope, it was said. Arjun and Meera, along with local playmates Vidya, Srini and Kumar tried every trick gleaned from the Five Find-Outers and Dog, and the Famous Five (explained to the others kindly by the city types Meera and Arjun) to discover the secret.....but they never did.

If Chinakka played Main Grandmother role, Lalithakka was the second heroine or sometimes understudy, of Rampuram. It was Lalithakka who made all the goodies, who dressed the girls' hair, and who ground fresh mardhani and applied it artistically to Vidya's and Meera's hands. Of course, there were none of the fancy designs that are so in vogue these days among all and sundry. This was the old style....five caps each for the tips of the fingers, and a perfect red circle in the centre of each palm.

Lounging under the parijata tree one lazy summer afternoon, various theories on Lalithakka's horoscope were expounded. Lunch over, Lalithakka had applied mardhani to the girls' hands, with the result that the children had to perforce sit still. With the girls out of commission, the boys were also at a loss, and either perched on a broken piece of a short wall under the tree, or lounged around on the dry ground, champing green mango.

"I think it was a broken affair", Meera offered, having just started reading Mills and Boon (without her mother's knowledge). She gazed at her extended palms, feeling the mardhani harden, hoping the colour seeping into her skin would be well and truly orangey-red...like always.

The boys jeered.
"No, really....I think Lalithakka fell in love with the wrong man; the family were against it...and finally that man went away, and died in the war, not wanting to live a life that did not include Lalithakka."
There was a thoughtful silence.
Then, Srini said: "What war?"
Meera didn't know.
"Second World War?", she offered, rather in the manner of a gracious hostess offering biscuits and tea.

The children frowned in concentration, working out the chronological accuracy. Then, Kumar tried to conjure up the vision of a lovelorn youth dying for the lost love of Lalithakka, and having found that his imagination did not stretch that far, said: "No, I think the horoscope theory fits better."

Everyone but Meera, was inclined to agree.
"Maybe Lalithakka's horoscope predicted that any man who marries her will be found on the morning after the wedding......with his head chewed off!" said Arjun, biting into raw mango with relish. An unwise move that lead to much sputtering and coughing.

"I knew you guys had asked the mango seller to put too much chilli power," Vidya pointed out with sisterly smugness.
"You are just jealous because you and Meera can't eat the mangoes till later." pointed out Srini.
"Nothing of the kind", snapped Vidya, " Anyway, Arjun, horoscopes don't say things like that."
"Who said?" retorted Kumar.
"Of course they don't! Meera, tell them."
"How would you know?"
"I know better than you, that's all."
"If all you country types can just shut up for a minute...and that includes you, my dear sister, even if you do go to St. Mary's, I can tell you what Kuppan said." said Arjun, "Kuppan's relative was told that he should only marry a girl without a mother......."
Gales of laughter.
"No mother, it seems."
"Everyone has to have a mother."
Arjun grinned amiably.
"I'm telling you, no? Kuppan's relative was told that only then would his own mother live. But Kuppan's-relative refused to listen and married a girl with both her parents intact, and then his mother ......."

The voices rang out.
"Was found the next day, horribly murdered."
"Was found in a locked room with a ghastly grin on her face."
"No," said Arjun, loftily. "Kuppan's-relative's mother then died.....just died."
Meera looked at him with suspicion.
"When did she die?", she asked, shrewdly.
Arjun grinned. "Recently......about 20 years after the wedding!"
The others contemplated pelting Arjun with mangoes....then decided against it. After all, it was a waste of good food......besides, the mardhani would get messed up.
"If Chinakka ever finds out that you have been listening to Kuppan's stories, you've had it!" warned Meera.

For Chinakka, as the whole world knew, was a snob. She was a stern, but scrupulously just employer. No one could accuse her of treating anyone who worked for her, either in the house or on the farms, in a harsh or arrogant manner. Everyone, on the other hand, had to admit that Chinakka had an uncompromising social sense that was finely honed to an art form.

Vidya, Srini and Kumar lived down the road. They were given free run of the house at all times, particularly when Arjun and Meera visited. Their parents were considered: "extraordinarily good people". With insights that came later with age, With insights that came later with age, Meera understood that those words really translated into "They look up to me; they think the world of me; they ask for my advice; and they depend on me"!

Chinakka was what a much later generation would refer to as a control-freak. For Chinakka to get to like you, she had to be able to help you. In all fairness, she was a really good friend to a friend-or-family-in-need. But her tone when she referred to those who were either self-reliant or exhibited distinct opinions of their own was disparaging at worst or thoroughly disinterested at best.

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