Previous Part | Next Part
 

Chinakka's stories. Evenings were always filled with stories. Lunch and tiffin being the grand meals, dinner was usually a simple affair when the children were young. Chinakka would seat herself in the middle of the hall, a large brass vessel, filled with cold salty curd rice, garnished with coriander, curry leaves, red and green chillies, and mustard seeds, placed in front of her. The children would form a semi-circle before her, five young right hands stretched out in anticipation, palms curved. Chinakka would place a perfect little ball of curd rice on each palm in turn, and begin. When she began to talk, she took on another aura, a persona that changed shape, ebbed, flowed, and almost danced its way into various roles. She was King, Queen, hermit, teacher, mischievous child, good, evil, sad, happy......and she'd weep. God, how they'd all weep! Despite of the fact that they had heard all these stories hundreds of times over the years.
"And Bharatha begged Rama to change his mind and return. The people of Ayodhya wept and wept....but Rama stood firm......."
Vidhya and Meera would begin to sniffle.
"And the wicked Ravana carried poor Seetha away....the beautiful Queen who had never known a harsh word till then, wept in despair, and appealed to the creatures of the air and the forest to tell her Lord what had happened to her......."
The girls would be crying openly by now, and the boys would eat sombre mouthfuls of curd-rice.
This always happened.
"......and Bhishma lay on his bed of arrows. The Grand-Sire was tired and thirsty. He asked for water, and Arjuna shot an arrow into the ground, and out came clear sparkling water - his mother Ganga flowed pure and true - to quench her old warrior-son's thirst....."

The girls would begin weeping, trying to wipe their tears with palms made slippery by curd-rice. The boys, having initially tried to pretend that they had bitten into the chillies by mistake, would also be teary-eyed. While Chinakka herself would intone: "A mother is after all a mother...and imagine having a son like Bhishma....", and, having inadvertently reminded herself of her own years of thwarted motherhood, would burst into tears. A doleful, but sympathetic sob or two would be heard from the kitchen, where Meenakshiamma, the cook, went about her business. And Lalithakka would twist her mouth, shrug her shoulders and mutter: "Look at the way she upsets the children each time! What will the parents say?"

It was all terribly exciting and great fun for the kids.

The Rampuram kitchen had its distinct aroma......a sort of combination of years and years of pure ghee and pure milk, of sweets and home made pickles stored in brown and cream ceramic jars, of payasams, appalam and nentharangkai chips, of coal stoves used specially on feast days for bakshanam, of a hearth that continued to sport a dark sooty look even after gas stoves had been introduced, of damp kitchen-towels used to lower hot vessels, of banana leaves, and smoky-smelling drinking water stored in large vessels that you couldn't touch. The "Couldn't Touch" rule reigned supreme in the kitchen and the puja room. You had your lunch sitting on the cold floor (murder on knee joints used to dangling under a dining table!), and you made sure you mixed your rasam and rice dry. Because otherwise, eating in a delicate, elegant manner would be impossible. The rasam would run merrily down your elbow, the area closest to your legs around your leaf or plate would be the pits, and Chinakka and Lalithakka would gaze painfully at each other, your messy behaviour having just confirmed their worst suspicions about the decadent influence of city life!

The kitchen was also an area where the seesaw, one-upmanship games of Chinakka and Lalithakka would gain momentum. And they truly came into their own when Arjun and Meera's father arrived...to spend a few days and fetch his family.

"Paddu will be here by the afternoon, so let's make mango sambar." Chinakka would instruct Meenakshiamma, pointedly ignoring Lalithakka, who, equally pointed, would make herself look busy in the kitchen. "And listen, don't chop up the mango into small bits. He likes large chunks floating around. And he likes it with rice appalam."
Lalithakka would promptly sniff and mumble: "Actually Paddu likes pongal with lots of ghee, and aviyal."

Arjun and Meera, at the very first mention of mango sambar, would pull faces, and decide to invite themselves over to Vidya's for lunch. They might even be able to persuade Vidya's mother to make potato cutlets.....new fangled food that would never be tolerated in the kitchen here.

Neither Chinakka nor Lalithakka would bother, even for form's sake, to acknowledge the fact that Pushpa might have some views on what her husband ought to be fed after a long and tiring train or car journey! The funny thing was that it never struck Pushpa to even offer any opinions on this subject.

Next Part