August 25, 2011
Since I had some time for myself in the morning, I tried to summarise the story of Vararuchi. It appears at the end of this note.
As soon as we finished breakfast, a Bajaj scooter arrived carrying the guy responsible for catering. The two-wheeler is an impressive hauler. This man left no doubt about his profession. He overflowed our cushion settee. Rema aunty promptly came over because this was going to be an exercise in opinionation and deliberate choice: The menu selection for the previous day and the wedding feast.
Tara and I tried to escape upstairs but were caught.
Our "opinions" matter, we were told.
A big lie! Any conversation in which we begin to express our thoughts hastens towards the fatal mantra called "That is how it is traditionally done here!". Once this mantra is invoked, the discussion ends.
After half an hour, the menu for the day before the wedding day was fixed. Dosa (+two chutneys), Idiyappam (+ potato stew), Chappati (+veg korma). Achan's all veggie agenda won! Since it is a public holiday (Ramzan), 300 people are expected.
The next major deliberation was about the welcome drink on the day of the wedding. Don't let the word drink mislead you. Hindu weddings are still largely non-alcoholic affairs, so we are talking about fruit juices. Apparently, some complaint was made about the lack of welcome drink during the engagement ceremony four months ago.
O The Catastrophe!
Of course, absence of welcome drink was significant. The absence of both bride and groom at that ceremony didn't matter. I don't think their presence matters even during the wedding. 'Traditions', guest list, status and wealth display are paramount concerns.
After some heated back and forth, "common place" lemon juice was thrown out of the window and neoconservative 'mango juice from extract with a hint of mint' won. Achan wasn't ready to lose this round totally despite the two women ferociously attacking the lemon juice. The attack only intensified when the caterer tried to sell the lemons too. Finally, defeat was admitted. But Achan insisted that simple, colorless water should also be kept along with the 'mango juice from extract with a hint of mint' because many people don't drink anything with 'color'.
As the discussion continued towards the wedding feast, Tara and I asked to be excused to go the post office to collect her registered mail that postman Kutty had 'intimated' about.
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| Sasthamangalam Junction |
The Sasthamangalam post office operates out of a converted home. The middle chair in the 'counters' room was empty. Two ladies, one young and one old, occupied the extreme chairs. A queue, with severe identity crisis and self-doubt, languished horizontally across the counters stretching towards these ladies and thinning in the middle. It had no sign of life! No movement! Future looked bleak!
Tara got a call and went outside to attend it.
Suddenly a beautiful lady arrived from an inside room and occupied the middle chair. This must be how goddesses appear in folk tales and legends! The queue immediately shrunk towards her just like a centipede folds into its center when poked. This unexpected shrinkage squeezed me out. I waved the white intimation form in surrender. Luckily, the pretty counter lady saw it. "The postman is inside, you can go in" she said.
We went in through the erstwhile living and dining rooms towards the kitchen. The staff was still treating the dining room as a dining room by having breakfast there.
Once more, I waved the magical intimation form. It worked. Postman D.S.Kutty appeared.
He verified that my sister was my sister and then opened an antique wooden box. All kinds of unclaimed, abandoned, comatose post from the time of Warren Hastings were in it.
'Pazhamkanji' is the name of the dish made by adding water, yogurt, chilies and pickle to previous day's rice. It is a much maligned poor man's lunch. I love it because it is cold and refreshing and all the water means less rice consumption. I had some Pazhamkanji today as well before I was pressed into bodyguard duty. I was thoroughly unqualified for it especially after the pazhamkanji.
Amma needed to take some gold out from one bank locker and move it to another bank's locker.
On our way back, Tara called to say that 'Mable maami' (Mable aunty) had come and was waiting. So we dropped the plan to shop and returned straight home. Mable 'maami' was the fisherwoman who came home almost every single morning for the first 12-13 years of my life. She is the root cause of my enormous appetite for all things fishy! Now she delivers fish to my cousin's family who live in our old house. She had been asking them when I was coming back and as soon as she heard that we were all back, she came over. Afflicted with a mild bout for Chikungunya last year, it was difficult for her to walk. Yet she carried a vessel full of 'aavoli' and 'kozhiyala' fish on bus and on foot for over 15 kilometers.
While she had lunch, she narrated the story of her grandchild born with a heart condition and the mulitiple operations that the baby needed. That little one is now 6 years old and slowly catching up on her growth. A few doctors were featured in this story but god was the superstar according to Mable. All of Mable's children are married and she has a total of four grandkids aged 6 through 9.
"Have some more rice, Mable," Amma said, "Venda chechi, unni kuttante chiri kandappo thanne enniku niranju, " she replied . (No sister, I am full on seeing Unni's smile). Here, among family and friends, I am Unni. Usually, statements like her reply, maudlin, day time soap-ish, make me go vehemently sarcastic. But in her case, the radiant sincerity silences me. I am aware of my inability at this point in life to fathom the unconditional affection of the people who have seen me grow from a helpless baby to a confused teen.
Perhaps couple of decades from now when I see the kids of today, for whom I am an uncle, all grown up as young men and women, I might understand better Mable and her long walk, cheerful smile and the light in her eyes when she looks at Tara and me. Till then I can only admire with an immense sense of gratitude and stand in silence, watching her clean up fish deftly, just as I used to 25 years ago.
And she did bring up my marriage. There is an engineer girl in Singapore that she knew!
Amma, Rema aunty and Tara went to buy the final set of rings and necklaces. I went with Achan to arrange for the shamiana (decorative tent), tables, chairs, display lights, generator etc for the day before. By the time the shamiana dudes showed up, Amma was back, so she took over the directing.
It continues to drizzle and the night is cool. I was envious to read the facebook statuses this morning about rain in College Station. Thiruvananthapuram made up for it by evening. The plants are a happy green tonight. Tomorrow, their keeper, gardener Mohanan will be coming!
Now the Vararuchi story:
Vararuchi, the son born to the Brahmin wife of Govindacharya, grew up to be an excellent but arrogant scholar. He was included as a gem in the court of King Vikramaditya in Ujjain. This is supposed to be some time between 5th-8th centuries. I wince each time I see Indian historians gloss over the dates and then state that dates are not important but attributing a long chain of unsubstantiated adjectives to the personalities is important.
One day, the king asked the court to tell him the most important verse of the epic Ramayana. All courtiers including Vararuchi are stumped. The haughty Vararuchi refused to admit defeat and asked the king 40 days time. Towards the end of 40 days, he had no answer. Frustrated and ashamed, he was resting under a tree when he overheard two prophetic birds talking on top of the tree. One of them was saying that the idiot Vararuchi who does not know that such and such verse is the most important one in the Ramayana is resting under this tree. The other said, "that idiot doesn't know that he is bound to marry the "chandala" (untouchable caste) girl born today near by!"
Vararuchi was happy to finally learn the most important verse in the epic, but he was terrified about the fate of marrying a chandala girl. He returned to the court and pleased the king with the answer. Then he told the king that the kingdom will be ruined unless a chandala girl born the previous night was finished off. How could the king disobey such a great scholar?! Vararuchi's goons then set the girl afloat in the river after nailing thorns of 'kara' tree on the top of her head.
17 years later, Vararuchi continued to be haunted by the thought of fate overtaking him. He went on a pilgrimage. In a far away village, when he rested for a night, a poor local Brahmin asked permission to feed him dinner. To avoid accepting his offer, Vararuchi put forward impossible demands. He said, "I will come for dinner if you can feed Devas and Asuras before me, offer me the food of heaven and earth, give me three people to eat after dinner and provide four people to carry me after that." The Brahmin was bewildered but his daughter, Panchami, who overheard this told her dad not to worry.
Vararuchi was served honey, ghee and bananas (food of Devas) followed by ginger and pepper (of Asuras). He was offered steamed food which represents heaven and earth (I have no idea how that works). After dinner, the daughter brought Vararuchi betel leaves, areca nut and lime to make 'paan'. This made up for three people. After that she showed him the bed with 4 legs, equivalent to four people, to carry him.
Pleased with this girl's brilliance and beauty, Vararuchi married her. While in bed, he carresed her hair. Ah! there is a sensitive side, you see! However, this caused her to shirk in pain. Vararuchi wondered why. She told him that she was adopted after being found floating in the river with thorns nailed to her head. The wound still hurt. Vararuchi was horrified that fate caught up with him. He asked Panchami to pack her bags. She was to accompany Vararuchi in the battle against fatalism that he planned to wage across the length and breadth of the country.
This travel brought Vararuchi to south India where Panchami gives birth to 12 children. When each baby was born, Vararuchi would ask her, "Does it have a mouth? If so the god that made the mouth, will also give it food! Abandon it!" 11 such babies were abandoned. About the 12th baby, the hurt motherhood made Panchami lie. Wishing to keep at least one baby, she told Vararuchi that it had no mouth. Vararuchi asked her to keep it in that case. Happy, she prepared to feed it when she realized that its mouth had indeed disappeared! This baby died soon after and is enshrined in the Vayilakunnilappan (the mouthless diety on the hill) temple in Kerala.
Brief treatment of the other illustrious 11 children of Vararuchi and Panchami will be narrated in the coming days.
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