Orammayude gadgadam!! (The sobs of a mother)

Orammayude gadgadam!!

Have you seen angels in this world?  There are plenty of them in this world!  They are the mothers!  There are other angels too.  But the mothers are the sure shot ones!  In fact, the angel I met was my mother.  Now do not think because she is an angel, she will not punish you and all.  Then we miss the point.  She may.  At times in the real sense of it, to remember for life!  But the love for which she will do it, will be unblemished and full of kindness.

First of all she give us birth using all her energies.  Then look after us with all her might.  Then love us with all her life!  And mind you, all these for no reward at all, but our love.  Oh what pain she takes for love, and love alone!

When I was a kid, mother used to look after me with great care and love.  She used to suckle me, sing me lullabies to sleep, told stories to enlighten, reasoned with dad for all my necessities and slowly brought me up.  Suckling gave way to milk bottle for a short while and further to light food which slowly gave way to hard food.  I had elders to emulate.  There were more children in homes in those days.  One was just shown to the elder one and that grew on to the elder one.  The third one followed the second, the fourth one followed the third.  Like an elephant herd we knew on whose tail we are to hung!  

Then according to preference we can cut across the lines and approach different offspring for different purposes according to their special abilities.  But mother oversaw all.  Her elephant like eyes did not miss anything, either during day or during the night! 

She saw to it that  all are fed, clothed according to size, medicated according to need, took us wherever was required and reasoned with dad for all our requirements.  In those days, it was not easy to reason with dads as they were supreme!  One had to see the time of the day and mood of the person before requirements are submitted and got executed.  They did it with such marvelous slate of hand that we thought always that we told her and it comes through dad somehow.  In between, what difficulties mother went through for all that was never a thought for us!

At times we were sick, again the whole procedure of going through mother, through dad and some times an elder sibling etc. was involved to reach the final goal of showing to the doc and getting medicines or treatment in a way.  The ayurvedic system came in handy in those days to a great extent as the local village doctor, called the Vaidya came visiting.  Whenever he came, mostly on a Sunday or holiday he chose to see that he came when dad was home so that he gets his normal dues.  

The Vaidya, the custom was, when he came he did not treat one person, but all of them who so ever needed treatment in the house.  Once he enters, he is received and seated, asked about his welfare, given water and paan (this was an expression of respect and gratitude, normally extended to educated and good people - the usual 'paan box' or the 'murukkan petti' is shown to him.  This box contained the betel leaves and arecanuts neatly cleaned and cut into small pieces.  Along with this box was also shown the 'chunnambu kutti' a brass bottle with a seating and a small stick in it containing raw wet calcium.  This raw wet calcium is applied to the betel leaf and the arecanut pieces are added and pushed into the mouth.  If so desired, special Jafna tobacco which are usually kept for elders are also given a piece of which he can add to the delicacy to make it very strong:  

Along all this the village doctor or the Vaidya would ask the welfare of all and also if anybody is sick.   We are paraded in front of him and our special problems are submitted and he would look at us intently and at times check our heart beat by holding our wrist, then will say his Sanskrit sloka and say the making of the kashaya and would want a piece of paper and pen to ink it for us to buy the medicaments from the local herbal store.   These herbs and seeds and barks are made into different tonics or kashayas and given to us three or four times a day and we get relieved.  That was the custom.   Mother knew our diseases by heart.  At times, one of the children just passed in front of the Vaidya and he would notice some weakness in the child and he would suggest an Aasava for the child which is got and given without fail.  

The Vaidya was well respected, and given tea, coffee, or lunch as per the time and also some little money when he was leaving.  But there was no largfe sum ever given or asked for.  He was always happy with whatever he got.  At that point of time, as he went around his monetary needs were met to a fair degree and he was not an avaricious man as the present day Doc., I mean, many of them.   Insurance was unheard of and neither did it affect the Vaidya nor his patients.  At times when the Vaidya came to one house, word went around and people from neighbouring houses came to call him and that brought him more patients.

It is mothers duty to get the proper medication prepared from the barcs, leaves and roots and seeds which was purchased or procured from the nearby compounds to be made into different potions and fed to us.  Hers was an endless job, but then, angels never tire of jobs.  They are specifically sent for it.

When we were sick she did not sleep but nursed us day and night!  Soothed us by her sweet words of courage and encouragement.  She made special foods for us!  But when she was sick, she rarely said any thing to any of us until we enquired specifically.  She enjoyed our lives every bit and considered the joy of seeing us through the early life to grow us into huge trees is the only reward for all her services to us.  Till the very end she gives her service with joy and humility and a candidness which we do not see in any other place usually!

She cried when father was sick, tended him, looked after the whole house hold and nursed him back to good health all the while keeping all the children, nine of them, (there were ten, one did not survive more than 3 years) tending to all their little, little needs and seeing that they did not lose their education or day to day needs of food and good clothing.  She cried for the eldest brother when he was sick, immediately after his marriage, nursed him back to good health, she enlisted the support of all other children, some of them were growing up, and they too gave her a helping hand.  At last he was well and on his feet again and went on to find his own family from the new marriage.

Younger brother had broken his hand under a truck she told us, much far back, who had to lose school to regain the hand in good form.  There were several of such incidents before the youngest children's turn came.  I have never heard her telling that she is tired because of the intense nursing and caring she had to do for the others.  Never!! 

Surprising thing about her was she never spoke about her own mother.  This troubled me a lot.  But she was always so concerned about our matters and also the matters of my fathers family I started doubting what exactly could have happened to her mother.  So, in one of the free moments, I took it up with her.  She was catapulted to an era far back and she sobed a little.  She slowly related to me of the sad demise of her mother.  She was having fever.  The 'njettu vadam' fever!  Njettu vadam is the present day Tetanus!  The patient gets photophobia due to the viral attack which enters the body through any cuts or bruises.  The surprising thing is many people do not get njettu vadam even though they get huge cuts or bruises, but some may get at times.  It depends on the place where you get the cut and if it is tended properly and if it is again exposed to dirt or places with the germ entering the body, like muddy places etc.

In kerala most of the things were identified as a fever with a preposition like the njettuvadam here.  She said her mother continued with the fever and the Vaidya were called.  Vaidya said, I am giving some medicines, shall give some more if she SURVIVES SEVENTY TWO HOURS!  She did not survive seventy two hours.  Mother wiped her eyes and told me to go to study, and also warned me not to bring up such questions if possible.  I never again attempted those questions and when I was employed and married, had totally forgotten about mother's mother's story.  Now I recall it after my retirement when my mother has already joined her mother in her heavenly abode and is happy!!

I never had seen my mother's mother.  But I could meet her father in his death bed.  I did not know at that time that it was so close.  Information was brought by a man who painstakingly came to our house to say something is amiss at my mother's house and left.  The place was pretty 35 kilomtres away, which was a long distance at that time when vehicles were rare.  Father was not home, it was only just getting dark.  Father came after an hour or so when it was pretty dark.  Once it was reported to him, he said, Oh..take out my new dress, I may have to go.  I was four or five at that time.  I wanted to go with father which was straight away denied, but I started a crying session which ended in my being allowed to travel with him.

The old line bus took us to the town with all its lights aglow, and we were just in time for the last bus again to a journey of 25 kilometres further. We got down near paddy fileds and walked in the hilarious brink of the field to reach an upper ground where there was a small clean house well thached in palm braided leaves.

There were people outside the house talking to one another in whispers. Sometimes someone came and went in and came out saying, may be one more day, but seems difficult.  I did not know what is difficult. We went in.  Inside, my mother was sitting near a cot on what an elderly or old gentleman of very good features and wheatish complexion was lying and trying to get fresh air.  He had difficulty in breathing.  Some one was reciting "Eeso Mariyame, Ousephe,  eee atmaavinu koottayirikkename"  !  There was a cross and two candles at the head of my Grandpa.  He was pulling hard while repeating  "Eeeso......Ma..aa..mariyame.....O..ousephe....eee  atma...aa..atmavinu koottaaayi..rikkename...."  His chest was going up and down.  Some one was at times giving him arishtam with the 'vaayu guliga' dissolved in it with a piece of piece of cotton just to wet his tongue.  At times, mother told him "Appa..kannu thorakku"  at which grand father opened his eyes, loooked at her very kindly and closed it again to conserve energy to pull air and recite what was being recited to him.

I sat with mom, but after a while started feeling sleepy.  After sometime, I suddenly woke up loud wailing and whimpers and a lot of commotion.  Mother was crying along with many other women who were there.  Again and again women from neighbourly houses came and on seeing the cry and anguish they also joined in the sobbing, crying and wailing.  It was a very very sad situation.  Grandpa was lying serenely as if he was sleeping.  He reminded me the King Duncan of Mcbeth.  An era was ending.

The outside was full of men who were speaking in hush hush about getting the time fixed, who has gone for the coffin, who went to the parish priest, what time other arrangements were to be made etc.   All were neighbours doing all that.  Many people took errands of informing various relatives and left in different directions.  Father was undaunted, and was giving directions to different people and also listening to mother's brother (my uncle) and suggesting ways and means as to how some of the things were to be conducted.

A group of band arrived with drums and pipes and clarinets and they played a tune in three turns at the end of each turn the big drum sounded, which made everybody cry.  As the band sounded, the parish priest who had arrived by then entered the house and started a prayer in which, the departed soul was asking permission from the house which gave him abode so far and thanking the house for its service followed by a suggestion to the onlookers and near and dear to live in fairness to all, so that in the other world they will happily meet in the Lords paradise as this world is only momentary!  Along with the prayer, the coffin was lifted and all left with the coffin in procession to the near by church by food with the heavy cross in front and black ornamental umbrellas on both sides in two lines followed by the wailing band behind which the coffin was carried by the son and near relatives of Grandpa was carried. Behind the coffin was the priest, undaunted, saying the prayers from a book and at times looking at the sky or forward.  We thought, he was talking to God to take care of the gentleman who was coming or already left.

In a matter of two three days, all of us came back to our own house and things were back to usual.  Everybody going about their usual work, studies etc. and mother was back to her usual works of early morning tea making, breakfast making, lunch readying, washing, cleaning, cutting, fitting, coaxing and cajoling us children, looking after the animates like chicken at home.  The cats and the dog did not have to be tended or done anything to as they were very independent.  Only father washed the dog at times, at times he removed its germs etc. which we children also learned from him, and put the germs in a small vessel of fire in those days.  The dog shampoos which is available now were not available then.  The dog and all of us made it a point to get to share a piece of our lives with this act of help.  The dog was a lovely, through and through as it was always ready at our call and walked with us to the market or anywhere uptill the main road, which was two furlongs.  At times when he got excited, he also came with us to the Church which was quite far away.  But since all of us walked in those days to the church, that was not a problem. 

After the funeral, there was a small food for all after which most of the people who had come, left except the immediate relatives.  Once the major portion of the assembly had left, the place was suddenly silent.  The sound of wind coming through the coconut palms, the call of the birds, the usual crows, copper smiths and koels were the only sounds.  There was a pond a yard or so away supplying water for all the usual house hold stuff, the proper well arrangements were not there in those days except in major houses, especially this being sandy area near the sea, the water level was very high and a small pond at a few feet deep will give water.  Around the upper plateu where the small house and other surrounding houses stood, was paddy fields which were holding water the year round and was cultivated two times a year.

The extreme summer time after the harvest was the only time these fields were not cultivated.  During that period, there will be travelling teams of different kinds of games, or shows who came and settled to do their show work shops and entertained the public, who had no other modes of entertainment the year round, except the usual church festivals or temple ulsavams (Malayalam word for festival).

After staying with the Uncle's family for a few days we left to come back in summer holidays. All this while and much later also, I never thought or never a thought occurred to me that mother may have her mother or would have had a mother.  Reason being we were so engrossed in our day to day life, mother was always busy tending us, there was no talk of mother's family or house or any thing.

In Christian houses in Kerala, the girls are married to the boy and the girl goes to the boy's house and lives with the boy's parents and siblings.  She is ceremonially brought back to her house a few times and again returned every time with a few gooddy goodies or household requirements and at times equipments as would be required.  She is taken to her own parents house every time she is about to deliver a baby and the mother and baby are returned to the boy's house hale and hearty and with all their requirements.

If the girls bring things not liking to the husbands family, some (or many) trouble the girl, to the extent that the girl will narrate the sequence to their own parents and get those required stuff.  There is an opposite side to these too.  If the girl is shrewd enough, she can first take charge of her husband and then get the boys parents to dance to her tune or even to the tune of the girls family!  In the whole process both the husband and wife suffers and it is the weak hearted who suffer most!!  From the stories of people in other communities, the conditions is the same except that names change (may be a change of religion too).  At times a girl or a boy may go to an extreme step too, which is rare but not totally unheard of.

I checked with eldest brother if our mother had a mother what was her name.   He has become old and when he heard the question, he scratched his head, rolled his eyes and cocked his head and looked hard into the far sky which was visible through the door and said "No..mother's mother was no more when father married her.  I am sure.  Yes.  I am sure from my old time memories as we used to go to mother's house so very often in those days".  Yes that was the end of my enquiries.  Yes, she was a girl from a total of three children and the eldest.  She lost her mother at a young age and the three, two sisters and a brother grew up together and she was the first to be married off. She came with as much goody..goodies as can be provided by a reasonable just to do family and settled down to do the hard work of bring up father's youngsters as father was the eldest of the family and had lost his father at a very young age and had been thrown into the arena of life at a young age and was a self made man at the age of twenty!

Mother came with abundant faith in life and God and she believed good times will come and there is nothing to fear.   Everything is predecided by God and nothing is in our hands except our hard work.  Father worked outside the house and mother worked inside the house.  Father came home after the work, but mother had no where to go after the work, but kept on with any other work which occurred all the time.   But the grace was every work had as many of us to join in as was required.

One difficulty we faced was drinking water in summer. The water well nearby will dry up and there will be no well around which can provide water.  So we had to walk down to the lower land plates where there were wells with plenty of water even in summer.  These lands belonged to some farmer families who had a lot of land and hence they were not living there.  One day, when I was reading my lessons, mother called me to go with her to take water from the well in the lower down land.  Near the well, she started pulling up water with a bucket on a rope which we put into the well and once the bucket is full she pulled it up by taking the rope from left hand to right hand across her chest.  Each measure brought the bucket up by almost a meter.  She caught the rope deftly from the right straightened hand to left straightened hand, held it, and pulled up by making more such movements.   After a few buckets of water she kept the bucket on the rock stone where she was standing, turned around and held on the 'pulimaram'  (the tamarind tree) and kept on standing there for a while.

I was just around her watching the nature around but the sudden silence and her action was unusual to me.  I went to her to enquire what it was and she shod a hand to tell me not to speak and keep quite.   I looked into the well and found the water was moving out of the movement of the bucket which was going down and up earlier, thats all, nothing other than that.   So that is not the problem.  After a long while mother said:  "Let us go up with the water collected".   I walked on with her with a small 'kodam' ( water pitcher made with clay) filled with water in my hands and she carrying two kodams in both hands and the bucket and rope.  She always carried the maximum weight.  Once home, she sat down on the steps after putting down the kodams and bucket.   Then she said: " I was having dizziness and that was why, I turned around and held on to the tree.  Had it not been so, I would have gone into the well"

The well in the lower land was without any safety wall and one just stood on the edge to collect water.   Any slight misstep and one will land into the deep water and that many times will be the end of the individual, which is common in south India.  I said:  "My God..My God...God has just saved us from a possible mishap". In later life, we related that story many times whenever we ruminated on old times.  Whenever I related that story, her eyes welled up and she said "Oh..you remember all that?"   And I used to reply : "Yes, mother, I remember all that".  Then conversation will follow which soothed her through and through.   The sufferings she took to bring up ten children!  The number of child births she underwent!  The support and hard work she had to put in like a maid servant of sorts to bring up and keep up a family of five brothers of father and a mother!  Father's lonely sister in the family had been married off.  They were a good family but came rarely to the house and that too only on special occasions! And when a son in law of the family came to visit, he was not expected to do any work normally.   Here, the good fellow, who was the husband of his sister was a great gentleman far ahead of his times and he took care of any kind of administration in the house hold on functions which were being organized in the house and it became a great solace to all.  

Father's mother, the old 'ammamma' was a smart lady, could have been very beautiful in her times!  She used to approach work very seriously and would go through and through to do and finish any kind of work without any hunch.   Whether it is cooking or preparing for any celebrations, making special receipies, she did it without any compunction.  She used to put her murukkan in her mouth and often asked for a bit of 'pokala' and if it is 'jappanam pokala' she was very very happy.   Jappanam pokala is the special Jafna tobacco which was available in those days.  Once the murukkan is in her mouth, she broke off a half inch piece of the Jafna tobacco and pushed it into the extreme molar side of the mouth andit went for half the day till lunch time!  Oh..she enjoyed it through and through and she did one work or the other. However, as all Christian families she had her way of getting at mother and mother as usual hated it.   But by the time, mother said, all had mellowed, and the Ammama I saw and the hade degree of mother, which I witnessed was far far below the point which was there when she came into the house of father after marriage.   I was a child born after a long time after so many other children and many years of life had passed for them, by the time, I was seeing and witnessing the drama as a little child.  Somehow, I liked the old lady for some unthinkable reason.