The Langclaath and Vaamclaas
The above are two items of cloth. One is
Langclaaath and the other Vaamclas. Such words come up once in a
while and how quickly we get it deciphered will ease our concern,
inquisity and anxiety for the word and its meaning so that we can go
further with the conversation or the further action out of the
conversation.
The first word happened to me when I
was an eligible employment seeker and was in seartch for a job at the
age of twenty. An old friend of mine at that time, far back, wanted
to help me out of kindness and told me that I can come to the office
where he was working and meet his boss for a job in cloth sales. I
met his boss who interviewed me quizically and after concluding
various items of conversation told me to go and meet an old man in
another big cloth shop which belonged to his family. I met the old
man who was in his seventies and he asked me straight away in a great
Malayalam accent: What do you know about claath and what do you know
about laangclaath?
My quick answser surprised him in that
I said: “I was asked to come and meet me and these is no need of a
lot of questions. I have already been questioned by the gentleman
who interviewed me”. The old man whom I did not know at that point
of time looked at me for a while and disposed me by saying:
OK..OK..You may go back to the office from where you came: and kept
on looking back at me as I was leaving.
In the office back, my earlier
interviewer was amused at the whole incident and told me in humour:
“You know who was the gentleman whom you met. He is my father and
the owner of all these!” I was taken aback but did not show my
surprise. The interviewer boss appointed me, however ! I knew the
word was 'long cloth', one of the two kinds of cloth being sold by
the company, viz. 'long cloth' and 'mull' called here in the southern
part of India as 'malmal'. Malmal is a sought after cloth in pure white cotton, which is
bought by one and all for various kinds of uses in dressin the southern part of India, in the olden
days and to an extent even now.
The second word happened few months
after wards when I was getting ready to leave Kerala for Delhi on a
Government job and was making enquiries to those who had travelled to
that part. In those days of the early eighties not many people had
travelled to the far of Delhi from Kerala. Mostly peoploe read in newspapers the news coming from New Delhi. My father and elders
suggested an old Newspaper Editor who was in his eighties and I went
to meet him along with my father. He was a well built, very tall and
majestic gentleman infront of whom I appeared puny, at twenty
two-twenty three years of age. He heard us patiently, looked at my
appointment order for a while. Then he looked up at the skies as if
he was seeing something there and slowly started telling us in a very
friendly way: “Oh..Delhi...Delhi is OK. You need vaamclaas and
the usual other items. It will be cold there. The rest doesn't
matter” . We heard him and thanked him profusely for his great
advice and walked home.
'Vaamclaas' troubled me for a long time
and I assumed that it could be either a particular item or it could
be 'warm clothes'. My father asked me if I could get what he said
for which I just shook my head which my father took that I had
understood. I thought, I shall use it the next day in to-to. Next
day, at the big cloth shop, I asked the sales-executive : “Do you
have vaamclaas?” The smiling executive did not think twice. He
directed me to go upstairs where I found all sorts of warm clothes
which were available in that shop ! Yes, vaamclaas is 'warm clothes'
for sure! Thereafter whenever I hear vanclo or vaamclaas, it used to
bring a smile on my face!
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