When I got married I joined my husband who was working in a city in the north. As we were taught only our mother tongue Tamil and English in the school, the few words in Hindi I did know were all picked up from the Hindi films I had watched. (When I was in sixth standard, the anti-Hindi agitation came to a head and our Hindi classes stopped. Our Hindi Pandit was designated as the new moral science teacher as she had been made redundant by the new rule banning Hindi from schools!)
Around the time I was in high school, English films were banned in India (along with Coca Cola etc.,) and so, even the small towns we lived in during the course of my father's transfers through Tamilnadu, started screening blockbuster Hindi movies like Bobby and Aradhana. From these movies we picked up a smattering of Hindi words. Well, I knew 'acha' meant 'good', 'aavo' meant 'come' and all the other 'kuthe kaminey and neechey' were swear words uttered by the distressed towards the villains and were of no use for day-to-day use in my new life.
My parents, little sister, uncle and aunt came to settle me in my new home. The shopping seemed very easy to me as my Mom and Aunt managed to buy things after pointing at the things they needed for cooking during the week they stayed with us. Even my little sister managed to get curry leaves from the corner vegetable vendor by herself! I thought it was no big deal that I didn't know Hindi as I could very well manage with English. Alas! Little did I know that the vegetable seller, the newspaper boy, the electrician, the old newspaper buyer, the milkman- in short, all the persons we come into contact with in our daily life- knew very few words in English! My people left on a Saturday and the next day being a Sunday my husband took me to a movie and the market. I was very much impressed by the fluent Hindi he spoke to the shopkeepers and despaired what I could do all alone in the house when he went to work!
Before leaving for work the next day, a Monday, my husband wrote these words in a note:
'Sahib ab ghar mein nahii. Baadh mein aavo. Shaam che baje ke badh!' (Sir not at home now. Come later. After 6 pm).
I was to memorise these words and recite them any person who rang the doorbell during the course of the day. I told these words to the ruddywalah who, seeing the hitherto locked-during the daytime-house being occupied- came to see if there were old newspapers for disposal. I managed to get along just fine with these words and English. People were ready to oblige the new bride the banker had brought from down South and tried to understand what I wanted to say, from the accompanying gestures. Being mostly Marathis they were amazed to find a person who knew neither Marathi nor Hindi and gave me pitying looks which made me feel very dumb.
I learnt most of my basic Hindi words from the maid servant and brushed it up from the 'Learn Hindi from English' book my husband owned from his college days where he studied Hindi as a second language. I showed her all the groceries and asked her to teach me the Hindi equivalent of each item. She used to tell me the names both in Hindi and Marathi but I had to choose one language at a time and I thought that hindi being the national language might come in handy even if we got transferred out of Maharashtra and so, concentrated on the Hindi words. When I went to buy vegetables and fruits, I asked the friendly lady at the shop the Hindi names of each item and learnt them too. She also taught me the Hindi names of numbers, right from 1,2,3... and 10,20,30..... I learnt fast so much so that I could manage most shopping and money transactions with my rudimentary Hindi knowledge.
I found out that the street vendors who sold onions potatoes and tomatoes on wheeled carts selling at much lower prices than the shop and ventured out to call them from the balcony and started buying these items from them. One day I could see a man and woman team selling something in a covered basket and voicing some word whose meaning I couldn't make out. Smitten by curiosity, I called out from the balcony to stop them and went to see what they were selling, some kind of fruits....?
They spoke something in Marathi (or Hindi?) which I couldn't understand but I gestured them to open the basket. They opened and out came a cobra, hissing and flashing its forked tongue! Imagine my shock! It turned out that the day was Nag Panchami on which day it was very auspicious to worship snakes in Maharashtra and these villagers were giving doorstep service to the women in the city, earning extra money from this unique once a year business opportunity!
Monday, October 05, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Wearing flowers
When we were in school, every day we used to wear fresh flowers in our plaits whenever available. We used to hear that some schools did not allow girls to wear flowers as the jasmine and other flowers invariably got loosened from the strings and dropped on the school floor. The trash was an ugly sight no doubt and we could understand that rule. But we used to pity those girls. Wearing fresh flowers uplifted our mood and brought the great outdoors inside the classrooms in which we were cooped up.
Some girls had gardens around their houses and used to wear single roses. Or even twin jasmine flowers or 'kanakambaram' straight from the bush, with a green leaf to provide volume and contrast colour to the arrangement perched on one side of the head, usually just above an ear. Other girls (like me!) who had to buy from the vendors used to burn with envy on seeing the different and unique colours a home grown variety yielded. The common kankambaram was a boring mild orange in colour but these girls wore dark red or pleasant yellow kanakambaram strings.
Some girls wore hibiscus flowers. Not the common red five petalled ones but the 'adukku'(Layered) sembaruthi flowers in every hue of red, yellow, pink and white. Of course, the mothers would yell at us admonishing us not to wear any and every flower we found on our way to the school. It would encourage the infestation of head lice (according to the old wives' tales)! But we were so crazy after flowers that we never heeded their words and the moment we disappeared round the corner, we would pluck the hibiscus or 'arali' flowers dangling outside the compound walls of our neighbours!
Now I know why South Indian ladies (of my generation only- already girls of younger generations in the big cities have got rid of long hair and wearing flowers!) visiting other places manage to pluck a flower or two (theirs or others', it doesn't seem to matter to them) and wear it just above their ears. I grew out of this habit years ago when we moved to a North Indian city.Wearing flowers was not a daily habit as it was down South. Women wore flowers only when attending marriages or some such formal functions and festivals.
Some girls had gardens around their houses and used to wear single roses. Or even twin jasmine flowers or 'kanakambaram' straight from the bush, with a green leaf to provide volume and contrast colour to the arrangement perched on one side of the head, usually just above an ear. Other girls (like me!) who had to buy from the vendors used to burn with envy on seeing the different and unique colours a home grown variety yielded. The common kankambaram was a boring mild orange in colour but these girls wore dark red or pleasant yellow kanakambaram strings.
Some girls wore hibiscus flowers. Not the common red five petalled ones but the 'adukku'(Layered) sembaruthi flowers in every hue of red, yellow, pink and white. Of course, the mothers would yell at us admonishing us not to wear any and every flower we found on our way to the school. It would encourage the infestation of head lice (according to the old wives' tales)! But we were so crazy after flowers that we never heeded their words and the moment we disappeared round the corner, we would pluck the hibiscus or 'arali' flowers dangling outside the compound walls of our neighbours!
Now I know why South Indian ladies (of my generation only- already girls of younger generations in the big cities have got rid of long hair and wearing flowers!) visiting other places manage to pluck a flower or two (theirs or others', it doesn't seem to matter to them) and wear it just above their ears. I grew out of this habit years ago when we moved to a North Indian city.Wearing flowers was not a daily habit as it was down South. Women wore flowers only when attending marriages or some such formal functions and festivals.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Pocket Money!
The other day I heard my sister telling us that they are giving three thousand rupees as pocket money to her college going son. When my mouth fell open, she explained that it included his fuel bills and mobile phone bills.
A few years back, I remember my kids getting a hundred rupees each when they went to high school. It was for the purpose of buying birthday greeting cards for their friends and other such petty expenses. This was before the age of mobiles and so we parents did not feel the pinch as do parents of the present generation. Besides the kids didn't have their own vehicles mostly except for bicycles. For filling in air for the wheels they needed only a few coins and the parents usually accompanied them to hand out the charge for 'bigger' expense like a puncture!
This started me thinking about my own school/college days. The notion of pocket money was not even heard of. As I have said elsewhere, we were given only bus fare and we used to save ten paise everyday. I still remember how I used the saving of 3 days to buy flowers for my Mom at the Srirangam railway station and got a big hug from her. The next few days saw her telling everyone of our neighbours about the 'jathipoo' her daughter got for her. This practice lasted for the three months I travelled by the passenger train from Lalgudi to Trichy town.
When we shifted to buses in the next town, I used the money to buy 5 'pottukadalai urundai' (Sweet fried gram balls) for 25 paise and 'treat' my friends to one sweet ball each!
A few years back, I remember my kids getting a hundred rupees each when they went to high school. It was for the purpose of buying birthday greeting cards for their friends and other such petty expenses. This was before the age of mobiles and so we parents did not feel the pinch as do parents of the present generation. Besides the kids didn't have their own vehicles mostly except for bicycles. For filling in air for the wheels they needed only a few coins and the parents usually accompanied them to hand out the charge for 'bigger' expense like a puncture!
This started me thinking about my own school/college days. The notion of pocket money was not even heard of. As I have said elsewhere, we were given only bus fare and we used to save ten paise everyday. I still remember how I used the saving of 3 days to buy flowers for my Mom at the Srirangam railway station and got a big hug from her. The next few days saw her telling everyone of our neighbours about the 'jathipoo' her daughter got for her. This practice lasted for the three months I travelled by the passenger train from Lalgudi to Trichy town.
When we shifted to buses in the next town, I used the money to buy 5 'pottukadalai urundai' (Sweet fried gram balls) for 25 paise and 'treat' my friends to one sweet ball each!
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Happy New Year!
As I recollect my earliest new year celebrations, I remember my mother taking 'head bath', it being a 'nalla naal' (auspicious day) equivalent to any of the countless Hindu festivals. Of course she used to wash her hair for 'varushapirappu' as well as 'mathapirappu' (new month). People would come to our house to wish my father a happy new year-with fruits, sweets and gifts-a custom carried over from the British Raj days when government officials were greeted with gifts on the first day of the New Year. My mother had bought a big coffee vessel just to keep hot coffee to serve all the visitors coffee on this day.
The season would be pleasant with just a nip in the air (as it is now) and the trees would look like they had been washed and waxed, as winter follows the rains in our state. 'December' flowers would be on girls' hair and school-going children would be enjoying the last of their winter vacation, the schools being reopened mostly on 2nd or 3rd January after a fortnight of Half-Yearly holidays including Christmas and New Year. We would have returned from our grandparents' place by then. On very rare occasions, we would have stayed back to celebrate Pongal festival.
With the promise of another bout of holidays for Pongal festival, returning to school would not be as boring as after the shorter Quarterly exam holidays in September. We were contented and happy on this day. The fad of new year resolutions had not caught on. Nor were we old enough to analyse the bygone year's merits and demerits. The new year brought no more challenges or expectations other than having to remember to put the correct number in the year's column when we wrote the date in our school notebooks!
The season would be pleasant with just a nip in the air (as it is now) and the trees would look like they had been washed and waxed, as winter follows the rains in our state. 'December' flowers would be on girls' hair and school-going children would be enjoying the last of their winter vacation, the schools being reopened mostly on 2nd or 3rd January after a fortnight of Half-Yearly holidays including Christmas and New Year. We would have returned from our grandparents' place by then. On very rare occasions, we would have stayed back to celebrate Pongal festival.
With the promise of another bout of holidays for Pongal festival, returning to school would not be as boring as after the shorter Quarterly exam holidays in September. We were contented and happy on this day. The fad of new year resolutions had not caught on. Nor were we old enough to analyse the bygone year's merits and demerits. The new year brought no more challenges or expectations other than having to remember to put the correct number in the year's column when we wrote the date in our school notebooks!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Going to College
When we were studying in school, the educational qualification required before you could enroll for a professional degree or a degree in science and arts was 11+1 years of studies, instead of the 10+2 system high school students these days are familiar with.
The best point of this system was that we were only 16 years of age when we entered into 'college', free from our strict teachers, school uniforms, a long day consisting of 9-5 school hours and a compulsory attendance for all the classes. The worst point was that we had to cram what the +2 students study in two years in the available ten months of classes excluding the summer vacation. So we had very little time to enjoy our new-found freedom. But we made the most of our 'college girl' status and walked with our noses high up in the air whenever we passed our erstwhile juniors of the High School which was in the same campus as our college.
These educational institutions are located in a a sprawling multi-acre campus in a big town, a district capital (now a corporation) and the people were mostly middle class, not super rich as in the state's capital. Our college was one of the best known institutions in the state, exclusively devoted to women's education. It had Masters courses for Physics and Chemistry which even many men's colleges didn't possess. B.Com was introduced in our women's college, in the early seventies, our college being a pioneer in such things always. Till then we had only 'B.A'.s and 'B.Sc' s.
Our college was (and is) steeped in the traditions of our Tamil culture and arts and so had a degree course which conferred a 'B.A.' degree in Carnatic Music! A very strict dress code was enforced and students had to wear only sarees. The 'P.U.C' (Pre-University Course) class to which we belonged was the only exception as we had all completed only 16 years and not so adept in carrying off wearing a saree with aplomb! So we were allowed to wear 'Half-sarees'. We had so much grouse against the management as we all looked very 'country style' whereas the town's other women's college run by nuns allowed their students to wear such 'modern' dresses as salwar-kameez and chudidhars! They could even wear long skirts and blouses as their own High School in their campus had skirts and blouses as their uniforms. We used to envy them their smart uniform of blue skirt and white blouses, while we were in High School (clad in uniform green-coloured half-sarees) and now we were burning with envy at the 'cool' salwar kameez and other North Indian or western dresses their students sported!
Anyway wearing colours other than the green colour of our High School was a welcome change for us. We enjoyed wearing 'colour' dresses every day instead of the boring uniform. But it was no fun once we had shown off all the sets of half-sarees we possessed! We had to wait for the new dresses we usually received for our birthdays or some festivals like Pongal or Deepavali.
My classmates were mostly from my own 11th standard class of the high school and so we didn't feel as nervous as some of my new classmates who had come from other schools or other towns or even from other countries such as Malaysia, Srilanka and Singapore and were staying in the hostels. They had divided the 200 students belonging to the 'Maths Group' (Maths, Physics and Chemistry combo) into two batches, 'A' and 'B', each having 100 students. We were supposed to go for an engineering degree or for Physics or Chemistry degrees. I belonged to the 'B' batch. On the first day, I felt lost in the atmosphere of 100 students yelling 'Good Morning Miss' at the start of every class and held fast to the company of the girls from 'our school'. Some of my friends had been allotted to the 'A' batch and so I was forced to make new friends from the 'B' batch who were not so close to me in my high school days.
Initially, we were enjoying the freedom of not paying attention to the teacher as were not admonished for looking out of the window like we were in our high school and purposely gazed outside at the big trees in the campus (even though the limited scenery grew boring in minutes!) Some of the hostelers would gobble up the lunch boxes of the day scholars like me, sitting in the back benches. Then we came to know that the lecturers were just doing their duty (They could not be blamed if they could not manage to remember most of the 100 students' names in the ten months we had!)and not as interested in making us understand the lessons and get good marks as our devoted teachers of the high school! We had to look out for our own marks and we got scared of failing every course if we did not pay attention in the classes. Now we realized the value of our high school teachers who made us pay attention in the classes and who were till then 'dragons' giving out punishments like 'standing on the benches' or standing outside the classrooms', if we so much as glanced outside during classes!
For the first time we were responsible for the result of our own actions and attitudes. We felt grown-up within a few weeks of classes! But we sure enjoyed acting all 'grown up college girls' in front of our high school juniors who were lugging around huge school bags. So, even if the books needed for all the five hours of classes for our course could have filled a school bag easily, we insissted in carrying them stached in our hands, resting against our bodies-often dropping them in a very 'uncool' manner!
The best point of this system was that we were only 16 years of age when we entered into 'college', free from our strict teachers, school uniforms, a long day consisting of 9-5 school hours and a compulsory attendance for all the classes. The worst point was that we had to cram what the +2 students study in two years in the available ten months of classes excluding the summer vacation. So we had very little time to enjoy our new-found freedom. But we made the most of our 'college girl' status and walked with our noses high up in the air whenever we passed our erstwhile juniors of the High School which was in the same campus as our college.
These educational institutions are located in a a sprawling multi-acre campus in a big town, a district capital (now a corporation) and the people were mostly middle class, not super rich as in the state's capital. Our college was one of the best known institutions in the state, exclusively devoted to women's education. It had Masters courses for Physics and Chemistry which even many men's colleges didn't possess. B.Com was introduced in our women's college, in the early seventies, our college being a pioneer in such things always. Till then we had only 'B.A'.s and 'B.Sc' s.
Our college was (and is) steeped in the traditions of our Tamil culture and arts and so had a degree course which conferred a 'B.A.' degree in Carnatic Music! A very strict dress code was enforced and students had to wear only sarees. The 'P.U.C' (Pre-University Course) class to which we belonged was the only exception as we had all completed only 16 years and not so adept in carrying off wearing a saree with aplomb! So we were allowed to wear 'Half-sarees'. We had so much grouse against the management as we all looked very 'country style' whereas the town's other women's college run by nuns allowed their students to wear such 'modern' dresses as salwar-kameez and chudidhars! They could even wear long skirts and blouses as their own High School in their campus had skirts and blouses as their uniforms. We used to envy them their smart uniform of blue skirt and white blouses, while we were in High School (clad in uniform green-coloured half-sarees) and now we were burning with envy at the 'cool' salwar kameez and other North Indian or western dresses their students sported!
Anyway wearing colours other than the green colour of our High School was a welcome change for us. We enjoyed wearing 'colour' dresses every day instead of the boring uniform. But it was no fun once we had shown off all the sets of half-sarees we possessed! We had to wait for the new dresses we usually received for our birthdays or some festivals like Pongal or Deepavali.
My classmates were mostly from my own 11th standard class of the high school and so we didn't feel as nervous as some of my new classmates who had come from other schools or other towns or even from other countries such as Malaysia, Srilanka and Singapore and were staying in the hostels. They had divided the 200 students belonging to the 'Maths Group' (Maths, Physics and Chemistry combo) into two batches, 'A' and 'B', each having 100 students. We were supposed to go for an engineering degree or for Physics or Chemistry degrees. I belonged to the 'B' batch. On the first day, I felt lost in the atmosphere of 100 students yelling 'Good Morning Miss' at the start of every class and held fast to the company of the girls from 'our school'. Some of my friends had been allotted to the 'A' batch and so I was forced to make new friends from the 'B' batch who were not so close to me in my high school days.
Initially, we were enjoying the freedom of not paying attention to the teacher as were not admonished for looking out of the window like we were in our high school and purposely gazed outside at the big trees in the campus (even though the limited scenery grew boring in minutes!) Some of the hostelers would gobble up the lunch boxes of the day scholars like me, sitting in the back benches. Then we came to know that the lecturers were just doing their duty (They could not be blamed if they could not manage to remember most of the 100 students' names in the ten months we had!)and not as interested in making us understand the lessons and get good marks as our devoted teachers of the high school! We had to look out for our own marks and we got scared of failing every course if we did not pay attention in the classes. Now we realized the value of our high school teachers who made us pay attention in the classes and who were till then 'dragons' giving out punishments like 'standing on the benches' or standing outside the classrooms', if we so much as glanced outside during classes!
For the first time we were responsible for the result of our own actions and attitudes. We felt grown-up within a few weeks of classes! But we sure enjoyed acting all 'grown up college girls' in front of our high school juniors who were lugging around huge school bags. So, even if the books needed for all the five hours of classes for our course could have filled a school bag easily, we insissted in carrying them stached in our hands, resting against our bodies-often dropping them in a very 'uncool' manner!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Movie Time!
When we were small children, the only entertainment available was either the radio at home or the movies at the theatres. Our parents were very strict in choosing the movies for us to watch. They never missed most of the movies being screened in whichever town we were residing in at that time. But the films had to pass certain criteria before we could be taken to them. The usual process was that my parents would watch the movies first. If the movies were a) decent family entertainment or b) comedies with no vulgar double entendres or C) silver jubilee hits (i.e., they would have crossed a 100 days of screening) or D) 'Bhakthi'-religious movies.
So we got to watch most of Shivaji Ganesan's movies (category 'a') though they were mostly weepy and we kids didn't like them so much then!), most good comedies under category 'b'(Kadhalikka Neramillai, Baama Vijayam etc.,), a few of MGR's hit movies, thrillers like 'Adhey kangal' and movies like 'Kuzhndhaiyum Deivamum' (category C) and movies like 'Thiruvilaiyadal', Thiruvarutselvar and 'Annai Velanganni' (Category C) or educational films like 'Tokyo Olympiad', 'Hatari' etc., (Category E).
Category C would throw up some odd movies of MGR which we were not allowed to watch most of the time on account of their being 'romantic' movies unsuitable to young eyes! So we got to watch 'Enga Vettu Pillai' and 'Ayirathil Oruvan under this category. Once I remember us being sent to the theatre to watch the 'Ulaga Thamizh Maanaadu' clippings (under educational films!) being shown at the interval of an MGR movie which had not passed the silver jubilee criteria. The minute the clipping was shown, we were forcibly removed from the theatre under squeals of protest. we wanted to watch the rest of the movie too!
Forget today's multiplexes fully airconditioned. Most of the theatres were not air-conditioned and it felt very stuffy when it was house-full. It was not a pleasant experience as it is now. The movie part was the only event looked forward to, by us children. Not to mention the smokers' contribution in spite of the 'no smoking' signs. They would light up a cigarette inside the movie hall and would go out during the song sequences to finish it, but the hateful smoke would have caused us head aches.
Once I remember my younger sister falling sick in a stuffy theatre in Trichy and we had to go out of the movie hall to take her to the doctor! I remember how I was feeling guilty that I still wished to continue watching the movie, another part of me was praying to God that nothing should happen to my sister and that I would never ever speak a harsh word to her! Of course it was only a fainting spell because of the suffocating atmosphere and she recovered in an hour.
So we got to watch most of Shivaji Ganesan's movies (category 'a') though they were mostly weepy and we kids didn't like them so much then!), most good comedies under category 'b'(Kadhalikka Neramillai, Baama Vijayam etc.,), a few of MGR's hit movies, thrillers like 'Adhey kangal' and movies like 'Kuzhndhaiyum Deivamum' (category C) and movies like 'Thiruvilaiyadal', Thiruvarutselvar and 'Annai Velanganni' (Category C) or educational films like 'Tokyo Olympiad', 'Hatari' etc., (Category E).
Category C would throw up some odd movies of MGR which we were not allowed to watch most of the time on account of their being 'romantic' movies unsuitable to young eyes! So we got to watch 'Enga Vettu Pillai' and 'Ayirathil Oruvan under this category. Once I remember us being sent to the theatre to watch the 'Ulaga Thamizh Maanaadu' clippings (under educational films!) being shown at the interval of an MGR movie which had not passed the silver jubilee criteria. The minute the clipping was shown, we were forcibly removed from the theatre under squeals of protest. we wanted to watch the rest of the movie too!
Forget today's multiplexes fully airconditioned. Most of the theatres were not air-conditioned and it felt very stuffy when it was house-full. It was not a pleasant experience as it is now. The movie part was the only event looked forward to, by us children. Not to mention the smokers' contribution in spite of the 'no smoking' signs. They would light up a cigarette inside the movie hall and would go out during the song sequences to finish it, but the hateful smoke would have caused us head aches.
Once I remember my younger sister falling sick in a stuffy theatre in Trichy and we had to go out of the movie hall to take her to the doctor! I remember how I was feeling guilty that I still wished to continue watching the movie, another part of me was praying to God that nothing should happen to my sister and that I would never ever speak a harsh word to her! Of course it was only a fainting spell because of the suffocating atmosphere and she recovered in an hour.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Of Cool Coconut Groves
My grandparents owned rice fields and coconut groves. Whenever we went to their place during our holidays, making the most of our stay there was anticipated eagerly by all of us. Full of coconut trees, mango trees and jack fruit trees, the grove was shady mostly.
Labourers would have removed all the weeds underneath the trees and hoed the dirt around the trees as the roots needed to breathe. Loose soil is necessary around the roots to let fresh air in and so this work would be done periodically and a circle would be formed around the tree to enable watering. The other parts except the circles around the trees would be filled with various weeds and grass as these would be cleaned only at longer intervals. This grove formed a perfect playground for us in our childhood.
I remember one of the old coconut trees growing almost horizontally for a length of ten feet and then upright, in an effort to find the best position to catch the rays of sun amidst the shade formed by the nearby mango tree. The mango tree in turn sported a horizontal bough, thereby providing us kids with fantastic playthings. We would sit on the horizontal boughs and the trunk of the coconut tree (though it was a bit rough compared to the mango tree's trunk) and play houses all day long.
There was a very wide well to irrigate the trees, right at the centre of the grove. The coconut palm leaves in their fronds would be left to soak in the well from time to time to make them pliable, as these leaves were used to make 'keetru' to build roofs for huts and temporary pandals. I remember the labourers' wives making brooms out of the central sticks of the left-over individual leaves, sitting on the floor, with their feet stretched out, wielding a sharp knife to remove the sticks from the leaves in a single deft move. The leftover parts all would be put out in the open and left to dry, to be used as fuel in the kitchen or for the boiler. These scenes would be seen only a few times in all our trips. If the fronds are floating on the water of the wide well, the boys would be upset as it prevented them from practising their dives and swimming in the water! But the upside was that we would be treated to the tender coconut water as the labourers could climb up the trees in seconds and pluck the coconuts and cut them for us.
The girls in the kids' group would have perched on the 'kona thennai maram' (bent coconut tree) and the branches of the mango trees and started playing already. We used to sing the popular Tamil film songs of the time very loudly, swinging our legs keeping time, as we could not be heard outside the big grove. We must have looked like little monkeys to any onlooker! Sometimes we would be fighting for the right of singing a particular song shouting, 'The song is mine, MINE!' If no amicable settlement was reached, all the claimers would be heard braying out the lyrics in many discordant notes! Silly though it might seem now, if I recollect these times even now so vividly, you can imagine how much we would have enjoyed it!
Labourers would have removed all the weeds underneath the trees and hoed the dirt around the trees as the roots needed to breathe. Loose soil is necessary around the roots to let fresh air in and so this work would be done periodically and a circle would be formed around the tree to enable watering. The other parts except the circles around the trees would be filled with various weeds and grass as these would be cleaned only at longer intervals. This grove formed a perfect playground for us in our childhood.
I remember one of the old coconut trees growing almost horizontally for a length of ten feet and then upright, in an effort to find the best position to catch the rays of sun amidst the shade formed by the nearby mango tree. The mango tree in turn sported a horizontal bough, thereby providing us kids with fantastic playthings. We would sit on the horizontal boughs and the trunk of the coconut tree (though it was a bit rough compared to the mango tree's trunk) and play houses all day long.
There was a very wide well to irrigate the trees, right at the centre of the grove. The coconut palm leaves in their fronds would be left to soak in the well from time to time to make them pliable, as these leaves were used to make 'keetru' to build roofs for huts and temporary pandals. I remember the labourers' wives making brooms out of the central sticks of the left-over individual leaves, sitting on the floor, with their feet stretched out, wielding a sharp knife to remove the sticks from the leaves in a single deft move. The leftover parts all would be put out in the open and left to dry, to be used as fuel in the kitchen or for the boiler. These scenes would be seen only a few times in all our trips. If the fronds are floating on the water of the wide well, the boys would be upset as it prevented them from practising their dives and swimming in the water! But the upside was that we would be treated to the tender coconut water as the labourers could climb up the trees in seconds and pluck the coconuts and cut them for us.
The girls in the kids' group would have perched on the 'kona thennai maram' (bent coconut tree) and the branches of the mango trees and started playing already. We used to sing the popular Tamil film songs of the time very loudly, swinging our legs keeping time, as we could not be heard outside the big grove. We must have looked like little monkeys to any onlooker! Sometimes we would be fighting for the right of singing a particular song shouting, 'The song is mine, MINE!' If no amicable settlement was reached, all the claimers would be heard braying out the lyrics in many discordant notes! Silly though it might seem now, if I recollect these times even now so vividly, you can imagine how much we would have enjoyed it!
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