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| Chellama Sundaresan circa 1958 |
Chellamma Paati
(Grandmother) or Chellamma as she was fondly referred to was a towering personality.
My grandfather passed away a couple of years before I was born (I was named
after him). Chellamma spent time with her children as she felt like – my uncle
at Arumbakkam, my aunts in Chennai and our family at Coimbatore. My father was
the youngest and I think she spent more time to be with us as we were the
youngest bunch of grand children in the 60s and 70s.
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| Chellama Paati circa 1970 |
My earliest memory of her is like she is in the picture
here. We grew up with her telling us stories in the evening – mainly from
Ramayanam, Bhagavatham and Mahabaratham. She had home schooled and as I grew up
will she will surprise me when she will prompt or correct me reciting Tamil
poetry – At school in languages you had to remember and recite/ quote from
memory and so mugging up poems was necessary. But she could not just recite,
but also explain the meaning. Some where I early 70s I remember she came back
from a trip to Kashi etc. and had taken to an orthodox way of living. May be
she was like that before too but this is when I started noticing (I must have
been 6 or so then, just started going to school).
I remember her for all the things she taught us and observed
herself till she breathed her last in the late 80s. It was very strange and
many times restrictive but as one reminisces there is so much in it which is
good and probably these were unwritten but empirical codes they adopted and
made all of us adopt and there was no option. There was a fundamental reason of
keeping self and home pure and clean.
So if one goes out and comes back, you had to go wash your
feet and hands before even sitting. Kai Kaal Alambinaiya (did you wash
your hands and feet?). If you went for a haircut it is Theetu (something very
unclean), you cannot even enter the house (those days we lived in independent
houses). One had to go on the periphery to reach the bathrooms at the back,
wash the clothes separately, have a bath and only then enter the house. No
going out after sunset (or when the lamp is lit at Puja in the evening). Nor
was it good to get visitors except maybe during Pujas like Navarathri. Houses
where the toilet was inside or attached was not preferred. And going to toilet
meant washing hands and feet before entering the house. And if you did not, it
got observed and called out. A great
sense of sanitising the living space for all.
Food had to cooked fresh – Those were days of Kerosene and
pump stoves, refrigerators was a luxury. But there was this concept of “Patthu”
– I think it comes from the work “Pattru” meaning sticky. So anything once
cooked became Patthu and you had to
wet or rinse your hands after handling Pathhu
stuff before touching anything else. So nothing passes from something which is
cooked to something that was raw. If food was left over, it would have
to be given away in the evening itself to beggars who would come in the evening
around dinner time. So food from one meal (break fast or lunch etc.) was not carried to the
next meal. The only thing which sometimes spilt over was rice – then had
with curd as Pazahayadhu (Old food).
The stoves and cooking place used to washed/ wiped clean before even coffee
could be made at tea time. So the concept of Patthu extended to the cooking space too. Looking back my mothers
and aunts must have managed this with her but no other choice.
Then was this concept of “Madi”. It basically
translated to being untouched and
only being in touch with things clean. In a sense it is like when you go to a
place of worship you don’t touch the priest or go inside the shrine or come in
physical contact. As little children, once Chellamma had her bath she was in a
state of Madi. She wore clothes which
were washed or finally rinsed by her and dried in a place which remains
untouched, till she picks it after her bath. Then she goes through her puja and
rituals, lunch – a siesta may be or other house chores and then the evening prayers.
Only after that can she be touched or played with. The only license could be if
as little we too had our clothes handled the Madi way with hers. If for any reason this is breached (which I
have seen happen sometime) – She will go and have bath again and repeat the
rituals. Well it was an orthodox practice but was a way of maintaining a
pristine and clean way of living for most part of the day – What we are calling now social distancing.
Then there were the whole lot of personal hygiene stuff. She
would say Kadikkadhae (Don’t bite) while eating. For a long time it used
to be very confusing to me as a kid, how can you eat without biting – because she
would ask us to go and wash hands if we did it. The distinction was between
biting and chewing. Her code was don’t bite. You cut (a fruit) or break (a
biscuit) and put the piece in your mouth close and chew. Very basic but
technically sound – when you bite, something from inside your mouth stays with
the food in hand but when you put a piece in mouth and chew. So
what’s in –is in and what’s out is out. It was hard to appreciate then
as kid but we did realise as we grew. Also if you have taken a bite then you
cannot share it with other – a strict no because it is Echhal (Jhoota in
Hindi) and only you can have it and should not be given to other. So
this extended to the eaten plates having to washed by whoever ate in a place
outside the kitchen and only once it is clean can it come back into the
kitchen. So the cutlery used for eating (each one has their plates) does not
mix with what is used for cooking and they are stored separate too. And when it
came to clothes the inner garments had to washed by each one and washed
separately – not mixed with other clothes and as it si personal to you, you
have to take care (especially as you grow up). Simple codes that isolated contamination or things getting passed on.
And if anyone fell sick, they were kept in a separate room,
not allowed to eat with the rest – food would go to them. The utensils used to
serve, washed separately. Simple but effective separation and giving things
their importance for isolation or cleanliness. The only major disinfectant was water – wash repeatedly and don’t mix
things.
I am not sure how much of this came because of orthodox
practices driving by divinity or the need to stay pure for your prayers and service
to lord, but the aim was to stay purer. When I reflect lot of these may also have been empirical practices which they would
have picked and learned to keep the deadly illnesses those day like small pox,
Polio, measles, malaria etc.
But be it washing, sanitation, personal hygiene, social
distancing, eating or isolating what can create trouble without alerts, shut
downs, lockups – Dear Chellamma, you
taught us things which have made us grow and live healthily, some 50 years back…and we are still learning…
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| Chellamma with family @ her grand children's wedding |
ps: Chellamma means (my) Fondest girl
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