Down the memory lane......

Revisting Pettavaithalai days......


This morning I was speaking to Balaswaminathan over phone..requesting him to suggest some programme for Maya's wedding reception at Chennai....after the discussion he told me that Kalahasthi Subramaniam, the Nadaswara Vidwan for Maya's marriage, had approached him with my recommendation and got a chance now to give a performance in Jaya TV on the Ganesh Chaturthi day.....Aha...here is a repeat of what happened in Pettavaithalai about fifty years ago....someone got a chance because of me....it took me back to my Pettavaithalai days....I thought I would recollect some nice moments .......


Initially when we went to Pettavaithalai we were put up in a palatial bangalow on rent...later we moved to the officer's quarters ...hardly about 500 yards from the Cauvery river...there was a high river bund between some agricultural land and Cauvery and the colony was just adjoining the agricultural land. Between the bund and Cauvery, there was a burial ground. The colony was located in an orchard with mango, coconut, guava and other trees....Our house was one of the first to be constructed...it had a hall and two bedrooms (a third bed room was added later), a dining room, kitchen and veranda; initially there was only one bath room (and toilet), later one more toilet was added. In the corner of the hall was the "PYE" radio which Appa bought much before I was born. We had many cane chairs (15 ???) and a wooden sofa in the hall. There was no furniture in the dining hall, except that at one corner of the dining hall was the abode of our Gods ...."Puja Alamari" (Narayana Dikshidhar from Mahadhanapuram used to come often to give bath to all the saligramams in our Puja; I always wanted to ask him: "How is that you are so lean even after eating so much day after day ?"). One bedroom (and living room) where Patti, Ammalu Athai and Meenakshi mami used to occupy had a wooden cot (exclusively meant for Patti) and a refrigerator. Appa, Amma, Cheena and I slept in the other bedroom....Appa, Cheena and I slept on a king size spring cot with silk cotton matress...and Amma slept down by the side of the cots. There was a steel almirah at one corner of the bedroom, where Appa kept is favourite brief-case with all important papers, and at the other corner was the dressing table...with a stool in front. By the time I got up, Appa used to be well dressed - neatly ironed Khaki half-trouser, nicely tucked in half sleeve shirt, stockings upto the knee and well polished brown shoes....Appa used to be always tip-top and with his dress would always command respect...Amma would be bringing morning tiffin to Appa at the dressing table...and a cup of coffee to finish the tiffin. Appa was majestic and Amma was graceful in her 9 yard saree....they were a perfect couple. At this time of the day, I would be wriggling on the bed praying God that it should be a holiday that day....by around 07 o'clock a Jeep would come to pick him up for the factory.....I would see him again only in the evening...even though Appa used to come home for Lunch, I would be away at School at that time.


I remember Mr. Ramanatha Iyer, a tall middle aged man in full pants and half shirt, with a hat always on his head, who used to visit the colony often...he was the contractor who built the colony (and many more EID Parry buildings in Pettavaithalai)....there were three more houses like ours...occupied by families of Joseph Das (in front of us, Cane Superintendent), Raman (Chief Engineer, our immediate neighbour) and Hussain (a bachelor at that time, Labour Officer, next to Raman's). Beyond Hussain's house was the "Club", with facilities for Tennis, badminton and indoor games. As the days passed many more houses came up - they were a little smaller than ours...Hariharan, Chacko, Vasudeva Rao, Adinarayanan et al..with their families occupied them....in a short period the colony was already bubbling with a lot of social activity....finally the biggest house was constructed for Killick (General Manager)....Killick with his Aiyangar wife lived there for a year or so....later it was occupied by Ranganathan...the guy who was Appa's boss at Nellikuppam. (Luckily Appa escaped him again...and became the Factory Superintendent / Acting General Manager of the Pugalur Factory....let me tell this story later).


We had a nice garden around our house...Amma had interest in gardening....she had roses, jasmines (mullai and malli), marigolds (both samandhi and tulukka samandhi), pavazhamalli, marikozhundu, lillys + vellari (cucumber), Poosani (pumpkin, both white and red), Vendakkai (ladies finger, Okra), beans, podalangai (snake gourd), Kothavarangai (cluster beans), Chillies, Kaththarikkai (baingan), Karuvepilai (curry leaves), Kothamalli (coriandar), Thakkali (tomato), Vazhai (different types of banana - Puvan, rasthali, mondhan) etc., in our garden....Pazhani used to take care of watering these plants and tending them. There were two big Mango trees on the sides of the house...branches of these provided ME the route to our terrace....There was also a big guava tree at the rear of the house...full of red ants...I never ventured near this tree for fear of being stung by these ants. The colony was full of snakes (Nagam, Sarai, Komberimukkan etc) ....I had stumbled on a few...they were moving all over, trees, bushes, on the road...but never harmed anyone. Scorpions were in plenty in all the coconut trees....Parrots, minahs, crows etc., added beauty to this ecological system......I was fortunate to experience this....when I was young.....


Our drinking water used to be brought by Meenakshi mami in a Kudam from Cauvery, every morning after taking bath in the running waters of Cauvery. We never used to filter or boil the water...Amma used to tell us...running water from the river is of drinking quality....she had a point...but on my visits to Cauvery for a bath, I had seen people easing themselves, washing their ..........taking bath..and cleaning buffalos...was that water "potable"??? Probably we had good immunity....what happened on those days when Cauvery shrunk to hardly a feet width of water???? For me, Cauvery with more sand than water was an opportunity to cross the river to go to VELAYUTHAM PALAYAM....to see the temple of Muruga....I had gone to Velayutham Palayam a few times alone !!! When Cauvery had enough water, it was time to take bath in the water....trying to learn swimming....which I never learnt. On one such occasions, Cheena, Vellaichamy (our servant) and I went to Cauvery for a bath...the water level was hardly two feet...in some places mud islands could still be seen. We were jumping into water from one such mud islands....it was my turn....I jumped with a lot of enthusiasm.....suddenly I found myself sucked into the "podhi manal" (whirlpool)....I was shouting from below the water, raising my hand above the head....I was sure to die...a good "Jalasamadhi"..... suddenly I realized that someone caught hold of my hand which was above the water level...apparently it was Cheena....and he was also sucked....both of us would not be living today but for Vellachami....in a fraction of a second (that was what I thought) he caught hold of both us and dragged us on to the mud island....by that time I had swallowed a lot of water...probably enough for the whole life....Cheena was dazed....Vellachami not only saved us...but also his job.


One good thing about all our servants was that they somehow could enter the factory rolls after a stint at our house...it happened with Jayaraman, Vellachami, Pazhani.....Appa had a fantastic reputation in the factory.....he was respected by his superiors as well as sub-ordinates.....when Kamaraj visited the Pettavaithalai factory, it was Appa who took him around to show the factory (as Killick did not know Tamil)....When the CITU was strong, with Umapathi as the President of the local chapter, the striking employees of the factory did not touch Appa, while they gheroed Ranganathan....probably Appa was the only one to be allowed to leave the factory premises. Appa never showed any discrimination among people....for example Jayaraman was a hardcore DK member, a follower of Periyar....I don't know even today, how he worked in a "Pappan's" house...that too without any heart-burns. Appa did not hesitate to help him to get a job in the factory....I cannot but admire my Appa for his qualities.


While I was trying to explore the heights on the branches of Mango trees, trying to emulate our forefathers, Cheena was honing his skills on the Tennis court...he had a set of friends with whom he would play Tennis (In the evenings Appa also used to play tennis....with his colleagues). We had also formed our Cricket team....of course I was no body....but Cheena was an important member...we used to practice in our colony....Nagarajan, Chellappa and others used to come from other staff quarters to join us...Panchanathan, Stephen from our colony would add to our crowd...we used to go to a ground in Kamanayakan Palayam, the next village..we did play with Cricket ball...not tennis ball...since I was not a permanent member of this team, I had my own team playing hide and seek or something like that...this consisted of all young kids in the colony - Ragothaman, Madan, Rama, Latha et al. In this team I was the only one to study in the Pettavaithalai Higher Elementary School...a unique distinction !!!


I used to start for the school by about 8.30; my first stop always would be the tamarind tree on the way...I would try to bring down as many tamarinds as possible with one or two stones....after collecting enough tamarinds for the day, I would proceed to the school...I used to have friends and well wishers always waiting for me...(or for the tamarind)...tamarind had brought many new friends to me. More friends means more stones to throw and more tamarinds to collect...before the owner of the tree could shout and chase me out.


I was always fuzzy about taking food...Ammalu athai adopted a not so unique method of making me eat..every night she and I used to sit out on the steps behind the kitchen...she used to tell me stories ...and asked questions like:"do you know what happened next ?"....Obviously I would not have an answer...she would give an answer only if I ate some quantity of food...I was curious to know things and did not mind eating the food even though I did not like it. One constant feature of my dinner used to be Parry's mittais.


Appa used to buy 10 Pounds of Parry's sweets and send them to Pettavaithalai Higher Elementary School on every August 15...probably he knew what would happen in 1980....he perhaps started celebrating the day well in advance !!! He never thought of saving anything for him...he spent everything on others...till his last days.

We used to go to Trichy to see movies..I remember seeeing (in fact sitting through for a few minutes !!!) Pavamannippu, Pasamalar, Adutha vittu pen, Vanjikotai Valibhan, Sabhash Meena, Bagapirivinai, Nenjam Marappadillai, Kalyana Parisu, Parthipan Kanavu and many more...of course in those days, my interest was not the movie, but the perks that would come with the movie...Crush..especially Kali Mark Cola...I would wait for a few minutes and with some awkward movement of the body would tell Amma (not Appa) that I was thirsty...she would immediately order for Kali Cola and would give me....my goal achieved I would go to sleeep...to be up in my bed the next morning.


(Thodarum......)