Whistling Past The Memories: Episode 7 – My Paati

Swara looked at her Paati’s portrait. It had been 10 years since her paati (maternal grandmother) left this world. 
‘My paati – She meant the world to me. No words can describe her divine personality. Paati was born in the late 1920s, in Chennai. Her father was a lawyer. When she was 16, her father married her off as she had completed her matriculation. She had lost her mother at a tender age of 10. Those days, 16 was the average age for girls to get married. Paati had been a very bright and studious girl.

Thatha (grandfather) was a registrar in a small village near Palakkad, Kerala. They both met only on the day of their wedding. Those days, parents would fix the marriage and the girl and boy had to marry the person their parents chose for them. Thatha was well educated and brilliant. A six footer, he was handsome too. Paati, in spite of being born and brought up in a city, in a well to do family, had to leave the city and relocate to the village where thatha was posted. As they couldn’t afford a servant help, she soon adapted to doing all the household chores herself, starting from pounding paddy to remove the husk and then making rice, drawing water from the well, cooking in a mud stove using firewood, milking the cow, grinding rice using the traditional stone grinder and what not.

All these were new to her, considering she had led a comfortable city life before her marriage. She had to also get used to using kerosene lanterns as there was no electricity. She would work round the clock, never complaining or cribbing. Often thatha’s relatives would visit them and she had to bear the brunt of the extra work, including packing banana & jackfruit wafers, mixture, sweets etc, all homemade, when they went back. She was always smiling and pleasant irrespective of the hardships she had to endure. 

Paati started wearing a nine yards saree (podavai) as soon as she got married. Thatha would always buy two sets of podavais for her, once a year, often of the same colour and design, ie 18 yards of the same cloth in bulk, which paati would cut into two and wear. Paati was always content with what she had. The way she used to spend her leisure was commendable as she would do intricate embroidery work with crochet on curtains, table cloth etc. Paati was very pretty, fair skinned and she would capture hearts with her billion dollar smile! She was optimistic, brilliant, confident and had a very good sense of humour. Her innate goodness was reflected in the twinkle in her eyes and her face had a unique glow. We identify violet colour today as the vermillion on her forehead. At 18, she gave birth to my aunt, and then she had 5 children, 4 girls and a boy, in succession, within a span of 8 years. My mom was the youngest. So at 26, she was a mother of six!
Thatha was honest and would not accept bribes. His monthly salary would barely make both ends meet. There was a time when they did not have enough money to educate their children, so thatha decided to stop their schooling. That was the first time paati fought with him. She wanted her children to be well educated, she expressed her willingness to take on any work to supplement the family income. Thatha, moved by her determination, relented.

And there began her children’s journey. All her six children were very studious, topping their classes and they excelled in sports too. On their school annual day, they would go to school carrying a gunny bag to bring home the prizes they won. From general proficiency to excellence in extra curricular activities, her children won prizes. Paati found happiness in this. She ensured all her children were post graduates and every one of them topped their respective colleges. They all secured good jobs too. Paati also ensured that her daughters were married into well educated families.

I have always held her in high esteem and she was more than a goddess to me. Her brave feats and success stories have inspired me. I can go on and on, but these are mom’s stories, but I want to write a few from my perspective. I remember us going to thatha and Paati’s place right from when I was 5. We would visit at least once every month, spend a weekend there. Paati would cook special dishes and sit with us while we ate, taking special care to serve each one of us what we liked. She knew all our preferences and tastes. She would then wind up the kitchen and we would spend time together. She was unlike other grandmothers who would sleep in the afternoons, complaining of body pain, cribbing about work or the hot weather etc. She was just different. 

She had a modern outlook though she upheld traditional values. We could talk about everything under the sun with her. She was well read and her general knowledge was above par. She used to read ‘The Hindu’ newspaper daily. She loved all sports and knew sportsmen across the globe, be it cricket, badminton, tennis, football, even F1 racing. She had an yearly subscription of ‘The Sportstar’ which she would read thoroughly. She also knew national and international politics, the weather conditions in different cities, economy and business news. She disliked gossip and believed that ‘knowledge is wealth’.
Her neighbours literally worshipped her. She would help them financially and morally, lend a shoulder to lean on, for those in grief. Anyone who met her would be clean bowled by her wisdom and charms! We often joked that she would be able to topple any candidate in the local election.
As I grew up, she got fonder of me. She gave me a feeling that she loved me the most (though my cousins tell me the same thing!). She had 10 grandchildren in all and she would enjoy talking to all of them, play with them (she used to bowl for us while we played cricket). She was so proud when we did well in academics, earned good jobs. To her, academic brilliance was important. Maybe we all had her genes. She gave that feeling to each one of us that he/she was her pet. But, I would like to believe that she was most attached to me, for I could share everything with her. When I got my first job at Coimbatore, I would spend every weekend with her. She would be excited to see me, listen to me talk about my job. We would talk non stop for hours together. I can say I am the one who got to stay the longest with her. She loved Carnatic music and I would sing a few kritis for her. She paid rapt attention and if she clapped, it meant I sang really well. (She would not always clap) She was a sweetheart, she would even hum a few tunes for me, I guess it’s a privilege that only I have had.

Paati faced quite a few tragedies in life. Her 5th daughter passed away at the age of 32. That was a big blow for her. Then thatha passed away when he was 72, followed by her only son, my uncle, when he was 52! She bravely faced all this and I have not once heard her talk about having been fed up with life or questioning God why he took away her only son, her daughter and husband so early in life. She accepted it as fate. Last but not the least, I can’t miss mentioning about her neatness! She would wear only kanchivaram silk sarees, 9 yards, she would have a handkerchief tucked in her pleat and she would use it every time she had to wipe her hands. She wasn’t like us, wiping hands, mouth and nose and what not on our clothes!!! She wore the 9 yards ‘pattu saree’ even in the scorching heat of the Palakkad peak summer, till the day she passed away.

She was very god fearing, but I have never seen her pray or visit a temple. She believed that God resides within every person and would accept everything, good it bad, happily without complaining. She had nothing to ask for herself to God . Such was her greatness. With all that I have written, I still feel that I have not done justice to the person that she was! 
Paati passed away peacefully in her sleep and I have no doubt that she definitely has a place in heaven, in the Lord’s lotus feet.
Parvathy, wherever you are, you will always be in our hearts!’

Swara wiped a tear.