Well, its my thatha (grandfather's) thidhi today..Thidhi is the day we take to offer puja to departed ancestors . There are fixed days in the Tamil calendar each month to give thidhi to your long lost loved ones. Its considered sacred and the relatives are supposed to fast in the memory of the departed and have food only after all the puja is done. I have never been the one to fast.. I doubt if I ever can.. And the ritual of thidhi is slowly fading out in our generation - probably I would never keep them. Sure seems like a great idea devised in the bygone ages to devote in an ancestors memory and seek their blessing. My grandmom always makes thatha's favourite dishes on his thidhi and offers a cup of coffee near his photo in her room. Thata loved coffee.. (I call her Appima - oh yeah.. this word has a history too.. As a child I could not pronounce "paati" or "appayi" as is tradition to call your dad's mom. I chose to call her this and it stuck. Now all kids and cousins in the family call her Appima . There's my contribution to the Tamil language :-) )
Cutting back to thatha - Periasamy Thandavaraya Udiayar aka T.Periasamy.. Thatha and appima literally raised both of us kids - my brother and I, while our parents went to work. I saw more of them than my working parents. Thatha was always the head of the family. Very strict in his disciplines and with us - he despised us watching movies on TV . For most part of our childhood, we never saw movies on TV - TV here means Doordarshan. Hell, we did not have cable till I reached 10th standard! There was nothing Thatha could not do - he would do all the chores around the house. Nimble fingered , agile and knowledgeable - Thatha's green fingers lovingly watered and raised our huge garden. Thatha would get the best of seeds and grow our own vegetable patches , water them from the well motor, maake "paathis" or bunds in the soil and maintain the garden with all its 14 coconut trees, Arunellikai Maram (small gooseberries), guava and teak trees, besides the numerous shrubs and Keerai chedis (greens). Infact, in our garden, Keerai plants grow by themselves till date. Thats because grandad let many of them mature till their seeds fell around - and they sprout by themselves all around - Keerais in our garden include Thandu Keerai and Manathakkali Keerai, Perandai etc. Thatha keep strict vigil of everything. He would dig up a huge pit at the corner of the garden, into which he would dispose all kitchen waste and the files of fallen leaves that would gather around the garden. Our teak trees are notorius for shedding leaves and Thatha would diligently pick them up and put them in the compost pit. Fallen branches from the coconut trees would be used by Thaatha in two ways.. He used them to layer the terrace in the summer - which cooled the house during the scorching summers. He would water the coconut branches on the terrace at 4 in the evening after the prime heat was off for the day - keeping the house cool at night. Coconut branches were also used to as fuel for our hot water bath each day. One of the first tasks thatha took up each day - firing up the huge copper boiler at the backyard with the dried leaves to make our bath - God, those boilers are extinct today. Well I dont know if people who read this will ever get to bathe in water boiled on a fire stove. It has this earthy, smoky flavour to it and is heavenly to bathe in. In retrospect, not the most eco-friendly ways to bathe - but Thatha just did it in line with practices those days when water heaters were not the flavour of the day. Especially when Thatha got so much out of the garden he kept so well .
Thatha and many of our elders were much more eco-friendly than we will ever be. Thatha kept the "Manja pai" or yellow bags - cloth bags which were given as mementos at weddings - with a coconut ,betel leaves and turmeric and the names of bride and groom with the date of the wedding. Thatha washed them and stored them in our drawers. Everyday once the water heating was done, thatha would leave to the nearby mom and pop shop to buy the days vegetables and he always carried the manja pai. (We never stored veggies in our fridge back home in Trichy. Till date , we buy them fresh each day. ) He would diligently note down every spend (even 25 paisa) that he spent in a diary that he maintained - to keep track of the spending.
Thatha was a hard working man - a B.Sc graduate, he worked till retirement for the Tamil Nadu electricity board (TNEB) as a stores manager. Thatha was very popular among the TNEB community. He wrote a book for pensioners at TNEB after he noticed that many of his friends were having trouble knowing the system and the benefits that they were entitled too. Our home in Trichy was designed and built under his supervision - we had no engineer for the house - just him , dad and a hired mason .
Always the one to take initiative, Thatha would do things around the house that seemed impossible. He built his own radio in his 40's... yeah - complete with capacitors and resitances- thatha's masterpiece was stored in his cupboard. He would stitch the car covers and practically anything that needed stitching around the house. Thatha was extremely well read and he would read as he ate each day at his favourite chair in our dining table - we still refer to it as Thatha's place. Appa and I inherited his love for books and writing. An expert driver - he had sometimes driven the lorries that carried TNEB wares in the Ooty hills early on in his career - when the drivers were not around. Thatha was ever the learner - when we first bought a computer when I was in high school - he learned from me how to operate it and would look up TNEB news online. He would get my math books and offer to make notes for me to understand better. Notes - Thatha was constantly writing all the time. He would get buy the huge ruled notebooks from the stationery, whip out his scale, draw columns as it suited him and write away - everything from house accounts to the Amar Jyothi stock broking company accounts (that we attempted before Harshad Mehta spoiled it for him and dad), to the details of financing company he wanted to run .. Thatha never let his retirement take away hard work - his spirit of enterprise amazes me in retrospect. He once did a big project - doing deep water pumps for a slum nearby our place and providing all of the residents with thick blankets during the winter. Thatha taught us the power of being selfless and giving - to empathize with people - to not let egos get in the way of work - to hold integrity above everything else. Appima tells me Thatha once gave up a job that kept him a position where people would offer to bribe to get things done...Thatha got tired of telling people to not approach him for shortcuts , but no one stopped and he eventually left the job for peace of mind.
I would'nt say I loved Thatha that much as a kid - he was so strict all the time that I always wished he was more like the grandfathers I read about in Tinkle, Gokulam and Champak - the kind that pampered the grandkids, bought them a lot of chocolates and told them stories. No, Thatha was not that kind - he would drop me off and school and back when the auto did not turn up. On the way back home from school in his green Bajaj Chetak , Thatha would stop and buy me a Elani (tender coconut). Thatha would look incredibly young for his age - friends at school would often ask if it was my uncle who had come to pick me up. He would stock up snacks and fruits for us - every Saathukudi (mosambi) would be peeled, skinned and only flesh cut up for thambi and me to eat. During Pongal times, he would skin the sugarcane, cut out the hard parts, cut it up into cubes for the both of us. He would make both of us get ready, polish our shoes and make sure we got into the school auto in time. But I never really thought about these finer things he did for us as a kid - he was always a monstrous granddad whom I respected and felt scared of to even talk at a higher tone. Thatha laughed very rarely - we would wait for him to laugh at jokes , just because it was so rare.
Through his honest savings, Thatha managed to build a house and some land - got all his four daughters married and settle comfortably. But he never gave up on his spirit of entrepreneurship - even when we discovered that he had prostrate cancer during the 2nd stage. Thatha suddenly changed his diet to suit this monster that was inside him - he would buy loads of cauliflower , beets and everything else that was believed to control it - but sadly, the cancer only got worse. He went through radiation and chemotherapy and lost all his hair - but he grew it back in a few months after chemo sessions with his determined efforts . It was difficult to see Thatha being taken over by a disease. But he was staunchly optimistic to get the better of it. The doctors forbade him from driving his scooter and advised bed rest. A year later, doctors suggested we operate him - which we did. But Thatha could not walk after that. I was in college first year by then. Everyone came to see him while he was ailing - friends, family, extended relatives - scores of people who loved and respected him. I overheard Thatha telling one of them while he lay in his bed - "Sangeetha's college is only 3 kms from here. I will soon be able to drive my scooter and I can drop her off". I cried a lot that day - it was just too much for me to take. I realized I had started loving Thatha more and more since his cancer was announced - I could not watch him struggle when he tried to walk with our help - he was just too weak. This was Thatha - the strongest man I knew - and in many ways, my hero. It was like something happening to God - Gods don't fall sick, they are always strong.
Even while he was bedridden, Thatha continued to be active mentally, holding on to his pocket transistor - a green Philips he used to tune in to the AM radio each day. Calling out to us to get his work done - he would call me and say "Ma, indha Mat switcha podu" - to put on the Banish mosquito machine. Or "Ma, indha sombula konjam thanni kondu vaa". (He called the ladies Ma - ever chivalrous and respectful of women around him). I was at that stage grown up enough to understand Thatha's love of life - he wanted to live - I could see it in his eyes as he battled cancer. He wanted to continue taking care of us , to be his normal active self again. But it was not to be. It was a Saturday afternoon, I was sleeping . Dad woke me up and said softly "Sangee, I want you to come and see Thatha - he is not well, I think he is dying". Dad spoke to me in English only when he was very serious about something. I got up and went to see Appima at his bedside sobbing. Thatha looking up feebly - grandma asked me to bring some milk and we poured some into his mouth to drink - all three of us. It was painful - but for some strange reason , there is a practice of giving milk to someone dying. And there, right in front of my eyes - he passed away. We brought in a doc and he confirmed that he was dead. I still vividly remember his eyes as we gave him milk - he was still hoping to live as he died. Our father figure, the man who taught us everything as kids and loved us in ways his strict attitude did not overtly show, passed away - but not peacefully in his sleep as he deserved after a long and fulfilling life. I have cursed God many times for bringing upon such difficulty to him in his last days - but I realise now that is part of the learning God gave us. God gives suffering to those who can bear it and can come out of it stronger. Granddad definitely did - he died making all of us feel realise there is no giving up in life, that no disease or hardship is greater than the individual , that there is hope and life amidst all diversity, every day is to learn and worth looking forward to - even if you are afflicted by a disease mankind is yet to find a cure to. I could not get over his death for a very long time. I would often go into his room thinking he was there.. I have had hallucinations that he his calling out to me from his room "Ma, indha mat switcha podu". It was impossible to accept he was not at home anymore.
I vowed to work for cancer research after all this - but I have ended somewhere else. There are better people out there for cancer research - but, no one could have taught Thambi and me better than Thatha. We are what we are today because of him - he continues to live within us - guiding us in spirit. I pray to Thatha each time I take an exam or start something new, just as I do to the other Gods - a silent 2 second prayer. I take his blessings every time I go home -prostrating in front of his photo in his room, praying that I be a fraction of what he was - asking him to remind me to be honest always. Thatha lives - through the plants in our garden that are off springs of the seeds he sowed, through the coconut trees he nurtured, through his clothes and tools that we still preserve, through our home, through the goodwill that he created for us - but more importantly, through the values that he held so high till the very end.
Here's to Thatha - my biggest influence in life. We love you Thatha - we did not become wastrels like you thought we would :-) we are doing OK , we are working our way up in life, we are not there yet - but we are going to get there one day . Thambi and I have grown up to be honest grown ups who are true to their hearts - just the way you wanted and we know you are proud of us for that . Bless us Thatha - we have a long way to go..
( Here is a picture of Thatha , Appima and me.. Srikant Deiveegarajan - dude.. i beat you in this one , you dont have a picture like this :P)
Cutting back to thatha - Periasamy Thandavaraya Udiayar aka T.Periasamy.. Thatha and appima literally raised both of us kids - my brother and I, while our parents went to work. I saw more of them than my working parents. Thatha was always the head of the family. Very strict in his disciplines and with us - he despised us watching movies on TV . For most part of our childhood, we never saw movies on TV - TV here means Doordarshan. Hell, we did not have cable till I reached 10th standard! There was nothing Thatha could not do - he would do all the chores around the house. Nimble fingered , agile and knowledgeable - Thatha's green fingers lovingly watered and raised our huge garden. Thatha would get the best of seeds and grow our own vegetable patches , water them from the well motor, maake "paathis" or bunds in the soil and maintain the garden with all its 14 coconut trees, Arunellikai Maram (small gooseberries), guava and teak trees, besides the numerous shrubs and Keerai chedis (greens). Infact, in our garden, Keerai plants grow by themselves till date. Thats because grandad let many of them mature till their seeds fell around - and they sprout by themselves all around - Keerais in our garden include Thandu Keerai and Manathakkali Keerai, Perandai etc. Thatha keep strict vigil of everything. He would dig up a huge pit at the corner of the garden, into which he would dispose all kitchen waste and the files of fallen leaves that would gather around the garden. Our teak trees are notorius for shedding leaves and Thatha would diligently pick them up and put them in the compost pit. Fallen branches from the coconut trees would be used by Thaatha in two ways.. He used them to layer the terrace in the summer - which cooled the house during the scorching summers. He would water the coconut branches on the terrace at 4 in the evening after the prime heat was off for the day - keeping the house cool at night. Coconut branches were also used to as fuel for our hot water bath each day. One of the first tasks thatha took up each day - firing up the huge copper boiler at the backyard with the dried leaves to make our bath - God, those boilers are extinct today. Well I dont know if people who read this will ever get to bathe in water boiled on a fire stove. It has this earthy, smoky flavour to it and is heavenly to bathe in. In retrospect, not the most eco-friendly ways to bathe - but Thatha just did it in line with practices those days when water heaters were not the flavour of the day. Especially when Thatha got so much out of the garden he kept so well .
Thatha and many of our elders were much more eco-friendly than we will ever be. Thatha kept the "Manja pai" or yellow bags - cloth bags which were given as mementos at weddings - with a coconut ,betel leaves and turmeric and the names of bride and groom with the date of the wedding. Thatha washed them and stored them in our drawers. Everyday once the water heating was done, thatha would leave to the nearby mom and pop shop to buy the days vegetables and he always carried the manja pai. (We never stored veggies in our fridge back home in Trichy. Till date , we buy them fresh each day. ) He would diligently note down every spend (even 25 paisa) that he spent in a diary that he maintained - to keep track of the spending.
Thatha was a hard working man - a B.Sc graduate, he worked till retirement for the Tamil Nadu electricity board (TNEB) as a stores manager. Thatha was very popular among the TNEB community. He wrote a book for pensioners at TNEB after he noticed that many of his friends were having trouble knowing the system and the benefits that they were entitled too. Our home in Trichy was designed and built under his supervision - we had no engineer for the house - just him , dad and a hired mason .
Always the one to take initiative, Thatha would do things around the house that seemed impossible. He built his own radio in his 40's... yeah - complete with capacitors and resitances- thatha's masterpiece was stored in his cupboard. He would stitch the car covers and practically anything that needed stitching around the house. Thatha was extremely well read and he would read as he ate each day at his favourite chair in our dining table - we still refer to it as Thatha's place. Appa and I inherited his love for books and writing. An expert driver - he had sometimes driven the lorries that carried TNEB wares in the Ooty hills early on in his career - when the drivers were not around. Thatha was ever the learner - when we first bought a computer when I was in high school - he learned from me how to operate it and would look up TNEB news online. He would get my math books and offer to make notes for me to understand better. Notes - Thatha was constantly writing all the time. He would get buy the huge ruled notebooks from the stationery, whip out his scale, draw columns as it suited him and write away - everything from house accounts to the Amar Jyothi stock broking company accounts (that we attempted before Harshad Mehta spoiled it for him and dad), to the details of financing company he wanted to run .. Thatha never let his retirement take away hard work - his spirit of enterprise amazes me in retrospect. He once did a big project - doing deep water pumps for a slum nearby our place and providing all of the residents with thick blankets during the winter. Thatha taught us the power of being selfless and giving - to empathize with people - to not let egos get in the way of work - to hold integrity above everything else. Appima tells me Thatha once gave up a job that kept him a position where people would offer to bribe to get things done...Thatha got tired of telling people to not approach him for shortcuts , but no one stopped and he eventually left the job for peace of mind.
I would'nt say I loved Thatha that much as a kid - he was so strict all the time that I always wished he was more like the grandfathers I read about in Tinkle, Gokulam and Champak - the kind that pampered the grandkids, bought them a lot of chocolates and told them stories. No, Thatha was not that kind - he would drop me off and school and back when the auto did not turn up. On the way back home from school in his green Bajaj Chetak , Thatha would stop and buy me a Elani (tender coconut). Thatha would look incredibly young for his age - friends at school would often ask if it was my uncle who had come to pick me up. He would stock up snacks and fruits for us - every Saathukudi (mosambi) would be peeled, skinned and only flesh cut up for thambi and me to eat. During Pongal times, he would skin the sugarcane, cut out the hard parts, cut it up into cubes for the both of us. He would make both of us get ready, polish our shoes and make sure we got into the school auto in time. But I never really thought about these finer things he did for us as a kid - he was always a monstrous granddad whom I respected and felt scared of to even talk at a higher tone. Thatha laughed very rarely - we would wait for him to laugh at jokes , just because it was so rare.
Through his honest savings, Thatha managed to build a house and some land - got all his four daughters married and settle comfortably. But he never gave up on his spirit of entrepreneurship - even when we discovered that he had prostrate cancer during the 2nd stage. Thatha suddenly changed his diet to suit this monster that was inside him - he would buy loads of cauliflower , beets and everything else that was believed to control it - but sadly, the cancer only got worse. He went through radiation and chemotherapy and lost all his hair - but he grew it back in a few months after chemo sessions with his determined efforts . It was difficult to see Thatha being taken over by a disease. But he was staunchly optimistic to get the better of it. The doctors forbade him from driving his scooter and advised bed rest. A year later, doctors suggested we operate him - which we did. But Thatha could not walk after that. I was in college first year by then. Everyone came to see him while he was ailing - friends, family, extended relatives - scores of people who loved and respected him. I overheard Thatha telling one of them while he lay in his bed - "Sangeetha's college is only 3 kms from here. I will soon be able to drive my scooter and I can drop her off". I cried a lot that day - it was just too much for me to take. I realized I had started loving Thatha more and more since his cancer was announced - I could not watch him struggle when he tried to walk with our help - he was just too weak. This was Thatha - the strongest man I knew - and in many ways, my hero. It was like something happening to God - Gods don't fall sick, they are always strong.
Even while he was bedridden, Thatha continued to be active mentally, holding on to his pocket transistor - a green Philips he used to tune in to the AM radio each day. Calling out to us to get his work done - he would call me and say "Ma, indha Mat switcha podu" - to put on the Banish mosquito machine. Or "Ma, indha sombula konjam thanni kondu vaa". (He called the ladies Ma - ever chivalrous and respectful of women around him). I was at that stage grown up enough to understand Thatha's love of life - he wanted to live - I could see it in his eyes as he battled cancer. He wanted to continue taking care of us , to be his normal active self again. But it was not to be. It was a Saturday afternoon, I was sleeping . Dad woke me up and said softly "Sangee, I want you to come and see Thatha - he is not well, I think he is dying". Dad spoke to me in English only when he was very serious about something. I got up and went to see Appima at his bedside sobbing. Thatha looking up feebly - grandma asked me to bring some milk and we poured some into his mouth to drink - all three of us. It was painful - but for some strange reason , there is a practice of giving milk to someone dying. And there, right in front of my eyes - he passed away. We brought in a doc and he confirmed that he was dead. I still vividly remember his eyes as we gave him milk - he was still hoping to live as he died. Our father figure, the man who taught us everything as kids and loved us in ways his strict attitude did not overtly show, passed away - but not peacefully in his sleep as he deserved after a long and fulfilling life. I have cursed God many times for bringing upon such difficulty to him in his last days - but I realise now that is part of the learning God gave us. God gives suffering to those who can bear it and can come out of it stronger. Granddad definitely did - he died making all of us feel realise there is no giving up in life, that no disease or hardship is greater than the individual , that there is hope and life amidst all diversity, every day is to learn and worth looking forward to - even if you are afflicted by a disease mankind is yet to find a cure to. I could not get over his death for a very long time. I would often go into his room thinking he was there.. I have had hallucinations that he his calling out to me from his room "Ma, indha mat switcha podu". It was impossible to accept he was not at home anymore.
I vowed to work for cancer research after all this - but I have ended somewhere else. There are better people out there for cancer research - but, no one could have taught Thambi and me better than Thatha. We are what we are today because of him - he continues to live within us - guiding us in spirit. I pray to Thatha each time I take an exam or start something new, just as I do to the other Gods - a silent 2 second prayer. I take his blessings every time I go home -prostrating in front of his photo in his room, praying that I be a fraction of what he was - asking him to remind me to be honest always. Thatha lives - through the plants in our garden that are off springs of the seeds he sowed, through the coconut trees he nurtured, through his clothes and tools that we still preserve, through our home, through the goodwill that he created for us - but more importantly, through the values that he held so high till the very end.
( Here is a picture of Thatha , Appima and me.. Srikant Deiveegarajan - dude.. i beat you in this one , you dont have a picture like this :P)
I literally had tears gal... Thaatha... we love you.. And miss you.. Bless us.
ReplyDeleteyeah - I was in a lot of tears myself when I wrote this
Deleteit reminds me of d days we come for d hols..miss u thaatha and we love u.. bless us
ReplyDeleteyes dear.. those were good times. Thatha loved having you home and so did we all..
DeleteI will recollect this blog if anything seem to be hard for me in days forward.
ReplyDeleteThanks de :-)
wish I had spent more time with him - i mean, talking to him much more. We should not have been so scared of him
ReplyDeleteI was very much moved by your article on your Thatha.. very inspiring ..such people are very rare these days ..You all have his blessings always!!! Wish you all the very best! Your blog is interesting. i just happened to come across your blog when i was searching for "Covering terrace with coconut branches" in google...
ReplyDelete