What's the good name?

What is the height of adventure? For some people it is jumping from a plane...for some it is bungee jumping or scaling a steep cliff. The thrill and the adrenalin rush it gives you is a heady feeling. For me the ultimate adrenalin rush comes with flirting with grave danger a.k.a calling my mother “edi leelamme.” The thrill it gives will beat sky diving with an umbrella any day!!!

I come from a family where calling elders by name is forbidden even if the elder is elder by a couple of months only! If you were to ask me what my grandfather’s youngest brother’s name is I wouldn't know and he is my favorite grand uncle too! He is called Kunjitappan (Kunju + chittappan). His eldest brother is called Perappan and the guy after him Chittappan. The wives also follow the same naming logic and that is 8 pairs of names that we kids memorized by habit by the time we were 6 or 7 years old. I have to call both my elder brothers "chetan" even though one doesn't deserve it at all :p Even cousin brothers who are elder have to be addressed as “chetan” and cousin sisters are “chechi.” It is more or less a habit now and as a kid I amused elders by calling cousin brothers close to my age as “eda cheta”

Luckily for us we are allowed to call my Dad’s five brother as “uncles”. However there was a hitch. Every person in my family both from my mother’s side and father’s side has a nick name…sigh. And remembering my uncles nicks was really tough. My Dad is called Kunjunju, the next Kunjooty and so on. We could never tell them apart and to the usual question as to which of the brothers kids were, we usually messed up royally :p My family is 500 strong so you can imagine the number of names we had to know. It came naturally as we have heard them being addressed with their nick since we were lil kids. But there is a hitch here too. We do not know their “real names” It was very recently that I came to know that two close friends and cousins called “Kunjumon” and “Ciby” were Mathew and Sebastian respectively and the revelation came when they came here for their interviews and my Dad was going over their papers. For the past 21-22 years I had never known that they were Mathew and Sebastian!!!

So this Saturday I sat down and got my mom to tell me the “real” names of people I know so well except for their ‘real’ names of course. And out tumbled the Antony’s and Abrahams and Korahs and Thomases out of the family closet. I just couldn’t believe that these people had normal names! :-O

What is more surprising and somewhat miraculous is that my Mom and Dad married into almost identical families as far as nomenclature traditions are concerned! Else they are as different as chalk and cheese :p

Coming to the height of adventure….now you can imagine the grave peril I subject my life and limbs to when I dare to call my mom “edi leelamme”. And it is the absolute faith in my ability to outrun my mom and stay out of sight till she cools down that makes me take the chance! :|

An old friend and compatriot

One of my fondest memories of Kerala and childhood was the njaar. A sort of a small river or brook or stream which flows independently for some stretch before joining a larger river. The njaar flows half a kilometer away from my Dad's house, but the gurgling of its flowing water can be heard throughout the day, more pronounced during the night. I have slept to its gurgles and chuckles and woke up to its roar.

As soon as we reached "home" we the kids would clamor to be taken to the brook. Ammachi would click her tongue and tell us to get acclimatized to the weather and well water first before plunging into the cold mountain water. She always knew it was a losing battle but she tried anyways. The preparation for bathing in the brook was simple. Copious amounts of fresh coconut oil drizzled on the crown of the head and we were ready to go. Being the youngest I had to hold on to my ammachi's hand as she lived in perpetual fear of me being washed away. She would snort with indignation on the way back when people jocularly exclaimed that they were so relieved to see me alive [:p] Her phobias were well known to all and sundry! :)

The first sight of the brook, glistening in the sun is indescribable! It was like spotting a dear old friend waiting for us to come back to play with him. Getting out of our clothes was a record breaking feat and the first plunge bought shrieks and screams as the cold water touched our warm bodies leaving us gasping at its icy coldness. After that it was nightmare time for my ammachi as she could never get us out of the water. Finally she would have to send word to the house to get my Dad to come down and get us out of the water. My Dad would come down and haul us out or most of the times join us in the water. Ammachi's "yatha raja tatha praja" still rings in my ears :))

Finally when we got out, we compared our shriveled hands and legs. The one who was soaked the most got admiring and envying glances.

The brook brings back a lot of memories. Of freshly pressed coconut oil and ammachi and thorth fishing. Of clinging on to my Dad's slippery back while he swam in the deeper areas, Dad’s *ouch* as I grasped the hair on his back for fear of falling in the river, Pears soap, glass bottles filled with tiny fishes, cold mountain water and shouts of flash floods! Of lying in the water looking at the sky and peeping into the clear bottom of the small river. Jumping off rocks into the small depth pockets and tiny fishes nibbling on our legs. Of coconuts and other flotsam that floated downstream on its way to some land far far away and sulks when we were told to get out and dry ourselves. Of my Dad or Ammachi taking us to see the elephants that worked in the Teak plantations to compensate for pulling us out of water and sheer blissful times of skipping ahead of them through dense paddy fields and rubber tree forests.

The njaar still flows. Instead of rollicking kids you see plastic, old slippers and such effluvia floating in it. The water bodies of Kerala are dead. A culture is dead. Long live the water bodies of Kerala.

The Y generation

Yesterday, my cousin sister's 8 year old daughter acompanied me to the ATM. She stood watching fascinated as the man before me took out money from the ATM. When it was my turn to use the ATM, I noticed my niece going around and round the ATM with a puzzled look. Finally she looked at me and said "But where is the man who gives you the money?" :)

Kids are the cutest aren't they? She also taught me the worlds shortest Nursery Rhyme on the way back to her house and it is...

Baa baa black sheep have you any wool?
No! F**k Off!

...and I thought it was "three bags full"

...obviously it is not.

To a special person...

This time last year, my family and extended family were busy with a big event in the family and that was my eldest brother’s wedding. I was damn excited about the whole thing with no care in the world. Since my brother is the eldest grandchild in my Dad’s family, it was considered a special occasion with the entire family dividing duties for the wedding. It took a big load off our shoulders.

It was a couple of days before the wedding that the import of the occasion struck me. Here was a guy who doubled up as an elder brother and Dad during my growing years and who was now getting married. It was like as if my parents were getting married to different people and going away. I suddenly felt like an orphan. The realisation hit me like a thunderbolt and I went into a minor depression. I remember writing in a mail to a friend that in a few days I would be losing my brother. I do not know why I wrote that and why I thought that. She replied right back telling me that I would never lose my brother no matter what.

Around this time the realisation that her eldest son is getting married must have hit my mom too because she also went very quite. This was the little boy who helped her raise her other two younger brats because my Dad was in the Gulf then. ( the reasons are here) The boy who had to feed his little sister when he was barely 8 years old and keep an eye on her while his she, my mom battled with the onerous task of keeping my hyperactive second brother from killing himself with all sorts of aimless brainless activities. This was the boy whom her daughter called “achcha” for the first time, which according to family legend is what made my Dad pack up his bag and leave the Gulf for good. (Though he hotly denies this, my Dad did spend the first month after getting back teaching me to call him achcha :p ). And this was the guy whom young moms in the family consulted when my mom was out and they needed help.

Young mom: What is that you used to give your sister when she had a tummy ache
Bro: Bonnisan!
Young mom: And what’s the dosage?
Bro: A teaspoon three times a day and be careful, if your son is anything like my sister then make sure you don’t show him the bottle or it will be smashed to pieces.

While most boys his age played and enjoyed themselves, my chetan had to keep an eye on me as I crawled around the house besides attend to his studies and homework, with a lot of “silverine spit the dog out right now!!!” thrown in. This was the guy who never had a proper childhood due to parenting duties dumped on his lap when he was so small. And this was the guy who loved being a parent to his younger siblings and never grumbled about the responsibilities on his young shoulders.

He was the person my teachers complained to because complaining to my Dad was useless. He would swell with pride when informed that I had pulled someone’s hair or not done my homework. He bought a semblance of order in my life, a discipline that normally should have been put in place by my Dad. He is the guy who kept an eye on my Dad, when I was forbidden to eat Ice Creams for a year due to a throat condition. My Dad somehow managed to get me one though my brother’s strict vigilance did pay off and I completed that year hating him for being so rigid.

And a lot more things besides...

On his wedding day last year (Dec 31st) I was a mess, I was sniffling around the house. My Dad was a little emotional too and my mom was not doing too well either. My second brother was too busy running around and the house was chock full of relatives. By mid morning my friends got a little concerned and I started getting calls from them telling me not to cry and spoil my brother’s big day. This made me cry more. Relations were teasing me saying that I could not barge into my brother’s room anymore and that made me feel worse!!

Throughout the day people like Sunitha and Anish kept calling trying to cheer me up. By evening my brother noticed the plight that mom and me were in and took us aside for a meeting and told us that all that he was doing was going to the Church for some time, getting married and after the Reception would be right back home for our annual New Year get together. When he put it so matter of factly like getting married was no big deal, things just fell in place. On his wedding day instead of glowing like a groom to be, he was back to parenting me and supporting his mother :(
Suddenly the past three days emotional outbursts looked childish and silly. I felt really bad for acting like a kid and spoiling that one special day in my big brother’s life. I got through the Wedding Mass and the Reception without a hitch but a lingering guilt remained and still remains. Like most of my misdemeanours in the past I know my brother will brush this one too aside indulgently, but the incident did make me grow up....fast :P

This is my 100th post here and I want to dedicate this to one of the most important person in my life. Thank you, you are the greatest Cheta.

Wishing you all a very happy and joyous Christmas and prosperous New Year!!

Of rosaries, fireflies and kittens

One of my most vivid memories of childhood is the family rosary that is said at the end of the day in my ancestral house in Kerala. In my Dad’s house, rosary was an informal affair. This is a house of six sons, so it was a miracle that my grandparents got them to say rosary and that too without missing it a single day till today.

On the other hand, in my mom’s house the balance was in favor of girls, as my mom has so many sisters and few brothers. Therefore rosary was a serious affair and my otherwise sweetheart of a grandfather would become a disciplinarian during rosary time. Since we split our stay in these two homes, the contrast in the families was quite evident in many areas…one of them being the family rosary.

Family rosary in Kerala in both homes still reminds me of a house with dimmed lights, the altar ablaze with candles and the entire family sitting in various parts of the house. Some people would sit on the ground in front of the altar, some on the chairs in the living room, some outside and my mom with me on the verandah, as there was no way I would sit still for the 45 minutes of the rosary. Wherever people sat, they joined in, as one harmonious group. However this is where the similarities in both households ended.

My moms mother, was very fond of cats. And every time we went home there would always be a poochakutty (kitten) for me to play with. And during rosary, as though by some devilish design, the kittens would be at their naughtiest best. They would catch imaginary insects with their front paws and do somersaults in the air and other such naughty antics that would make it impossible not to giggle. My grandfather would raise his voice often during the rosary and call out my name in a warning tone and I would recede into my mother's lap for a few seconds. But the devil had other designs, because the kittens would come up with some more hysterically funny tricks and I would be giggling again. And they made sure that they used the altar room floor for their antics!! My cousins in the house, who were trained by my grandfather to sit down quietly during the rosary, would look at me with gleeful delight, because I dared to break the family rule of maintaining pin drop silence during the rosary.

My grandfather would sigh as the rosary proceeded with my giggles in the background. After the rosary he would give his favorite daughter, my mom, the 789th talk on bringing up kids the proper way, and how he had bought up his kids so well and even though she is now married to a guy from Pala (who are no good compared to the genteel people of Changanassery) she should still uphold the family values etc.etc. My eldest brother would sit through the rosary quietly and even lead at times. So the general consensus was that he had taken after my mom’s family. The family would then look at my second brother M and me and say with a twinkle in the eyes that these two had a surfeit of the father's genes in them.

The Pala barbarian, the daughter of the family was married to, would of course be safely ensconced in his home, going through the family rosary at breakneck speed as his Dad was hard of hearing, so that the brothers could open the bottle while the evening was still young. He would have warned his wife in mock seriousness before she set off to her home with his kids, that he wanted us back the same way he had raised us and not changed to wussies, which is what he thought people from my her side of town were. :p My mom countered gamely by saying that a few days of good upbringing at her house, would do a world of good for her kids. :)

During the rosary, there were other distractions too. Thousands of minnaminungu (fireflies) would adorn the darkness around the house like serial lights. Before the rosary we i.e me and my second brother M, would have already kept our Horlicks jars ready for the catch. And we would fill these jars with these tiny glowing worms that we caught. They made such a pretty sight with their flourescent light glowing in the jar. My mom would make us release these before we went in to sleep.

After the rosary, my mom’s brothers would take out the jeep and drive over to my Dad's house, where their drinks awaited. The brothers in laws got along really well. After dinner my maternal grandfather would make a small drink and tell us stories about saints and martyrs. This would be followed by lights out as the family retired for the day.

Rosary, in my Dad’s house on the other hand was preceded by my Dad and his brothers making elaborate arrangements for the drinking and card session that invariably followed it. This would be preceded by my Grandma and aunts preparing the snacks to go with the drinks. With six sons, my grandma was a whiz in making non veg snacks that served as accompaniments with drinks. When everything was set, the family sat down for rosary. Rosary, unlike in my moms house would be uncomplicated and without the long boring prayers and it would be over in half an hour. After which we could go out and play and make noise and run after the fireflies. There was no bedtime curfew and soon people from neighboring estates would join in. The partying will go on late into the night, as most of these men went to school and college together. It is a time of camaraderie, jokes and political discussions. The tradition lives on to this day. Surprisingly there are more priests and nuns in my Dads family than my moms!

In spite of these contrasts I liked living in both houses.


(This post was inspired by this post
by Alexis, which reminded me so much of my home in Kerala)

Down under to Vailankanni and Point Calimere

Every year we go to Vailankanni in January. It is a sort of a New Year pilgrimage. My parents came here soon after they were married and then with each one of us, as we arrived. Since then we have been coming here every January. I must confess that I am addicted to this place. Apart from the visit to the shrine this place is an amazing world in itself. The whole family looks forward to the trip.

Since the beginning we have always driven down to Vailankanni as having your own transport is ideal for a family like ours, that likes to explore. The drive till Trichy is uneventful. From Trichy the sights change suddenly, as banana plantations line the road on either side of the way. Somewhere along the way, the river Kaveri joins you. It flows calmly and steadily along the way and the sight is beautiful. We always take the bypass from Trichy, which means narrow well-maintained roads via green paddy fields and more banana plantations. After you reach Thanjavur, the rice bowl of India, you enter a sea of green paddy field broken only by the narrow road. The drive is sheer pleasure and you feel you are going back in time as you rapidly leave civilization and enter a very sparsely populated agrarian region.

As you near Vailankanni, the geography changes. You can smell the sea air and the earth looks like a lumpy green blanket dotted with lots of small ponds. The bird population too changes and you see a lot of fish eating birds. The land is empty save for a few cattle grazing here and there.

There is a variety of accommodation here, our favorite is the MGM Resort bounded on three sides with green paddy fields and the main road in the front. The view from the room is breathtaking. The IT boom can be seen here too. Air Conditioned busloads of families from Kerala coming in by the hour. Last year a big family joined us as we sat with our drinks on the lawns and it became a big pot luck party. They were a group of techies from Bangalore who had joined together and taken their families from Kerala and come here. And you know when Achayans get together what happens!! Some serious vellam adi :p

An hour of driving towards the south of Vailankanni takes you to Kodikkarai also known as Point Calimere. It is bounded by Bay of Bengal on the East and Palk Straits on the South. The wildlife sanctuary here is home to bluebuck, spotted deer, wild boar, semi wild ponies, bonnet macaque, water birds like flamingoes, ibises, herons and spoonbills. Also some of the endangered reptiles like olive ridley turtles, starred tortoise, vipers and marsh crocodiles. If you go around the evening, you can see the birds returning to the beaches and scrub forests to their nests. A truly wonderful sight, and they are quite tolerant of humans.

The drive itself is a delight. You drive through a forest road with an occasional village in between and on the way you suddenly come across clearings, with the sea on both sides. The sudden appearance of the sea takes your breath away. There is intense security checking here due to the proximity to Sri Lanka. You also get to see a rock with Rama's footprint, as he is suposed to have traversed these forests during his Vanvaas.

What strikes you about this place is the silence...save for bird calls and the sounds of the sea. We stopped near a scrub forest to photograph some birds and saw an old man patiently catching small fishes for dinner in the backwater. He caught about five fishes and then folded his net and walked away. My brother who was talking to him gave him ten rupees, which he declined politely. With a straight face he told my brother that if accepts the ten rupee he will drink and hence reach home late with the fish and then his wife would beat him up :)) If you know Tamil, then you get to enjoy yet another aspect of this land…Tamil humor :)

All around you see birds, that you get to see only on Animal Planet or Discovery Channel… and silence, blessed silence all around. You feel like you are the only people on the planet.

We take the hour-long drive to Point Calimere every year. The year of the Tsunami devastation was the only time we didn’t visit Vailankanni as it was not advisable due to the outbreak of diseases. Somehow down the years, going to Vailankanni has become more than a pilgrimage. It is a time of family bonding and having our otherwise busy Dad all to ourselves. Nothing like walking with him on the beaches of Kodikkarai, listening to his gyan or just being one with Nature’s silence.

(Ideal time of year to visit:December and January)

The spirit of the game...beer!

There is deathly silence in my house today. Quite a contrast to yesterday, when a whole bunch guys landed up here, the two friends circles of both brothers. So, there were the married types (eldest brother's friends) trying to pacify disgruntled wives over their mobiles and the merry bachelors (second brother's friends) making numerous sorties to liquor shops and stacking the fridge with beer. The occasion? The Quarter Final matches that they were going to watch on the giant screen installed in the lawns.

Normally my house is crawling with guys but yesterday there were too many. Two diversely opposite groups who normally avoid each other by having their Friday get together in opposite ends of the house. There were guys looking at the skies and fretting over the cloud formation while there were some who kept opening the fridge from time to time, as though by checking up on the beer would make it chill faster. ( and they call us gals fussy!!!)

The roads were deserted by 8 pm and me and the doggies had the full run of the street for some quality time together. I got back to see Portugal and England battling it out in what seemed a really tough game. What was interesting was the crowd watching the match on the giant screen. Everyone was wearing the colors of the team they were supporting. So both teams had fair support. My Dad and his card group were sitting timidly, a safe distance away for they risked getting crushed by guys jumping up and down and cursing and shouting and spilling beer. The general atmosphere was charged and one could feel the tension in the air. It was interesting to watch the match and the emotions it evoked and the emotions in the wake of the aftermath of the match. The English supporters were dejected while the Portuguese supporters were jubilant and doing some kind of dance to celebrate on the lawn.

The crowd had their food and was ready for the next cliffhanger...Brazil Vs France. By this time I decided to sleep. However sleep was interrupted by sudden shouts and I rushed out from time to time to see that the score was still 0-0. Somewhere in some ungodly hour I was shaken awake by my brother telling me that the match was over. I went out groggily to see one section of the crowd sitting in stunned silence while another was jumping up and down. France had won *Yawn*.

I went back to sleep and got up to an unnatural silence today. Except my mom and the maids everyone is fast asleep. There are bodies everywhere, there is one guy sleeping outside in front of the giant screen bottle still in hand. And there are some on the sofa, while most of them are stretched out on the verandah on the mattresses hired for the day (they thought of everything).

Guess it will be a peaceful Sunday today.

Happy Mothers Day!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mommies. My cousin sister in Bangalore called us up to wish my Mom and her sisters all of who are here for another Engagement. She made her little daughter wish me. It was so cute to hear her say "Happy Mothers Day chechi". I am her regular babysitter you see and it was very sweet of my cuz sis to do that. Before my cuz sis could put the receiver down I heard her daughter ask her why she should wish me for Mothers Day as I am not a mommy. That question bought a flood of memories and I am dedicating this post to a special person in my life, who was like a second mother to me throughout my growing years. And this person is my mom’s youngest sister Ann.

Ann is nearly 12 years younger to my mom and was ( and still is) a breathtaking beauty. All the girls in the family were famed for their beauty but Ann was the best. Poor thing was also born into an ultra orthodox Syrian Catholic family, which means she was berated if a guy even looked in her direction. She grew up never appreciating her own beauty and always felt it was her fault because someone made a remark about her good looks. Such remarks were construed as shameful and she would get a scolding. Good Syrian Catholic girls did not attract undue attention to themselves according to norms in those days.

Inspite of having the ‘handicap’ of being extremely beautiful, she was a happy go lucky gal, who was absolutely crazy about me. For Dassara and Christmas holidays, she would insist that I be sent to Kerala and I remember flying as an Unaccompanied Minor with Indian Airlines. (We get about 10 days for Dassara and X'mas)The joy of seeing her face among the sea of people waiting at the airport is indescribable. She would lift me up and refuse to put me down and then I was her daughter for the duration of the stay. She would jealously refuse even my Ammachi from taking me to church, or the chandha, the farmers market which I loved to attend. Neither would she leave my side for a minute.

People would tease her saying that now that I am home, Ann will ignore everybody or they would say “wait till she goes back, then you will have to talk to us”. She is a gifted artist and wrote small articles for Femina in the 70’s. On the insistence of my Mom and her other sister’s, my grandparents let her complete her MA. They were afraid to keep a beautiful daughter unwed at home for too long.

For her wedding I threw a tantrum and hated her husband at sight. I didn’t understand why she had to go away with some strange man . And my uncle understood my hostility and promised me at the reception that he would take good care of her. It took me many months to get over the hostility and talk to him. But he kept his promise and is a wonderful husband and Uncle to me. He is also my favorite Uncle because he is a birder like me and we have been to many expeditions together. Today he is taking me to a place where he has seen some rare birds. Their greatest regret…that they have only sons and no daughter. A fact that saddens her to this day. Sometimes she sighs and says, maybe it was her greed for a daughter that made God punish her.

If she did have a daughter then that little girl would have been the luckiest girl in the whole world to have her as a mother.

My First Holy Communion

I received my First Holy Communion at the age of eight. My grandparents and tradition decreed that eight was the appropriate age.As is the tradition the ceremony was held at my Moms place in Kerala. A cousin brother Tommy also received his First Holy Communion with me. We both would go for the Catechism classes at the Church where I was baptized. The place where I come from in Kerala is a completely Catholic area. The entire community therefore knew about our First Holy Communion. Whether we were playing outside or generally running around the fields people passing by would stop to ask us if we had by learnt the prayers. Then came the twist in the tale. People would go and tell Tommy that I had learnt all the prayers and vice versa. Both of us would then all worked up at the competition and anxiously study our prayers and Catechism. We both passed our test with flying colors largely due to the rivalry created by the folks in the village :)

Then came the day of Confession. All my cousin brothers and sisters helped me compile a list of sins, because at age eight I did not even know what sin was. I had a pitiful and handful number of sins to my credit and all of them were committed against my second brother like pulling his hair, writing in his class notebook and letting out air from his bicycle. However with a lot of help from everybody around I had a decent list of sins to my credit to Confess. The Confession went off well watched by anxious parents, Uncles and Aunts. My Uncles teased me when it was over saying that it was the longest confession in the history of the Church!!!

Next day, which was a Sunday, the Church was booked for the First Holy Communion. It was a special Mass. The church was packed with relatives from both sides, that is Tommy’s and mine. An aunt in the US had sent a lovely lace frock for my First Holy Communion complete with lace gloves and veil. Tommy’s Uncle from Dubai had sent him a Double breasted White Suit!!!! The result was very uncomfortable. In the Kerala heat, lacy dresses and double-breasted suits are a disaster. I was very uncomfortable with the paraphernalia that I was wearing and I can only imagine the acute discomfort of Tommy in the suit. I don’t remember much of the ceremony because the lace kept itching and the glove made my hands sweat.

Somehow the ceremony got over and after the mandatory photographs with all and sundry the entire entourage moved to my Moms Tharavadu for the feasting. It is a tradition in my part of Kerala (more of a chauvinism) that at least four kinds of meats should be served at an important occasion like this. So there was Beef, Chicken, Duck, Fish and Mutton. My Dad must have been collecting booze from the day I was born, for it was flowing like water and even the priest got drunk! As soon as I reached home, my Mom’s sister got me out of the lace costume much to my relief and made me wear normal clothes. It was like a burden lifted off my shoulders literally because the dress was heavy. After that it was fun playing with my cousins and generally being the center of attraction. Today Tommy flies for an US airline as a Pilot and whenever we meet or email we still talk about the rivalry that was created between us all those years ago.

I don’t know why the people are in such a tearing hurry to make their kids go through First Holy Communion at such a young age. Recently I was helping my cousin sisters's daughter prepare for her First Holy Communion ( as I am her Godmother) and I went through the whole routine again, this time understanding it better. I know for a fact that my little niece doesn’t even know what’s happening like me all those years ago.

All in all it was a nice experience and I got some 20,000 Rosaries and Bibles as presents :))

Mannu

I was reading this post by mindcurry today. It took me back a few years when I turned 12. My first thought on my 12th birthday was “oh no, I am no longer a kid, my parents will not love me like they did before!” But nothing changed. Now a decade later nothing has changed. I am still their little girl they fuss over, though I do a bit of fussing over them too. I am happy for these constants in my life, my Dad, Mom, brothers and some cousins and aunts and uncles. My parents are from an agricultural background. Their people are some of the nicest Malayalaees that I have met. Simple, hardworkind, loving and absolutely crazy about us kids. Even though my Dad has six brothers there was no haggling over family property and subsequent enmity that happens in Syrian Catholic homes and the brothers have a respect for each other that is so heart warming to watch. When I hear about property disputes, I thank God that a piece of land did not tear my Dad’s or Mom’s family apart as it has done to so many families. I can walk into my Uncles homes, which are close to each other and feel the special bond between our families. And what is more heart warming is that their wives get along so well too. These ladies are from six different families but come together for any function, help each other out, go to church together and fight over who gets to oil my hair and plait it !! I am the only niece for my uncles and hence a bone of contention for the aunties!!! In fact one of the most enduring memories from child hood was coconut oil and eyebrow pencil.Everyday one aunt or the other would oil my hair and plait it, then take the eyebrow pencil and draw a long line vertically on my forehead, which is a Keral style 'pottu' or 'bindi'. Then my eyes would be lined with the eyeliner till I looked like a raccoon!! Then each aunty would take me to their maternal homes to show me off :) I think I used to look horrendous but bore up all the attention I got as a price for being the only girl in the family :)

Today I hear about yet another family that has split apart because of land dispute. What is it with us mallus and land? We are so greedy for any cent we can pick up that we will even throw our old parents out to appropriate land. While growing up the most common topic for family discussions in Kerala was property wars being fought by some family or other. It saddened me. Why are property disputes so complicated? Why can’t they just share it equally and remain as a family?

International Women's Day!

International Women’s Day has come and gone and not a single mag or newspaper I read has pointed out to a lady and said “ And this lady has done wonders in the field of child rearing,cooking, baby sitting, sacrificing her happiness for her kids and her career by being a house wife” . How many people actually honored the unsung housewife? I for one would like to nominate my Mom as a super achiever as wife, mom and housekeeper par excellance.

She bought up three kids single handedly when my Dad was in the gulf. Her first born was the stuff mommy dreams are made of. Quite, obedient, helpful etc. The second two were recurring nightmares. Hyperactive, disobedient and cranky. No maid would touch us with a barge pole. They would tell my mom “give us baba, we will look after him” Now baba was the first born who didn’t need looking after...seriously.

So my mom handed me over to my Chetan and took upon herself to look after my second brother. Now you might wonder why she needed to devote herself to look after him exclusively? Because his idea of entertainment was to run across the main road, climb trees and break limbs, pull dogs by their tails and get bitten etc. He never learnt from his mistakes and went after more trouble. He even pulled a pony’s tail and missed its kick, which could have shattered his 5 year old bones. She had to keep an eye on him every second of the day and night!

Now my mom was not the quintessential housewife who made sure that food was cooked and served on time and we were bathed, fed and in bed on time. She had the time to sit with us with Encyclopedia's and instilled in us the reading habit. TV was a strict no no. Only Discovery Channel and later National Geographic and Animal Planet were allowed. For my brothers an additional concession of Sports Channels were given. One of the reason why we are not so hooked onto TV.

And then my Dad came back and soon got busy with setting up his business. After a hard days work he didn’t want to come home and discipline the kids. He preferred to play with us or sit quietly while we climbed all over him :) So my moms hope of halving her parenting duties were dashed :)) But she managed with a smile and the occasional grumbling :))

Now please don’t tell me that she was not a working woman because she was a housewife!

I would like to dedicate this International Women’s Day to my mom.