Roddamma, fond memories

Roddamma, fond memories

Its 5:30 in the morning and the sun is just rising, as I looked out the window sleepily I could see Roddamma walk from her little home to ours.  Roddamma was bent at almost 90 degrees and as she walked she had both her hand behind her back.  She would look for weeds as she walked through the sandy lane into our “muttam” and pluck any unwanted and small grass that should not have been there.  I went to the bathroom and by the time I came back to bed I could hear the murmurs from the kitchen below, my amumma and Rodamma greeting each other and starting the day.  As she came in she got some sheaths from the coconut palms that my amumma would use to start the wood fire for cooking in the kitchen. 

Rodamma would start her work in our home by sweeping the floor and then swabbing the whole place with a wet cloth.As she finished sweeping the floor in each room she would take the dust and the dirt between her fingers and throw it across the step into the next floor.  Unlike the way floors are swet todaym she would sit on the floor, sweep in long strokes and clean areas as she sat and moved herself across the floor.  Once she finished sweeping she would fill her samll bucket with water from the well and carry it with her with a clith for swabbing the floor.  The cloth was wrung so hard that when she swabbed the floor it shone like a mirror.  There was no dragging the wet cloth, she would press her palm down on the cloth to clean the floor.  The bucket of water was changed after every room.

Once done she would sit outside the itchen and clean fish or vegetables.  Fish was a ritual, she would clean the fish with rock salt and made sure that she cleaned the fish with water many times till the water was clear after she rinsed the fish for the last time.  She cut off the head and the tal, the fins and the scales of the fish and drew lines across so that the spices would seep in.  Most days it was sardines.  By this time her daughet in law, Kunjalakutty would also have joined in the kitchen and owuld be helping amumma to clean utensils, grind the spices and clean all the brass lamps and such in the house.  They shone and glittered everyday.

Having completed her choses, all the while talking to amumma, she would sit down to her first meal of the day by about 9:00 a.m.  This was a bowl of kanji and the curry made for the day and it was my pleasure to sit in front of her and watch her have the kanji and curry or fish with a leaf spoon made from a leaf from the jackfruit tree or the plaavu.  She would slurp and smack her lips and soon i would be salivating and hoping that I could get some. I had strict instructions from amumma not to take any food from her because she wanted Rodamma to eat her meal in full and in peace.  She would then walk home and many times I have followed her back to her home to play with her grandchildrem, Lilly, Marykutty, Thomas and Jose.

Rodamma, was old and very old to me.  She had long hair on her chin and on her upper lip.  In the evening, her grand daughter, Lilly would come to get black coffee from our home for her family.  Once again I would follow Lilly back to their home and sometimes I got a glass of that black tea with jaggery.  To this day I can tase that coffee when i close my eyes and think back!  In the evening Rodamma would help her grandaughters make bidis, which was a small scale industry back in the nineteen seventies and early eighties.  A small rectangulay meatl peice was used to cut the leaf to get 3-4 rectangualr peices of the leaf.  Some tobacco was fillened length wise into the middle of the leaf and the leaf was rolled into a cylinder, this was then tied with a green thread and knotted by pressingand turning  the two ends of the thread between the forefinger and thumb.  The end were folded in with a long metal piece.  Lilly and Marykutty made a 1000 bidis a day and were paid by the bidi factory.  It was the Kajah Bidi.  Rodamma would humour me and give me all the material and teach me to make bidis and I would swell with pride if she complimented on the ones that came out well.

Rodamma was a happy person and took life by its horns and lived like life itself was at her mercy. She enjoyed a bit of toddy after which she would break into songs and laughter.  She also chewed some tobacco and ket some under her tongue.  This, I was not allowed to touch.  She used to keep my amumma company at night and would come and unroll her bedroll and lie down in the corridor.  She would tell stories of the day, the yesteryears, the village gossip andonce in a way if she heard noises from the attic ask my amumma waht it was and go on to ghost stories!!  Such were the days, an old Nair lady in the big house, the older christian lady, the caretaker’s family and the love and the friendship between them was a big lesson for me in life.  Friendhsip cuts across economics, religion, age, beliefs.  Rodamma was equally my grandmother she she was to Jose, Thomas, Lilly or Marykutty.  She knew and sang old christian folk songs, an art fort is now being revived.  She respected y amumma’s Gods as my amumma believed in Rodamma’s and each celebrated the others festivals with a gusto.

Till date our families have close ties, now Rodamma’s great grand children are doing well, Lilly had become widowed and is old, probably as old as the age when Rodamma seemed very old to me.  Marykutty, who is my age is a grandmother, Thomas and Jose parents to sons who have gron up and some married.  We remain friends and the link goes generations down, to when my amumma and Rodamma were young, healthy and forged a friendship.  They left some beautiful memories, some valuable lessons and some friendhips that go beyond the limits of time!