Achhamma

Achamma or my father’s mother had a large presence in my life and has a larger presence in my memory. She was that person who does not lose innocence at any age in life and always had an impish, childlike quality about her.

I spent my summer vacations with her because my mother would have me study through the summer, all the lessons in Physics, Math and Chemistry, that would be taught in the subsequent year. I found it quite a pain but the alleviating factors were that my cousin Sunil would have started his classes and the fact that I stayed with my Achamma, Valiachan and my cousins. While the tutors were a large part of any day, I had some lovely moments with Achamma, even though she stealthily slipped in to check if we were caught up on our lessons and home work, she played many a game of puzzles with us.

Achamma allowed me to sleep in, which meant I could get up by 7 a.m. after which she will just switch off the fan. In that hot and sultry weather, no fan meant no sleep, and I would get up. She would have breakfast ready for me by then, which consisted of 3 dosas or idlis and a onion chutney. She would sit with me and put a spoonful of sugar on my plate and I developed a taste for sugar with the onion chutney which many find odd and surprising. Achamma had a sweet tooth and she had sugar almost with everything including bread and butter with sugar on the top. After her bath she smelt of soap and shampoo and “bhasmam”, the sacred ash which she adorns on her forehead after her bath. Her hair had thinned, was peppery and it fell just a little below her shoulders but after a bath, she would make me or my cousin Nandini pick any loose hair that were there on her white blouse or on the floor. She said that otherwise it wlll br found in the food we eat.

Achamma had a way to soothe away troubles and pain, her remedy to all headaches, muscle cramps, stomach cramps was Panadol, the good old Paracetamol and she would be standing there near you with a steel tumbler of water in one hand a Panadol in another. One dose of it and I would be fine and she would check every half an hour to see if I was fine. Hug Achamma in the evening and she smells of Tiger Balm because she nursed a headache almost everyday. From her, Tiger Balm was handed down to many of us as it really takes the bite away from a headache as it is replaced by the sting of the balm. That and the Panadol did the trick.

Valiachan or my paternal grandfather, was a very disciplined and somewhat strict person but with us children he was very warm. Achamma managed to be her playful self even with him. While she scolded him for indulging Nandini by leaving a little portion of the sweet Ayurvedic tonic for her every night in the ounce glass, she allowed him to indulge her by giving her a portion of his chapati every night at dinner.

Our biggest excitement was when the roadside vendors would be called into the house by her so that we could choose bangles and ribbons for ourselves. The bangle seller would open his trunk displaying the rolls of ribbons in all colours and we would by them by the meter. Each one of us would get a meter of ribbon of four or five colours we chose. Achamma also got us bangles, a dozen for each of our arms and she insisted on plastic bangles because we were too young to have glass bangles which might break and cut into our hands. The bread and bun seller went by on a cycle and he would honk the horn of his cycle when her reached our house and we would run out and call him. He would sell fruit bread and sweet buns, freshly baked and the aroma of it spread the moment he opened his bread box. I dont ever remember her haggling over price with any of the vendors and paid them what they asked for.

When I started learning classical dance and music she would find a quiet time on a quiet day and ask me to sing a small bhajan for her or sit on the sofa and aks me to dance. I had no music for the dance but I would proudly show her all the steps I knew. My aunt Vanajamai would be watching me too and both would tell me how beautifully I dance.

Acahamma could genuinely laugh at our jokes, silly as they were, she would ask us the riddles she knew and would walk away if we could not answer and would make us wait long before she gave the answer. She also had 2 small steel rods that were interlocked but if we twisted it in a specific manner it would come apart and she taught us the technique. It was there with her as a precious game. Achamma was meticulously clean herself wearing a spotless white mundum veshtiyum every day and when she travelled she carried her own glass and spoon because she did not like to use the glasses and spoons provided at the restaurants. Now that was a sore point with my grandfather but as children we loved it when she took out her glass and spoon from her bag at the restaurants.

Towards the end of her life she started loosing her memory. The last time I saw her when she had some level of memory was in 1994, I was already married and I stayed with her for some days. She remembered me as a school girl, thought I was still in school, checked in on me at night and kept a pillow beside me so that I dont roll out of the bed and fall down. Memories fail, love remains, Achamma lives in our memories.