Rugma M Nair
EY Kinfra
Eterne
Off late, after entering my thirties, I have started giving some thought on my contributions or the impressions I have left, if any, in this world. It might be because I get an ample amount of “free” time for “thinking” during my travel to and from office; or it might be the effect of some serious reading. I mull over these views very often and strangely it has become one of my favorite pastimes.
Many people who know me probably consider me as sarcastic and I might have found my way in lightening the mood with my comments (mostly snide), many a time; but none of it worth to be marked in memory for longer than a day or two. Friends and family who know me well may describe me as warm and loyal, but that too, not so rare a character. It is thus easy enough to conclude that I have hadn’t made a lasting imprint on anyone. The feeling is neither resentment nor disappointment, its just a fact about me that I discovered.
When I tread along that train of thought, I could pick up quite a few names, who touched, and made an impact on me, as well as other people around them. I am not talking about mass reformers like Gandhiji or Nelson Mandela. I mean simple ordinary folks, like you, or me, whose actions, words, or a mere look has left an enduring influence on others.
I have been told a story about the principal of a college, who comes in everyday, well before the classes start. He could be spotted picking up trashes from around the college premises. It’s said that the students who have seen the elderly principal in this daily act of tidiness, were taught a lifelong lesson on managing their trash. The effect is probably unknown for both the parties, but it does have an effect and that is what matters.
My great-grandmother, my maternal grandfather’s mother whom we called ‘Ammachi’ was a tenacious character and quite the ‘man’ in our family. She had single handedly raised her eight children, after their father, my great grandfather, passed away; despite her fragile body and cotton like white soft hair she was strong inside. She had always been that delicate and pale in my memory, yet she walked around the house and the courtyard at her own pace and grace.
She wasn’t too fond of us kids running around, she thought we’ll knock her down and was always grumpy during the holidays, when the house is swarming with a dozen of kids and grandkids. Her eyes were white, I remember my mom telling how they were light blue in color in her youth; only my grandfather got her eyes in our family. Ammachi had very poor eyesight since I have started seeing her, but apparently this heightened her other senses. She used to smell the curries from her room and would often, to my aunt’s annoyance, point the flaws; I think what annoyed my aunt most was that these pointers were always correct. She could also hear us sneaking into her room to take puli mittayi in the jar. She would ask “aara avide” (who’s there) and look straight to our face, we would freeze and go back silently, only to return after making sure ammachi is asleep or not in her room.
As a mother she was very strict and did not ease after being a grandmother. Ammachi did not quite agree with noisy kids. She was a disciplinarian and had no problem instilling this in her children. Ammachi always used to boast off, how much voracious, a reader, was she, in her youth; when her eyes were still blue and of use to her. My grandfather and his siblings are quite ardent readers, all thanks to ammachi. It did not end there, ammachi was able to cultivate this culture in her grandkids as well. Her technique was simple, she wouldn’t allow the kids to go out and play unless they read for at least an hour. Slowly, it became a habit for them, which luckily continued to the next generation.
Off all my cousins, I always felt, she had a particular dislike for my youngest brother Naadu. He was a little devil himself growing up; the naughtiest among us running into all kinds of tantrums. He too might have sensed ammachi’s aversion to him that he irritated her the most purposefully. He would hide her walking stick and hide the mittayi jugs. He even drank the sweetened Horlicks tea made specially for ammachi and leave the empty cup in her table. Ammachi did her share as well – she would ask Ravi mamman, our housekeeper to buy chocolates for all of us except for Naadu. She would complain about Naadu at great lengths even in the rare cases where he wasn’t involved. My mother had the toughest time acting as a negotiator between the two. It was difficult to estimate who despised the other most.
As naughty and wayward as he was, Naadu had another side. He loved poems and tried writing some himself. It’s one of the few traits, and we were thankful, he preserved, growing up. I was his sole listener those days. Once he came excitedly and read a poem to me which he wrote.
Today, on my way back home
I saw the tree, the lonely tree
It stood up on the rock-top;
It stood bare, at par with the fall
You might think that it will not hold,
Yet it has been there, through storm and breeze
I see the tree; I see its roots, as it stretches beyond the rock afar,
The air was dusty, dry and hot;
New roads were being built; her home, the rock, was being smashed
And yet she stands, ready to abide the springs to come
Oblivious to both of us, Ammachi had been in the room and heard this too. I was about to open my mouth to comment on the poem when Nadu shushed me with his finger and pointed towards ammachi. Her face was so overwhelmed with emotion and for the first time we saw tears trickling down the corners of her weary eyes. I knew it wasn’t about the poem, I guess it reminded her of something, maybe a tree, maybe some unrelated figment from the past, whatever it was I was sure she held it dear and she was happy to have it back from the forgone depths. Her face had a strange soft glow which we had never seen till that day.
She stretched her bony hands and called to Naadu. Seemingly, she wasn’t aware that I was in the room too. She held him close for a long time with her long shivering arms; At last when she let go of him, she planted a kiss on his forehead and said, “you should write more, never let go of the words”. As I stood watching, Nadu’s little hands wrapped around ammachi, his eyes welled up.
It was a very special experience for me, seeing two lifelong ‘foes’ standing in a moment of embrace. All their fights and fits lied forgotten for a few seconds. A minute of unconditional love, and it was over; Ammachi went back to her room and Naadu ran off to the courtyard as if nothing happened. It didn’t take much longer for me to realize that what I witnessed was not a reconciliation, but a moment’s magic. The trance was broken, and they were back in their old selves. That very night itself I heard Ammachi scolding and swearing Naadu for hiding her Ramayana. Both continued to torment each other until one day ammachi’s heart failed her, at the age of 104.
Though, we have never again talked of that day, I know that ammachi inspired Naadu the most and her words and hug has a huge role in his life. He is a successful businessman today but keeping true to ammachi he has not let go of words. He writes poems occasionally and I am his official reviewer.
Thinking back, I still stand in awe at the level of influence ammachi had in each of us. She wasn’t exactly a gentle, lovable soul, and in fact had some irate behaviors, yet she had a power in her which reached out to the people surrounding her and left a mark deep enough to last for an eternity. Though she died years back, she has deposited a tiny part of her in all our lives thus becoming eternal.
I believe that there are two types of people in the world, gullible, simple-minded type, allowing themselves to be molded; and, the strong ones, who naively preaches their beliefs and shapes the first type like ammachi. Neither the teaching nor the learning is a voluntary action, but rather it is defined by whom we are. Or maybe, we all are part learners and part teachers. Afterall, who am I to say, I have been forged and fashioned by the people and events around me; I am not original, ‘I’ in me owe to many.