Nostalgia

Cat (Art?) Dosa

After a long time I had the chance to make animal shaped dosas yesterday. Ranga's niece and her family had come home and I made a cat dosa, elephant dosa and fish dosa for the grandson!

Everybody around including Ranga was surprised to see the art in dosa!

I travelled down the memory lane to the great days at No.1. Ranganathan Road where my sister Sundari used to make cat shaped dosa for me. I do remember that Amma used to make small dosas - like the mini uthappams we get in Saravana Bhavan these days - just to make it more interesting for us to eat! To my knowledge it was Sundari who created the cat dosa first. I used to be very fascinated by the cat and used to eat just the tail, then the ears and then the head and so on, what fun it was! Later in life, I extended to elephant shape, fish shape, star shape etc for the many nephews and nieces, but till date cat dosa is the first one that I make when I get a chance to entertain a child with different shaped dosas!

Thank you Sundari for introducing me to this art. This blog is just for you!

In so many years, Ranga says he has never seen these dosas made by me and took some snaps!

Nostalgia

1, Ranganathan Road, Nungambakkam – part III

The concluding part of description of the great place where I grew up.  I wish I can go back in time and see the place as it was earlier!


Veli maadi – the backyard was called veli maadi. This again was one of our favourite place and we have had many moonlight dinners here. On the veli maadi we had stairs leading to mottai maadi and below the stairs was the place where the maid used to wash the vessels.

My Paati was so finicky about cleanliness that the maids had a tough time with her. But one look at all the vessels neatly placed upside down for drying will show that her fuss has paid off!  Paati’s strict instruction was that the vessels have to be dipped once again in plain water after the maid cleans and only then dried. I remember that initially this work was done by my eldest sister and later on, it was transferred to my second sister and so on!

Paati showed the same strictness in washing clothes. The maid had to rinse the clothes atleast three times, but the bucket should be filled only half with water as water wastage is very wrong according to Paati. To this day, I shout at my maid if she wastes water!

 
Veli maadi was the place where clothes were dried most of the time.  The left corner of veli maadi had a hand pump and during water problem, we used to take turns and pump water to fill up big drums and undas! Opposite the hand pump were two overhead tanks and I remember Paati slipping and falling there once, fracturing her hand!

Mottai maadi – From the veli maadi stairs led to mottai maadi. Again the steps of mottai maadi was one of favourite spots of Sundari to have coffee. We used to do some bird watching from that spot too as some rare birds used to come seasonally to the trees in pakkathu school. Mottai maadi was a huge place, covering the entire area of our house on the first floor. We have spent many summer nights sleeping in mottai maadi and the Sun waking us in the morning! We used to take the transistor to hear songs on vividha bharathi and Appa and I used to hear a lot of old songs then due to which I developed a great liking for old Tamil movie songs!

On the way to Mottai maadi there was a side maadi which had very low walls. Paati used to do rain water harvesting here. Just before rains, Paati used to clean this place and close the drain so that rain water collects here. When it is full, she used to open the drain and collect the water in buckets from below!

Sundari and Jayashree were very keen on gardening and had many plants in mottai maadi. We had panneer rose, saamandhi, jaadhi poo and vegetables like onions, tomatoes.

Mottai maadi was used by us also for studies. I remember doing my homework there many days and also revising before the exams sitting on the chimney in mottai maadi.

Mottai maadi has heard gossips from different groups of people, the elders in the family, we sisters and our cousins, various guests and friends of ours!

As soon as I finished schooling, we had to shift to another house as this house was sold by the owners and it was demolished and made into a commercial building

I miss this house even today and will miss it always!

Nostalgia

1, Ranganathan Road, Nungambakkam – part II


In continuation of 1, Ranganathan Road, Nungambakkam - Part I, i am continuing below description of my all time favourite place :
 

Verandah - As soon as we enter the main door, there was a verandah like space. The main door had rods on the top half so that we can see whoever it entering the house. When I was very young, I was very scared of the milkman by name Ramachandran for the simple reason that he used to sprinkle milk in sharp droplets. One afternoon when I was fast asleep, Amma and Paati went to a shop nearby locking me inside. I remember holding the verandah window railings and crying my heart out!

This verandah was generally used for leaving the slippers and one side where there was a passage leading to the stairs downstairs was closed by lot of junk stuff. On the other side corner was the kalli petti where the Golu dolls where stored. Our beddings and pillows were kept on top of the kalli petti. Any function at home, the chairs and Nayana room cot will be shifted to the verandah and we kids were asked to stay only in the verandah in case of devasams etc.

Hall - As a doctor was staying in this house before us, there was a wooden partition in the hall which divided the hall into – Nayana room and hall. Sabitha and I used to do a lot of artwork with chalk on the wooden partition on the hall side, but Sundari did some lovely paintings of Asterix, Obelix and Cacofonix on the Nayana room side. We were all great fans of the Asterix comics that we named ourselves after the five Gauls. Sujatha was Vitalstatitics, Sundari – Asterix, Jayshree – Cacofonix, Sabitha – Getafix and myself – Obelix. Only behind my name and Sujatha’s name there was a meaning. She was called Vitalstatics cos she is the eldest and I was called Obelix because of my figure 

 

We also nicknamed ourselves as pancha pandavis, in the same order – Sujatha being Dharma putri and I, Sahadevi!

Amma’s afternoon nap was always in the hall near the entrance of the bedroom, so that she can have a view of anybody knocking the door.

Sabitha and I used to sleep with Paati in the hall. I always insisted that I sleep only in the middle as I was very frightened to sleep in the corner near the window. I remember getting very scared seeing the shadows of some movement in the next building on the wall in front of me.

The first room was Thatha room and we had two strong wooden chairs with a centre table for Thatha to meet his clients. I used to be fascinated when my sisters Sujatha or Sundari used to sit on Thatha’s chair (only Thatha’s chair and not the chair opposite which is meant for the visitor) and read books. I remember copying this when I grew up!

The telephone was also kept in Thatha room and when I was in eighth standard, I picked up courage to take the telephone number of my friend and call her one day just for the thrill of using the phone personally!

Nadu room - The second room was Appa, Amma’s bedroom was called Nadu room (as it was kind of in the centre) and we had a huge wooden bureau there with all our clothes. There was a dressing table in this room without a mirror and also a wooden laundry cupboard. The favourite hiding place for all of us was the small space between the laundry cupboard and the wall next to it!

 

 

Next to the hall was Swami room. As soon as we cross the hall, there used to be a small step which was wide enough to sit on! Most of the days Sundari used to sit there and have her morning coffee. There were huge doors between the hall and swami room and on either side of the wall, there was a small shelf like space. One side Paati used to keep sunnambu jaadi for Thatha and on the other side, we had our ink bottle, from which we had to fill up ink into our pens!

Kitchen was in the right corner of this Swami room. It was such a tiny kitchen, but Amma used to cook food on the medai and also have a stove on the floor for preparation of coffee etc. During rainy season, all of us used to sit in the kitchen for our meal!

Though it was called Swami room, only one almirah had Swami padams and the rest of the room was used as storage space. We used to have aatukal in the corner near the backdoor. Opposite the Swami almirah, there was a wooden bench with a line of aluminium dubbas filled with groceries!

During any festival time all special preparations were made in Swami room by shifting the stove there!

There was a wash basin opposite the aatukal near the other door leading to the back yard aka veli maadi.

Nostalgia

1, Ranganathan Road, Nungambakkam – part I

For everybody the place they grew up is special and they have great memories about it. My Thatha says his first 20 years of life was the best, Appa says he had a great time with his Paati in his childhood, Amma was happiest enjoying herself in Kumbakonam temples with her dear brother Babu Mama. My favourite place to this day is 1, Ranganathan Road, Nungambakkam. I am sure all my sisters will also say the same thing! Sadly, the building is not there anymore, even the road name is changed to Village Road! But what a time we all had there! The number of friends we all used to bring, Thatha’s friends who used to come and stay overnight playing cards with him late into the night, even distant relatives like cousin’s cousins were welcomed and had a comfortable stay with us. We shifted to this house when I was just about 3 years old. My first memory of this house is meeting Lakshmi Mami (house owner Subburathina Mama’s daughter) and her daughter Vidya. I remember being fascinated by the stairs going down from our verandah to the ground floor house hall (where the owners stayed). I and my immediate elder sisters Sabitha and Jayashree were put in the school next door. To this day, we call it pakkathu school and not by the name of the school. The school was let out for weddings during summer holidays. Though I don’t remember, Amma tells me that I used to cry that I want to attend the weddings there! I do remember that the school ground was used as an open air theatre where movies were shown. We had a great view of the screen from the open space (veli maadi) behind our house and enjoyed the movie sitting at home, which was a great thing those days with TV unheard of!

Side maadis - As soon as we climb the stairs, before we reach our front door, on the right side there used to be an open space which we used to call side maadi (as it was in the side and we were in maadi) The number of afternoons were spent in this space is countless! As there was a huge neem tree giving shade to the whole space, it was a great place to spend the afternoon. Only thing is we did not have any steps to reach it, but have to climb over a small parapet structure. Even my Thatha and Paati did not have difficulty to climb over. I recall that we used to take Thatha’s easy chair to side maadi and he used to rest there in the chair. I heard that the side maadi had a very low wall initially and when I was sleeping there with my uncle, I fell over on the asbestos sheet (which was the roof of the shop below). After this the wall height was increased and we had 2-3 concrete seats attached to the wall from where one can have a view of Ranganathan Road. Sabitha and I have spent so many evenings there sitting on the concrete seats and talking nonsense!

When my Chittappa and family used to come for holidays, I remember that Sabitha and I used to sit there and count the number of cars and check out which taxi they were coming by! When the then President of India Mr. Fakrudeen Ali Ahmed passed through our road, all of us gathered in side maadi to look at him. When Indra Gandhi died, I remember that my friend Manju who was staying quite far away, stayed in our house overnight and we checked out the mobs on the road only from this side maadi!

Behind this side maadi, there used to be two more side maadis – again we were supposed to jump on a small parapet to go to each side maadis. The house owners used to dry vadaams in the second side maadi and the third side maadi overlooked our hall window.

More on my favourite place in part II