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 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