Paavaadai Dhaavaniyil...

Nostalgia means a lot of things to lot of people... I was lost in my routine or sporadic tasks so much that nostalgia seemed a luxury. But  sometimes, some luxuries have a way of slyly finding their way towards the unsuspecting routin'er'; and that's exactly what happened this evening.

I tend to play random music on my phone or switch a music channel on when I do mundane tasks and today was no different. I was busy in the very important task of making sure nothing in the household was even remotely dusty -
Windows - Check.
Side table - Check.
Electronic equipments - Check.
Doors & glass flauntees - Check.
Soul and memories - Pending.

Suddenly the music channel dished out a golden number from yesteryears - paavadai dhaavaniyil paartha uruvama. I smiled the second I heard the song. The song and the image of the attire in question brought back so many dusty memories in a nostalgic flood. I had to stop and let the memories do what they came to do.

The paavadai dhaavani is a beautiful attire capable of invoking a lot more than dusty memories. A playful long wavy dhaavani draped around a paavadai (skirt) that is ankle length or flow-y with a matching short blouse; this attire is the ultimate embodiment of overflowing youthful radiance.

"தத்தி தத்தி நடபதர்க்கு சொல்ல வேண்டுமா நீ முத்து முத்தாய் சிரிப்பதர்க்கு பாடம் வேண்டுமா"

As the first interlude of the song played, the memory of my first and absolute favourite maroon & cream dhaavani flashed before my eyes. I could recall the day amma taught me how to drape one and how there were appropriate postures to be followed to pull it off modestly. I remembered that 10×10 room that became my dress rehearsal space whenever I felt like trying on a makeshift dhaavani with my sister's stolen duppattas and draping it around on a skirt. I remembered the one rupee my thatha lovingly placed in my hand and saying "lakshanama irukku"

I remembered walking around Srirangam temple wearing the same dress accompanied by my cousin during our 10th standard mid term vacations and as she cursed her school for having introduced dhaavani as their uniform, I remembered how I secretly envied her opportunity to drape the beauty around her every single day.

I could almost hear the chaos of the Maada Veedhi where another cousin during another vacation took me on a TVS 50 to Meenakshi temple and I insisted on  draping a dhaavani for the visit. The tough time he had balancing me as I sat precariously on one side of the superbike 😆... a memory we both won't forget. I eventually slipped and almost fell but managed to land on my feet. "What happened" asked my startled cousin I simply said " I said stop, thought you heard and got off. I have to buy flowers" "Romba mukkiyama ippo?!" He retorted... the lady selling flowers sensed her business op and coaxed him in her chaste Madurai Tamizh "Akka kaekaraanga illa, vaangi kudunga"

இங்கே என் காலமெல்லாம் முடிந்து விட்டாலும் ஓர் இரவினிலே முதுமயை நான் அடைந்து விட்டாலும்...

The song made its way through some more inroads of memory and I recalled a random wedding where I wore a dhaavani and got my first glimpses of male attention and novice poetry. I was happily playing with a bunch of kids - not realising that the dress so easily revealed my first teenage moorings - an attention seeking sprightly walk, playfully fuelling stolen glances, the subtle signs of womanhood!

I recalled draping a borrowed green dhavani hastily on a visit to a distant relative's farm and struggling through the entire journey to keep it fastened. It brought also to memory the special relationships with people who helped me drape it right that day.

மங்கை உன்னை தொட்டவுடன் மறைந்து விட்டாலும் நான் மருபடியும் பிரந்து வந்து மாலை சூடுவேன் 😊

I remembered the first poems I penned sitting in my uncle's backyard after a warm summer rain dressed in my cousin's dhaavani. The attire was borrowed but with it came out a blush I did not know I owned.

And of course the song did reach its last stanza and the time when 'he' had things to say flashed before the mind's eye. Random ethnic wear at a random fest. I must've been 17-18 dressed in my new pink dhaavani fresh out of Deepawali shopping. Decorating the stage was my responsibility and I couldn't get the screen to stay fastened to the wall meant be the backdrop of the stage . He noticed me struggling "not the right clothes to deal with ladder, string and wood sweetheart" I heard him say... my heart skipped a beat as he tugged at the dhaavani playfully. I smiled secretly but quickly retorted with fake irritation "I am perfectly capable of doing this on my own" "I am sure but do come down the ladder for a second" I made my way down, released the dhaavani from his hands and said "what!" He simply smiled and pulled a chair, signalled me to sit and held both my hands and said " You look gorgeous and I can see you better when you are seated, let me do this for you" I blushed... and let him be chivalrous - Ten years later when I officially had to renounce the dhaavani and drape my wedding saree - he went on to be the same man who would marry me and would be allowed to order me around #termsandconditionsapply# and be chivalrous on select occasions. (He tries!)

As I sighed and heaved at the frocks and gowns I had just gift wrapped for my nieces, I wondered if they would ever know the joy of owning an attire that could invoke so many memories and reflect so much of a person. I also wondered if the legacy of the attire is lost in the evolution of wardrobes when almost as if an afterthought attempting a reassurance; one last memory of handing over my first and favourite maroon and cream pattu paavadai dhavani to my 'poetic' daughter came to mind and the picture of her reflecting the same emotions as I did at that wedding responded to my wonder.


Life, I realised is afterall made of "tastes not tasks" and this tasteful attire's memory reminded me of the innocent girlhood I was still capable of despite the overwhelming tasks demanded of my womanhood. I got back to dusting the kitchen shelf as the song continued to play in my head and I tucked the helm of imaginary dhavani to my waist

Krishna and I

There are some instances that you just can't forget – no matter how young you were when it happened. I must have been ten and little Sri less that two. My grandmother sat on the floor in her signature posture with one leg folded and the other stretched, as she busily rolled out the little seedai spread and with a watchful eye monitored the frying of the same. Sri was a charming young lad who lived next door. Just so you know back in my time a child of one house was free to enter any house within the neighbourhood and spend carefree hours of play and mischief, and if it was meal-time it was only natural that the child would be fed without a second thought or sanitised diet charts - by anyone who is engaging the child. So as my sister and I sat wide eyed listening to my grandfather – the most charming man one can ever meet - narrate Krishna's mischief, Sri crawled from his house to mine, my grandmother chattered with him and he in his monosyllables responded to her and when she wasn't looking put his curious hands into the freshly made vella seedai and put it in his mouth, "Grandma, look! Sri is eating the prasadam before the offering is made to Krishna… it is wrong, isn't it, neivedyam has to be done right?" I shouted in distress "Vidu, He is my Krishna today, I am sure it is Krishna here in Sri's form and he has come to eat whatever I have made" Said my grandma who always was clad in a nine yard saree, had never broken a religious rule, was accepted in marriage simply because she could chant the sahasranamam… I smiled and helped myself to a few savouries myself and when she gave me the sharp look I said "Why? Am I not Krishna too?" my grandfather laughed and said "Yes! You are! Everyone is Krishna" and there it was my first lesson on the divine. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt9UgG_lLHU

 

Living the tale

It was a dreary evening filled with the torture of routine tasks and all she needed was somone to hand her a warm cup of something nice and ask her about her day... High hopes! Most times, all a woman gets is demands of varying degrees from people who vary in their degree of importance.

But this evening one very important person was making a really important demand that could not be refuted " amma... tell me a story" "just what I need" she thought and hugged little Chinnu and made her sit on the kitchen counter (while strategically mixing her bowl of vegetables and rice hoping she could trick her into eating it with the story)

"Long long ago..." she started as the little one's eyes widened with eager expectation "There was a king who had a very pretty daughter" "why was she pretty amma?" Interrupted Chinnu, "Chinnu... not important. Just listen" said the mother, rather befuddled by the response. "The king loved her very dearly but never allowed her to step out of the palace. The king would only permit her to go out if he were taking her on his royal elephant. The only other way she could see the world outside was through the window of her mother's room" by now the little one was already beginning to dislike the king "One day as she sat looking out of the window, she saw a young boy playing with a small dog... can you believe the princess had never seen a dog all her life? She could see that he was having so much fun - it could be heard." "But..." Chinnu attempted to say something but was silenced by the sharp look she got from her mother as she stuffed her mouth with stuff from the bowl "the princess began to feel jealous of the boy who could play with his friend and all she could do was sit and watch him from the window. So she picked up a few pebbles from one of the plants in the queen's room and started throwing it on the boy and his friend" "oh no! did the dog get angry and bite her?, but how can that happen? She's in the palace and the dog is on the road." Chinnu questioned and answered her questions all in one breath. The mother smiled and continued "No... infact the boy kept saving the dog from being hit by letting the pebbles hit him instead of his pet. Now this confused the princess a lot. Why would anyone do that? Get hurt for someone else that is not important? She then decided to find out..."
"and then Chinnu came flying to the princess in Alladin's magic carpet and took her out of the palace so she could know that it is okay to go out of the palace to find friends like the boy and the dog... and they all lived happily ever after!"

"And there she was living in the story I was telling - living the story I was telling" she thought to herself. "Yes! How did you know?" She asked and Chinnu ran out to play. The mother smiled as she went about the routine ; forgetting that yet another of her stories was interrupted and left incomplete.

My Road To Take

She should have felt joy and excitement instead what she felt was guilt and loathing each time she looked at that road that was always there but never taken. They would incessantly argue about the need to travel and experience solitude as against the comfort of a nourishing home. They would always disagree. For her people were everything, all kinds of people. Meeting new people and forging new friendships gave her energy, kept her abreast with the world but he always preferred the comfort of the known, the luxury of trust, the ease of fewer friends. "One of us has to be practical in this relationship... it is simply not safe to leave everything you know and love simply because you want a new experience" he said "new experiences need not mean abandoning the old sweetheart. I belong here, nothing changes that... but I want to be able to discover what else I can be" she argued. "Why is it never enough? Why is satisfaction with what is here and now never a possibility with you?" He wondered. "I don't know... maybe because I'm inspired by evolution itself" she said. "You don't need my permission... you are free to do as you please" he said and slammed the door behind him. "It's not about permission goddamnit...it's about understanding what matters to me" she yelled. They didn't talk much for a week after the last argument.

She had just returned from work that evening and so had he  "I am starved... what's for dinner?" He enquired "Same as lunch... I'm just back..." she remarked. "Could you make something new? Just for a change in the palate?" He asked. She looked at him, mustered a half smile and said..."Sure!"

And then suddenly the irony dawned upon him. He rushed to the kitchen and hugged her from behind, put his chin on her shoulder and with the gentlest possible tone said... "I am sorry . I understand. Go ahead take that road"

By Two Coffee - Sugar Separate

It was three months since I had allowed myself a cup of coffee or any other 'harmful' indulgence. But, it was a rainy Bangalore evening, chill creeping through the bones and I said to myself "what the hell! a single cup won't hurt" I convinced myself. I walked into the quaint old hotel - a reminder of the pensioner's paradise and press meet haven - that Bangalore once was.

A half asleep waiter grudgingly enquired "Heli" "By two coffee - sugar seperate" I responded. I fiddled with my phone and pretended as if I were listening to and cared about every word of my not at all interesting coffee comerade's incessant chatter. Coffee arrived. Sugar seperate too. Until then my mind was filled with ramblings that I couldn't make much of but the moment I took a small amount of sugar in the fine silver spoon and sprinkled sugar granules sparingly into my cuppa... I felt a deep although momentary tug at my heart and a lump in my throat. "He would know exactly how and how much " said an inner voice... "So what? He doesn't care!" said another. He knew when I would be hungry and give me extra helpings of his soup, on such rainy days... he would let me hold the warm cutlery before striking an over the meal conversation. He would look at me when sunlight hit my face and i tossed my hair. He knew how. He knew how much. "So what? You fell in love. He didn't !" Vented the other voice.

It is strange how much of a lifetime can flash before the mind's eye in a matter of seconds. As I stirred the concoction... memories of innumerable such coffees and conversations stirred me. Inspite of myself and all that I had resolved against, the inner voice said...  "what the hell! a single call won't hurt" I smiled. Picked up my phone. Dialled his number. Then hurriedly cut the call before it rang. "He left because he knew how" I heaved a sigh. Thanked heavens for having gotten over it. Paid for my unsipped coffee and LEFT.