Kajang Muthiamma

MUSINGS FROM THE PAST (3) left behind an indelible mark in the memory of the Kajang household. The usual ambience of the household was slowly replaced with melancholy, grief and abject hopelessness as dusk blanketed the mid-afternoon and darkness filled the expanse above. Something was amiss…..something wasn’t quite right then…

Slightly past the lunch hour

on that very day, Kajang Vallaicha had asked Thanga chechi for something to eat. His appetite has not been good these days and he was apparently unwell. She brought some crab soup for him because that was the usual remedy to relieve congestion in times of flu. Moments later, he vomited and sweated profusely…occasionally complaining of chest pain. He was rushed to the hospital and after sometime passed away leaving behind his herd….the kids whom he loved the most…and the kids who were thirsting for knowledge, love and fatherly guidance. He lied majestically in the coffin at the church’s Parish hall - the face forlorn of all worries, anxiety and grief. The body lied listless devoid absolutely of the energy, ferocity, swiftness and sternness it was usually associated with.

The girls huddled together

with Valliamma sat crying. It was pathetic and painful to witness Kajang vallaimah completely helpless, speechless and with tears incessantly running down her pale cheeks. Grief-stricken and completely engulfed by her world of thoughts she was left in a lurch by the late K.K.Pillai (valliacha). With hardly any education in her and having being brought over to Malaya at the tender age of one by Meenakshi Amma she was well schooled in one aspect alone – to work and to work and to provide for others.

Vallaicha’s sudden demise created a void.

He had always been the provider. Well tutored in Malayalam and a deeply religious man, he adamantly would not live on hand-outs. He decried laziness and untruthfulness. His deceptively easy going gait belied the strictness with which he brought up his children. His “baton of discipline” was a frayed rotan that had met heavy contacts with the gluteals of most of the kids there – Jacob and George always have been of special sport to him – both had a repertoire of “dirty words” which they used liberally. Before Valliacha, their histrionics would evaporate like the morning dew meeting sunshine. Caning, to Valliacha , was not a make-belief rendition of merely swinging the cane threateningly. Instead, he caned with such velocity and unpretended force that the on-lookers would develop sudden diuresis . If the wailing of the kids do not bring someone to their rescue then they would be torn and tattered under the hands of Vallaicha. Fortunately, and almost every time, Valliammah would intervene to stop the caning.

No matter what,

rain or shine, sick or sleepy, everyone had to flock into the corner room of the house in the early morning hours for reading the bible – one at a time and with the lethal “baton of discipline” threateningly lying by Vallaicha’s side . That is what Vallaicha left behind – “a well regimented cadre of young ones, embolden by the beatings of the cane and humbled by the biblical stories” – he left behind nothing apart from this. At the point of his demise, he was manning the JKR canteen ; though not lucrative but quite sufficient to meet the household expenses.

Imagine the plight and grief

Valliamah must have been enduring on that cruel day – her mind was certainly not on the funeral but the future of the kids ( ten young ones ). The bleakness ahead and the sudden deprivation of the sole beacon of hope, the admiral of the ship and the adept shepherd of the herd by FATE would have beleaguered the mind of any ordinary person – maiming it, crushing it and contorting it beyond recognition and making it loose its normalcy. None of her siblings underwent the tyranny of destiny like her. All of them had their spouses with them, intact and healthy, until their young ones had developed their wings to fly…At the funeral, Comforting words were plenty, Condolences surprisingly many

But the truth is she needed the Money. It animated her like the bear to the honey.

Her greatness of character,

her superlative resolve and steadfast ironclad resolute to bring up the kids no matter what ensued, showed the true grit and sterling quality in her . Her phenomenal boldness in facing the onslaughts of destiny with her kids tugging beside her speaks volumes of the steel-clad determination and zest. Where did these extraordinary qualities in her come from , from whither did she get the energy and spunk ?

MOTHERHOOD in its pristine form, subtle and invisible, yet invincible and real drove her to the heights. The instinctive need to provide for the hungry mouths looking at her animated her. In Kajang Valliamah you see MOTHERHOOD in its superlative form - true sacrifice, selflessness, one-mindedness, resolve, love and vision – all these not for her self-gain but for the well-being of her kids. I cannot recollect even a day when she had lied down to rest because she was unwell . Fever or cold, back-pain or headache – nothing stopped her and with clock-work precision she was up to light the firewood and charcoal stoves – sometimes blowing into it to start the fire going especially if the firewood is not too dry.

Just how many of the mothers in our family have undergone such turmoil, pain and sacrifice ? Apart from Kajang valliamma, probably Meenakshi Amma herself could be accorded the credit – now do you know why Kajang Valliama resembles Meenakshi Amma in many ways – a true reincarnate in corpus and spirit .

Looking at it from another controversial angle,

I think Valliamma deserves more credit than Meenaksi Amma. The latter shooed away her husband (Pathmanaban Nair) upon learning that he had another wife. But

Valliamma accepted Valliacha’s taking of Chinnama (Letchumi Amma) as his second wife and they lived in harmony. Their kids grew up together without distinction, favour or discrimination (parallels the Hindu tenet of “Sama Sveekarana Sama darshanam” meaning “equal vision and equal treatment”). This element of forgiving, of learning to accept the fraility of human nature and false pretensions is a great gift from God – one which only Kajang Valliamah demonstratively has. In this respect she overshadows her mother, the late Meenakshi Amma (with due respect to her but a spade is a spade and nothing else). We only heard of Meenakshi Amma and of her greatness through word of mouth but on the other hand we witness her “even in a more majestic regalia” in Kajang Valliammah.

Lest we forget, I would like to remind you of

the old British adage - “a rabbit in hand is worth two in the bush” While Meenakshi Amma slogged for the well-being of “her own kids alone”, Kajang Valliammah slogged for all. There is no record of Meenakshi Amma ever visiting the children of Pathmanaban Nair’s second wife at all. We have only heard of her shunning her husband even when he came to visit his kids. In a nutshell, she just couldn’t accept his “wild sowings” in another womana natural fraility of the mind and the Shakesperian arousal “of the green-eyed monster” in women.

But what drove her to shun Pathmanaban Nair ? Who is to be blamed ? Why she left India abruptly ? Why is there no quick recognition of her at her ancestral home considering a lapse of merely 70 to 80 years ? If she was an heir to the distribution of family wealth she must be of some high hierarchy and importance in the family and yet why the slowness in recognizing her ? If it is true that she left the ancestral home with her kids to come to Malaya because of some hiccups in wealthdistribution, then Pathmanaban Nair should be praised too. He not only supported her move but was the conduit through which Meenakshi Amma could come to Malaya (he was the kangani then remember?) The jig-saws just don’t fit into a complete whole yet . More research is needed to answer these queries …Mere extrapolations and deductions are insufficient.

At the same time while

giving Meenakshi Amma credit let us not forget the sprouting and greater Meenakshi Ammas in our midst . Give them glory while they are still with us – not to their monuments later ! This mindset is pertinent because today is your truest moment…Shower graces unto your mothers, give them the warmth, the hug, draw tears of joy from their eyes, give them their pleasures and importantly SPEND TIME WITH THEM !!! Hearken and wake up ye young ones to this clarion call…..

Therefore while one

was filled with “ grit, determination and was grossly headstrong” the other was also filled with “grit and determination” but alongside it

the capacity to forgive and embrace and live on for the joint-benefit. And the latter is living and breathing before us – so don’t miss the opportunity to make hay while the sun shines.

This lady, today sitting pain-stricken

with osteoarthritis and enduring hearing difficulty, was a relentless human dynamo that kept moving ceaselessly to generate the power to animate the kids into the growth mode and later carve niches of their own. Her plight and struggle inspired them to excel….in their own ways. And none of them would say otherwise. Vallaimma’s prayers at the Tamil service in the church with tears rolling down her cheeks have not gone to waste at all.

Once she was sitting on the citadel of wealth

and admiration of her sisters. Valliacha cared for her and sent her to visit her siblings chaperoned and in a hired taxi. He showered her with good clothes and gifts . “ Rajan footballed apples and oranges ,” my father would say. Opulence and wealth permeated the length and breadth of 8, Jalan Sulaiman, Kajang. It seems Vallaicha used to place Rajan on the counter and fed him the choicest chicken – carefully separating the bones from the flesh. Imagine the contrast in Vallaicha with the “baton of discipline” – the old Tamil melody comes to my mind at this point – “Adikara kaithan anaikum Innikara valvu kasakum…”

Valliacha himself used to carry

“a tin of cigarettes” and a snuf box with him at all times. From that opulent state, the twist of fate reduced her to the market-place where she sold “appam” to survive and bring up the kids. Her status changed from “a resplendant restaurant motalali amma” to that of a “frail frugal appa kara amma”. The hands that fed the beggars from the corners of the street with food from her restaurant was eventually manning the tools of the trade to make appam at the very corner of the market-place wherein these sapiens inhabited nocturnally. Without a flinch or regret she went ahead to shoulder the burden placed on her without any precursory hint. This quality I most admire in her till today - her simplicity, adaptability and realization that wealth is merely a spurious state of existence and nothing more. You ask her of this and she would remark : “ Pannam innu varum naaley pohum Sneham apolum kooda undahum da..”

Some time later,

the boys helped in the distribution of the “appam and thosai” while the girls pounded the rice, taking turns to do the chore. Their hands blistered and muscles ached but love prevailed and grew in abundance. I am sure

they are giggling as they read this – and probably waiting to pull out the little bit of hair I have left on my head. Every principle of Economics was employed here – division of labour, synergy, networking, time-management, cost-control, PERT, Sigma-5, marketing, R&D – to ensure that the appam and thosai production in no way compromised their studies !

Valliammah had the capacity

to work ceaselessly and cooked practically the entire range of the Indian cuisine. She needed no recipe books or online help – it was a trade passed down and well learnt. Help from people like the Richards’ family in terms of books and uniforms did trickle in now and then. The church, through Pastor Koacher, provided milk powder, ghee and a few other foodstuff. The very hands that gave away such things to others (like the beggars and poor) happily was now reduced to accepting such items for very survival. Imagine with what a heavy heart, Valliamma would have accepted them – from “riches to rags” in the true literal sense. Can that be said of any other family in our network of families ?

To that lady of substance and down-right simplicity I dedicate this article of mine. To that frail-looking hands, tired and creased by the years of hard work, to that body that had endured the agony of heat from the stove for years, to that smile that reminds me of my mother may this article act as a balm to salve the pain and plight away. To that hands that had fed me, brought me tea and food, changed my napkins and bathe me as an infant and to the lips that kiss me each time I visit her –and to that hands that brought up my sister as her own kid and to that hands that had nursed my father’s septic neck-wound during the Japanese Occupation and saved him I have ONLY THIS TO SAY “ I love you and owe you a lot. Silently, you are the Meenakshi Amma that I adore . I have seen you through and through…..and shall be the bold testimony to that fact ” “He prayeth best, who loveth best. All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, Had made and loveth all ……….” -

Coleridge