Ammooma(Grandma), tell me a story...

I feel so helpless!

Ah...Am not sure if you can relate to my feeling, if I tell you the reason.

See, I don't have any nice colourful stories from my childhood and teen years to narrate to my grandchild! Does this sound too silly to you?

Well, let me try and tune you into my thought frequency. Ready?

On your mark, get set, goooooo...:-)

My mother stays with us. She was born and brought up in a small village (Champakulam) in Alapuzha District, Kerala, until marriage (un?) settled her in the state capital Thiruvananthapuram, a sleepy city. We have visited her birthplace only once.

But, I have such vivid images of her birthplace in my head, because of the innumerable stories she has told me, during my growing up years. Her home was in the middle of acres of fields, criss-crossed by a small river. They had two ponds, one of them dedicated for bathing and the other for washing. They had a family who would help them with the household chores which consisted of housemaid "Mary Pembala" (a typical Mallu slang meaning Christian Woman), her husband "Vakkan Mapila"(again, a slang meaning Christian Man) and her children GeorgeKutty and JoseKutty.

It seems her grandmother never allowed Mary to enter the main kitchen and cook because she was a "Pembala". Her mother, who was too lazy to do the cooking, used to find ways to sneak Mary in to do the cooking or give her the raw materials and ask her to cook in her kitchen and bring over to my mother's place!

Mary's specialty was "Indariappam"(Cake, made of rice, sugar and coconut in which you poured a little "Kallu" (local toddy) and baked it on banana leaf) that was made for Easter and Christmas. From her description, I can still feel the taste of that dish! Actually, as I am writing this, my mouth is watering, just remembering the description, though I have never tasted Mary's cooking. :-)

Whenever my mother had made this dish in my childhood, she used to always comment, “This does not taste as good as what Mary Pembala used to make. You know once, she made this Indariappam...." another story used to unfold before my eyes, and I used to savour the dish in front of me with the added flavours of the story she would narrate!

Then there was her dog Jimmy. He was a "Nadan Patti" (local Indian breed dog) He had a black body with a white vermilion like mark on his forehead. All four of his legs had white fur at their tips giving the impression that he was wearing white socks! It seems he used to jump into the water and fetch the coconuts that fell into the water. Since he used to get a lot of praise for doing this task, he used to jump and hunt in the water for mangoes too, that fell when they were over-ripe!But used to come back disappointed as mangoes didnot float in water like coconuts did!

Then there was the time they got electricity. It seems Jimmy went running round the house, with his head held up, barking at the new intruder into his home, electric bulbs! It was during that time that my mother's family discovered that Jimmy had a girl friend! It seems he used to make a show of eating his food when his bowl was filled, and leave half the food behind. He used to wait for these new "intruder-lights" to go off and everyone to go to their beds.

Then, he used to sneak out to a "Pulavante Veedu"(worker house-hold) where his girl friend would wait for him. He used to bring her to his home and give her the leftover food. One day when my mother's grandmother got up in the middle of the night to fetch herself a glass of water from the "Kooja"(mud-pot), she heard "soft coochy coochy sounding dog-talk", which made her suspicious enough to investigate and Jimmy was caught red-handed!

Then there was "Doctor Mamman" her neighbour...

Ah...such colourful stories I could go on and on...

"Is this 'Karimeem Pappas’ (a typical Kerala dish made with fish) you made as tasty as the one Mary Pembala's used to make, Amoomma (grandmother)?", my son asked my mother when we sat down for lunch an hour ago.

I watched with a de-ja-vu feeling as Amma started narrating a story revolving around 'Karimeem Pappas', the said dish. I watched as my son sat totally enthralled by the various by now familiar characters of the narrative, oblivious of the many "chor urulas"(rice balls) that Amma was popping into his mouth!

Sigh! How many times I have heard these stories. But, I am never bored and love hearing them again. I went and hugged my mother and opened my mouth too, and told her to pop a rice-ball into mine! To get a feeling of having pressed the time machine's rewind button, albeit for a moment, of me as a schoolgirl, sitting beside her at our home back in Thiruvanathapuram and savouring the taste of fish-curry with rice and the added flavours of "Champakulam" stories!

This set me wondering what stories will I tell my grandchildren? Amma's stories were all her own childhood memories, true and real. I don't have any such wonderful stories to narrate about my childhood as we lived in a city with its mechanical routine of a 9-5 schedule, school, homework, exams etc with no spice, unpredictability and range of incidents, things, people and places that were inherent and unique in Amma's narratives.

I have to preserve my memories of Amma's narratives. Maybe write a series of stories, dividing them into parts and share them with you! :-) If only I knew how to draw or sketch. I could have added a few pictures to spice up the stories, of course after getting them reviewed / validated by my mother!

Maybe next time Amma ventures into one of her narratives video-record. But these won't be the same as hearing them fresh from Amma herself, who has experienced whatever she is narrating.

This is why I feel so helpless...:-(