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Going back in time to days of Vishu merriment

SIGNS OF PROSPERITY: Women selling `konna' flowers and fruits for the `Vishu Kani,' in Thiruvananthapuram. Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

<36,3,,,,,,1>Arrival of yet another Vishu takes one back in the time to the good old days when all auspicious days were celebrated spiritedly and not ritualistically as they are now.

Almost every member of the family used to have a role in the celebration.

The role of the male members was to procure items for the Vishu kani. There used to be a long list of them: green mangoes, tender jackfruit and cashew apple, all with a bit of stem and a leaf or two, cucumber, bunch of plantain, pressed and puffed rice, tender coconuts and at least a bunch of the kannikonna (Indian laburnum) flowers, which glitter brighter than gold.

These items had to be procured neither too early nor too late. If too early, the vegetables became stale and the leaves and the flowers drooped.

The prospects of seeing stale vegetables and drooping leaves and flowers as Vishu kani was unimaginable. With the procurement of these items, the role of the male members was over and they were free to start dreaming about the spread for the Vishu day lunch.

The womenfolk took over from that stage. They started working only after the men and the children went to bed on the eve of Vishu day. They arranged all the items procured for the Vishu kani artistically before the pictures of deities in the puja room in houses which had one or on a plain table kept in a vantage point in houses which did not have it.

The freshly scrubbed and gleaming brass lamp, the agarbathi holder, the camphor burner and other paraphernalia were also arranged systematically.

They went to sleep only after making sure that no item was missing and everything was in its proper place long after the men had started snoring. As in the case of all auspicious days, it was a short night and a long day ahead for the womenfolk. They got up long before daybreak and, after bath, touched up the Vishu kani. They lighted the oil lamps and the agarbathi and had the first sight of the Vishu kani. They then started waking up the men one by one.

It was not an ordinary waking up. They had to cover the eyes of the men and steer them to the puja room so that the first sight of the day which hit their eyes was that of the glorious Vishu kani.

For the children who will be half asleep, it used to be a rare experience for all the senses mainly touch, smell, sight and sound: the touch of the mother's palm as she covered the eyes, the combined scent of oil, agarbathi and camphor on it, the sight of the flower bedecked pictures of the deities, the kani items, the lighted lamp and the burning incense and the sound of the feeble crackles issued by the flame.

It is, probably, because the fifth sense, taste, is left out that it is allowed to take over completely after the Vishu kani. The takeover by it comes in the form of a beautiful breakfast of steaming hot idlis with chutney, sambar, vada and homemade kesri and a sumptuous lunch on plantain leaf with items ranging from banana chips, both plain and molasses coated, pappad and at least two varieties of pickles to one or, if you are that lucky, two payasams. Unlike these days, you were free to indulge in a loud burp or two after the feast.

The best part of Vishu was sandwiched between breakfast and lunch. It was the offering of kaineettams to all members of the family and even visitors by the head of the family. Gangs of children used to invade houses in these days for the kaineettam. A 10 or a 20 paise coin was all they used to get. But if they visited 10 houses, they could mobilise a tidy amount of Re. 1 or Rs. 2. And that was a big amount in those days. That is why old people say that those were the days of contentment and they will never come back again.

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