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`If we slip and fall, will we survive?'
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A son's moving tribute to a father on the eve of World Elders' Day tomorrow
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"DON'T EVEN mention to Appa that you want to get up early tomorrow. He won't even let you sleep, if you do," Amma always teased.
Appa would give her this look.
He went to bed at 9 p.m., just as the pips for the news bulletin would sound from AIR. We would have had our dinner. The three beds in the hall would be spread. I would spread them out in a row: one for Appa, one for Amma, and one for myself. I would put his eye-drops into his eyes: if I wasn't home, he'd rather go without them than have anyone else do it.
The sheer physical exertion of the day, even in his retirement years, guaranteed a swift drop into sleep. It would take an Act of God, or us siblings making noise, to wake him up. Amma told us once of how his younger sister had gone into labour and a massive theatrical production had gone on in the wee hours with someone being summoned to bring his car and take her to the hospital. Our man wakes up at 5:30 or so, and goes about his business. Around 8, just as he is about to leave for work, he asks, "Where is Sumati?" He would be up at 4 a.m. First order of business: boil water and get the coffee decoction production going. This involved an elaborate process which entailed considerable banging of pots and the like. You see, Appa had problems with his hands. For as long as even my oldest brother can remember, his left hand was always limp and he could not use his fingers in any way. I will always remember holding on to his fingers as a kid when we would go somewhere. They used to feel cold. His right hand he could use. With some difficulty. He could never open its fingers they were all curled up at the joints.
He could not sustain writing for long. So, his workday started earlier than others' and often ended a little later. He worked as a civil servant in accounts for nearly 30 years before he got a promotion thanks to a superior who recognised that he was a knowledgeable and diligent worker; but he could not take the many exams for promotions because he couldn't write that much.
The coffee underway, it would be time to stock up on water. Now, filling water in containers sounds simple when so stated. Not so in reality. He had a method. The ancient electric boiler first. The ancient wood-burning copper-pot-in-cement-furnace boiler next, and so on. Water filled in a bucket first. Then, one big container at a time, it was scooped and filled into the boiler. In the backyard, the drums had to be filled via a tube stuck into the tap. A laborious process for anyone.
For him, more so.
This much activity caused much noise. I, having slept later than he, would be in a state of the dreamless around that time. And I would whine bitterly about how the din. He largely ignored me. If he got annoyed, he'd say, "Okay, tomorrow I won't fill up the water. Let's see if you can take a bath lazily at 9 o'clock!" Touché.
While all the rattling of pots and pans was underway, he used to sing. These songs were always just one-liners he concocted and were invariably hilarious. These Tamil pallavis were sung over and over in various patterns. One talked about how a certain granny he knew as a kid had accidentally fallen into a large gutter. That granny was a close family friend, and he had no problem seeing humour in her predicament. She herself reputedly laughed about it.
Another pallavi asked, "If we slip and fall, will we survive?" Totally meaningless.
And the bustle in the kitchen would continue... The vegetables, all of them, would be sliced and diced. Amma would grumble, half asleep, "Oh no, he's chopping them all up!" She had a System under which veggies lasted several days. We had no fridge. He disrupted the System routinely. But she was too sleepy to do anything about it. Tch tch, she'd have to cook all today.
If I ever mentioned the previous night I was thinking of getting up around five to study for the upcoming exams, at 4:50, I'd feel the end of the stick, which Amma used to hang her saris to dry, in my ribs. Prodding me gently. "Hey, Shekar. Shekar, wake up. You wanted to study, remember?" I would mumble, turn over, and go right back to sleep. Five minutes later, repeat scenario: prod, prod. "Hey, Shekar. Come on, wake up..." Left to my own devices, I woke at seven, loafed around, and buzzed off to college at nine.
Thanks to him, I got some studying in.
The milk had to be boiled. Coffee had to be brewed. 5:45 a.m. The paper has arrived. First order of business: check for power or water cuts. No? Good. Next: the obituaries. Anyone we know die? Oh-oh.
For as long as I can remember, ever the early-riser, Appa prepared the day for us. And us for the day, in any way he knew how.
With those hands.
Working long hours, rarely saying "no" to anything we wanted, he raised us all. We have gone from a lower middle class family to an "upper" middle class family. He laid the foundation.
"If we slip and fall, will we survive?", I hear him sing.
In ragamalika, a series of ragas.
I smile.
CHANDRA SHEKAR BALACHANDRAN
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