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Oh! for some home-made vadaams

In an age when children think vadaams grow on supermarket shelves, here's a tribute to the good ole days when making it was a family affair, writes SUBHA J RAO

AN OLD TRADITION Fast disappearing? PHOTO: K. ANANTHAN

"Ayyo! veyyil veenapporathe," laments Vedavalli Ramaswamy, casting a longing look at the blazing sky.

For decades, summer for her has meant lovingly stirring a mixture of rice flour and spices in a thick-bottomed vessel over the stove before she squeezed it out of perforated brass cylinders onto thin cloth neatly spread out on the terrace. It was vadaam season.

Once she was through, she viewed her handiwork with satisfaction.

Row upon row of string-hopper-like rice vadaams, flanked perfectly formed roundels of a mixture of urad dal, chilli and mustard sat on others.

Scarecrow

Standing guard were the children of the house, who enthusiastically shooed away the crows that were lured by the delectable goodies.

With a stick in hand and a black cloth to keep the crows away, they feasted on the half-dried vadaams, vathals and ela vadaams (thalir vadaams) as they sat there drying.

When the kids were unavailable, a black umbrella and a network of twines tied criss-cross across the vadaam-laden terrace kept the offenders at bay.

The end of the day saw the vadaams brought in carefully and lovingly turned over on the cloth so that the other side could dry.

Some almost-dried roundels were fried the same evening to check out the taste and texture.

Then and now

After a couple of days of outing in the sun, the vadaams were neatly packed into tin boxes and set aside for distribution to the extended family. This tradition continued through her husband's transfers across the country.

Cut to this generation. Children think vadaams are bought off supermarket shelves. Not for them the innocent pleasures of sampling the still-wet vadaams, or clutching their stomachs in pain at the end of the day after stuffing their mouths with the half-baked stuff.

R. Karpagam, a homemaker, still remembers the treat after a hard day's labour in the terrace — a taste of the first batch of vadaams fried the same day they were laid out to dry. "Sometimes, the elders at home would squeeze out the left over maavu into improvised vadaams that dried after just a day's outing in the sun. It used to taste better than the good looking vadaams," she recalls.

Her mother, Ranganayaki, grew up in the gloriously sunny Thiruvaroor in then Thanjavur zilla.

Community affair

Her holidays were spent guarding vadaams along with other kids her age. "Those days, making vadaams was a community affair. All the women would get up early and finish laying the vadaams out to dry before the sun came out. That way, it was not very strenuous," she remembers.

Usha, a grandmother of five, has spent 60-odd summers stacking tin after tin of home-made vadaams and maavadu, ready for despatch to her two daughters and countless nieces.

Fond memories

For people like Vedavalli, Ranganayaki and Usha, those summers are now just a fond memory. Few children care about carrying on the tradition. They have so many more interesting and colourful pastimes. "If I asked my grandchild to take care of the vadaams, she would probably tell me she'd rather watch television," laughs Vedavalli.

Ranganayaki's grandchildren occasionally indulge in crow-chasing, but their mother Karpagam says their chore is lightened because there are not too many crows around these days.

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