Stories of No guts & No glory: My Chittamma !!

Stories of No guts & No glory : My Chittamma

         In the next few couple of hours I will be reaching home.  A lot of things are running around in my head at this moment. Everytime I go to home like every other human being I do expect to see some faces which are deeply embedded in our heart and soul.  At this moment, it  is my parents , my sister, my nephew and neice and one more face which I would love to see again is..or was…my aunt’s.  She was younger to my dad by 10 years, unmarried and lived with us since my childhood.  Her name was “Baby” ( I’m serious!),  i actually wanted to ask my Grand-parents that for the love of god why did they name their daughter as Baby.  Before I could achieve some amount of active neurons in my brain they bid farewell. 

        My father and mother were both employed and the care taking was carried out by my aunt, whom we call as “Chittamma”.  Now in Kerala “chitta” means mother’s sister, and theoretically she was my Father’s sister!  That mutation took place due to my cousin who’s the daughter of the daughter of my grand-father’s sister !! Phewwww….so for my cousin she was “chitta” and for me she was simply called as “Aunt”.  Somehow I didn’t approve this and rebelled and brought a memorandum of understanding between us cousins.  From that day onwards she was unanimously named as “Chitta”.  It got once again mutated since she took care of us toddlers when our mothers were away on work.  So the word “Amma” which means mother was added to that and was called as “Chittamma”. 

        The reason why she was not married is still a case of argument, but undoubtedly it projected the inefficiency of my Father and my father’s brother.  But when things are bound to happen in such a way  that all of us will be rendered helpless.  So she was with us , as an integral part of my family; as the Head-of-the-Department of Catering !  If I put it in a very sentimental way, every bit of the fat/flubber/tyre/fluff in my body is indebted to her.  Its been 10 years now since I got my job and used to touch home only once or twice in a year but she ensured that something special from her repertoire-de-cuisine was ready for me.  If anyone asks me about my family I would say that I have two mothers, and she was the second, my chittamma! 

                                                   My chittamma with my nephew Madhav.

        This year, 2013, I bought a new house and we shifted from our old locality where we lived since 1991.  The entire locality called her “Chitamma” as she mingled with everybody.  Even my classmates, especially Paul who has been through my thick and thin was sent a special pack of lunch (as that bugger was a lazy bone that he never brought lunch) and my best friend Chacko who frequented my home and was subjected to severe cuisine experiments by chittamma…..she was Chitta for them also!  But ever since we changed our home, she was slightly unhappy.  As she had to leave her best friends back in our old place.  She was severely diabetic, and very soon became fragile.  And the last time I spoke to her was in the first week of April 2013, she sounded healthy. And it was just one week short of my leave.  Two days later my sister, called me up and told me that chittamma was slightly slipping, and is almost bed ridden, and she wanted to see me. 

          My leave was signed on a last moment and no trains were available during the time.  That I had to travel down to Chennai first and then catch a bus to kochi.  I reached home on 14 Apr which is  the “Vishu” day.  I went straight to her room  and she was lying there. In a water bed since she developed bed sores, and was not able to talk.  She could only mumble, but soon tears were rolling out as we met.  Hugged her, kissed her a lot and asked her so many things for which she mumbled as in agreement.  She was almost bedridden for over a month and my mother was taking care of her.  My heart sank the very moment I saw her, a deep intuition that she won’t sustain long. 

          On 16 Apr morning I was getting ready to go for some grocery shopping and I went to see her once again just to say that I’m going out and I will be back soon.  I saw her eyes were dry, and the breathing was shallow.  I called up my mom and informed the condition.  And somehow with half mind I left for shopping.  But something was bugging me and by around 11 o’clock I called up home and it was my father who picked up  and he was crying…..Chittamma left.  Couldn’t say much, couldn’t hear much and she left.  Almost all the relatives who kept away all these times reached there for her funeral. 

          What else I could do?? Deep in my heart I believe that her soul was ready to leave….and it had one last wish ….to see me.      Now I know that there wont be any disappearing laddoos , or half filled beer bottles in my fridge anymore, because she liked such things, and when confronted will just blink her eyes with a smile. 

           In the next few couple of hours I will be reaching home ....all I want to do at that moment is to rush to her room, and wish she was there to greet me …..maybe I will see her sometime in the future and I have kept a lot of kisses to be given on her cheeks…till then.

Stories of No guts & No glory: A beef story !

It’s been a while since I’ve made a blog or even written a note about anything.  And if I’m to say that it took me difficult ways to get inspired in ways I’d seldom imagined.  Right from watching “Finding Forrester” as suggested by my best friend Chacko or being brain washed by my colleague Parv who is a walking library and a General-knowledge aficionado.  So here it is, which happens to be a string of thoughts which flew past me on one Sunday afternoon, around  a couple of weeks back , about eating “BEEF” ….yeah you heard it!  There ain’t much ado about it, or could be bracketed as a self-inflicted humour, voila!!

It was the third Sunday of May when I was invited for a luncheon by my course-mate.  We know each other since seven years and have been a very good friend, guide and a kick-ass-criticiser of mine.  As a cherry on icing, I’m meeting his family after his marriage which took place three years ago and he has a 2 year old son too.  So it is in reality a torture-session sabotaged in the name of lunch with ‘Beef” as the extra bait.  He knew my weak-point and I knew it’s a bait still couldn’t resist.  So be it….I bought some chocolates and sweets for the kid and walked right into it. 

That day I underwent an elaborate session of brain drain that neither my friend nor his lovely wife was not-at-all in a mood to spare me. Starting with the situations where I had to meet them after their marriage, courtesy visits to their home and even to meet this little kiddo when he was born (imagine my head hits the table top in slow motion).  And him on the other hand; even though a year younger to me, considers himself as my big brother and rhymed beautifully about my inability to rise up to the said occasions.  Well, patience pays, and lunch was served, and I hogged like I had never eaten after my dinner last night, honestly I skipped my dinner last night view ‘spiritual’ reasons.  A lengthy fifteen hours of starvation can actually boost up your cravings for food into an abnormal state. I always sabotage the self proclaimed “I-am-on-a-strict-diet” feeling once I finish a heavy meal and this wasn’t different either. 

As a statutory warning, eating beef is a complete sin according to the religion which I follow. Since beef is pertaining to (particularly) cows, which  happen to be a background creature in the pictures of Lord Krishna, an important Deity in Hinduism.  Also it has been referred throughout the Vedas, Puranas (Epics of divine genre) and subsequent legends and very much in tangent towards the divine side.  So any harm to that creature is like taking a one-way ticket to an active mine-field since the religious sentiments are too sensitive in this regard. 

 On record, nobody’s going to cut your head or put a steel in your rib cage, but for safety reasons eating beef is still kept a hush-hush matter in most of the parts in this country.  However, this is never a hush-hush matter from when I come from; the south-West of the Indian peninsula.  But there is a long history of very serious events related to this viande rouge which had taken place and have even led the way to freedom!! 

In Mahabharata (one absolute epic), there are many instances in which ego-clashes that grew up into some magnanimous revenge due to sharing of cows.  And in one of the Puranas there was one divine cow which could provide anything right from food, dress and even a whole army.  And one king who laid his eyes on it sent ‘his’ army to fight and got seriously thrashed.  Above all, the one noteworthy event which deserves the attention would be the “First war of Independence” way back in 1853 when the Indian soldiers in the British Army revolted against using the bullets as it had a covering made out of cow-fat !!! One should imagine the unfathomable sentiments running through every countrymen, as their very first revolt for Independence is ‘the’ moment of change, let it be the French, the American.etc.   So, my dear friends, this animal is that much deeply rooted into the history of India and the medulla-oblongata of everyone.  As a matter of fact, its religion and it’s sentiments that prevailed.

As I was riding back to my cabin these thoughts were In reality if a cow is getting old in the shed, it should die on its own and has to be cremated with all reverence.  And if one can’t wait up to that, then just leave them alone, the vultures and other scavengers will take care of it.  this Just because of a sort of ‘fairplay’ theory those who devoured it are happy, those who came to know that you ‘devoured’ it are unhappy; a kind of yin-yan situation.    

The dynamic question that evolved in my mind, which I’m little concerned on asking anybody is that “Does the food you eat decide your faith??”  or is it like a preconceived firewall which got embedded into your neurons which contradicts you??  Imagine a voice telling you “dude, now you are going to hell!”  In my opinion the answer lies in “what you think what happens in you.  Every religion says about that divine power which flows in you.”  That you are made of a divine inter connection, that you are what the Gods are, and when you eat what he has prohibited you from eating you go to hell???  So it is your faith…..your faith is you….and you are your faith !!!

And suddenly a hair-pin turn appeared, I slowed my bike, made a smooth turn and rode off !!