Amma

I have had the good fortune of knowing and building a loving relationship with Appa and Amma, my maternal grandparents, for 30-odd years. Looking back, I am amazed at how we made it possible. We always lived very far away from each other. We were either in different cities in India that in the early years involved a 3-day train journey to cover or we lived in different countries. We were also culturally separated. I was not raised in their Christian faith and I speak practically no Malayalam. Yet, thanks to no small effort on their part and on the part of my parents, we spent a lot of time together every year, exchanged detailed letters and phone calls regularly and became friends.

One of the first few times they were left alone with toddler me in Ahmedabad, I believe I screamed out at the auto rickshaw driver who had just dropped me off from nursery “mujhe chodke mat jana!” (don’t leave me and go). They had to embarrassedly take their unwilling granddaughter back inside and try to calm her down. I know this because Amma has reenacted this moment with great amusement, many times over the years. Her other favourite anecdote about little me was how I would sit on the potty and designate who was going to clean me up. In giggling fits of laughter she would tell me how Appa would be horrified (aiyyo mole, please I will do anything else you ask) when he was assigned and she would end up doing the work. Amma always found stories about poop really funny. There’s this line in Arundhati Roy’s God of Small Things where a man cries out: ende parambil thooralley (don’t shit here in my compound)! Amma would shake in silent laughter reading that and then again remembering it later. She was rather politically incorrect. She would sarcastically say kaymaayi (how nice) if you were dressed in something she thought was hideous. She would refer to distant family members who according to her were buddhillyata (without a brain), or declare that someone was bangillya (not good-looking) and she frequently said my mother was a faaaaat child. The extra long ‘a’ in fat, every time. She was also obsessed with making sure that children had perfectly straight teeth and monitored every shaking milk tooth I had. Her efforts were in vain; I ended up with a crooked set but she made her peace with that. The longest period we spent together was just before I turned 7 when I lived with them for 3 months, attended school in Cochin and perhaps unknowingly cemented a bond with them.

My most endearing memories of her are from her daily routines. Amma had this cute repeated way of saying “hi hi hi hi”. It was her typical greeting when I came back from school and flung my things down. Every day you could find her sitting on the floor after her bath, with her curly wispy hair (that I have inherited) standing in all directions as she read a Malayalam newspaper or the Bible. If it was the Bible, you could hear a low volume muttering. If it was the newspaper, she’d sometimes declare loudly “this Karunakaran, he’s a horrible fellow”, referring to the former Kerala CM. Amma was 5 feet tall, and a little plump. When she sat on a chair her feet sometimes didn’t reach the ground and when she sat on the floor with her legs extended, they didn’t get very far. I used to find this just too adorable. That, and a very silly-looking maroon, knitted hat-like thing she had which was held in place by tying it below her chin. You would think she never needed it in Kerala, but every June when the torrential monsoon rains arrived, it would be part of her sleep attire. She had the softest hands (that I have not inherited) and she also had this unfathomable system of cutting her nails with a pair of scissors. She hated her fingernails growing even the slightest. She didn’t have a lot of hair but she had a lot of metal hairpins that she whipped into her tresses very quickly to make a little neat bun when we were heading out.

Appa and Amma were possibly the most organised and systematic people I’ve ever known. They started packing for any travel weeks in advance. The house was always impeccably tidy. Amma’s saris hung neat and ironed in nice rows and piles in her cupboard (which had an over-representation of off-whites and creams, her preferred shades). I never saw a mess in the kitchen. In fact I realised recently that I’ve hardly ever seen Mallu food being made because it was mostly sorted out before I woke up. Only the fish needed to be fried right before a meal. If I tried to pick up a hot aluminium pot that she boiled rice in to help her drain the excess water out, she’d shoo me out of the kitchen. I once tried to help her cut some veggies. She started laughing when she saw the thick cabbage chunks I had hacked. She took the remaining out of my hands to shred beautifully with a massive butcher’s knife. She was so efficient at it, you’d think she loved cooking. She didn’t really. Her eyes would light up if you suggested eating out. When she visited Ahmedabad, Amma was thrilled to have our cook Induben manage the kitchen, while she stood around chatting in her funny, cute Hindi.

What she did love was to play Scrabble. She liked card games too, but not just any. She liked it if it involved strategy and thinking, like rummy. She took pride in doing well at these challenges. We had another word game in the house called Up Words which was a simplified version of Scrabble where you could also build tiles vertically. Appa and I used to like it. Amma thought it was for dummies but she’d play with us anyway. The appeal of Scrabble was cleverly making the high scoring squares, which she considered herself an expert at. She’d pick up the Scrabble box and bring it to the dining table saying “I will beat you”. If I happened to make a high score (which was rare), she’d say buddhi vannu buddhi vannu Angune buddhi vannu (the brains have come to Angu).

During my summer breaks in Cochin, everyone in the house took an afternoon nap. I would typically be hungry again two hours after lunch and go into the kitchen to forage. Amma found this very funny and would try to catch me at it. Sometimes she’d sneak up behind me and say “ha! tomato kodichi” because I was always eating raw tomatoes from the fridge. Sometimes I would wolf down leftovers from breakfast that she kept in a cupboard behind a screen. My favourite breakfast was a rice flour coconut pancake she made. My heart flutters just to think of a stack of them in her kitchen. It was the perfect day if we had those in the morning and I got to eat extras in the afternoon.

Amma was caring and affectionate but pragmatic and not given to too much sentimentality. Appa always had a lot of thoughts and feelings to share. His letters were long. If they were writing to me on a blue inland letter, he would use most of the space. She would usually squeeze her writing into the last quarter of the space. Luckily she had nice and legible handwriting, unlike Appa. Also unlike him, she was not tone-deaf.

She loved singing and it was really nice to listen to her. She often hummed while scuttling around. Sometimes she’d make up her own songs based on rhymes or jingles she’d heard. Two of the jingles were ads from umbrella companies that showed up often on Malayalam TV channels. If it looked like it was starting to rain she’d rush to the balcony to take the clothes in while singing “mazha mazha koda koda” from a Popy umbrellas ad or “papadum venam, payasam venam, dhingatakada dhingatakada John’s koda”. Her versions of the two jingles are stuck in my head. Only last year I found the Popy koda jingle on YouTube and I was amused that she’d changed the tune from the original. On some afternoons she’d come looking for me in the kitchen singing “feeling hungry, yes pappa, yes pappa, telling lies, no pappa ha ha ha”. She also had her own versions of my nickname and would call out “Angudaaaa Anguda” or “Anguraniiiiye” while pottering around the house. In her last few years, once Appa passed away, she started a new chant of sorts that she’d repeat over and over: JJkutty, Riyakutty, Angurani, the names of her three grandchildren.

It feels very strange and empty to accept that she is not there any more and I won't see her on my next trip home. I will miss you, Amma. I will try to learn some of the lovely Malayalam prayer songs you sang and recreate your pancake recipe soon.