Trigger tree! Have you come across something that triggers a hundred memories from childhood. This special shady tree hovering over a crowded bus stop, opposite the famous old ‘Ram’ Theatre on the sides of a seemingly endless Arcot road in Chennai was one such thing. Very serious shady decisions were made under that large shady tree. Valli and I would stand there when we were probably less than 10 years old and make that crucial decision. Do we go by bus or walk back to our homes from dance class? Hey! Don’t laugh. Those were important decisions for a 10 year old especially when your mom has given you special strict instructions along with a couple of rupees to come by bus so you don’t get fried by the Chennai city sun but you choose to buy peanuts, enough to fill your pockets and walk 2 bus stop distance (about a km) in the hot sun, savoring the crunch! Valli and I would already be drenched from our dance class routine up to our belly buttons and instead of a cool breezy ride in the public PTC (Pallavan Transport Corporation) bus, we would talk all the stories you can imagine walking in the hot sun, sweating and dripping…. Her school stories… my school stories, her dad, my dad, my mom, her mom, her friends my friends and our friends…you name it! All topics were munched along with the peanuts in our mouth. We observed the fruit vendors setting up shops, the ladies so artfully tying up the freshly plucked jasmine flowers into a garland, men unloading/loading gunny bags of rice from trucks and bullock carts, the mannequins dressed gorgeously in sparkling dresses shining through dusty glass windows with unaffordable tags that make you cringe and yet you turn your face away from them nonchalantly and munch those peanuts almost grinding your teeth as if those sparkly dresses wont look that great on you after all!
Looking back on my 48th birthday, over the 47 years of tumultuous yet what one would call an interesting life, I smile at this walk with Valli with not a worry in the world with our focus only on the gossip of the moment and the next peanut in our pockets! Valli and her younger brother Senthil were our neighbors in the same neighborhood, just like what me and my younger brother were to them. You can tell a lot of complaining about naughty younger brothers were also part of the talk! Only about a decade ago I came to know that both Valli and her younger brother had left the world suddenly through some distant resource. Valli had died from a congenital heart problem that manifested later in her life and her younger brother accidentally drowned in a well on dangerous swimming spree with his friends. Just gone! Just like that………in their twenty’s.
As my heart is heavy with them on my mind at this moment, I am wondering if my existence for a couple of decades beyond my colleagues who left this earth ‘young’ really matters. Thinking deeply, I wonder what actually matters? What you will leave behind when you depart this world? OR, what you left behind up until now? Until today! The latter makes more sense because you don’t know your departure date. Thus far, your footprints on the sand, your thoughts, your conversations, your seeds of encouragement, your kind words, your smile, your thank you, your hugs, your hand squishing comfort to a hurting soul, your prayers, your tear drop to a friend’s sad story, lessons taught, lessons learned as you walk through life – they do matter to the lives around you. I am so grateful I took the time to walk instead of a bus ride with Valli. I got to know her better, learned a few values I am indebted for ……during our ‘peanut’ time.
Switching gears from hot summer days to the sizzling summer holiday bliss at my grandma’s house in the French town of Pondicherry….. Two solid months of fun under the sun! Away from school, away from books …but each day starts at church at 6 am (no excuses!), following a one hour long sleepy walk with my aunts and cousins. A cold damp dripping cloth falls on your face as an alarm clock wake up call at 5am !There is no way to snooze this alarm, as my grandma hovered over you when you opened your eyes, water dripping down your face. Heard a lot of Bible stories and moral value stories from my aunts on the way to church and back, along with a deviation to the market where I heard them bargain at the fish market, enquire about the vegetable vendors wife’s cataract surgery the previous week, and gave a victorious glee when they threw in extra brinjals as ‘kosuru’ apart from what they weighed and purchased for a price. Afternoons were spent playing on the hot terrace (can still feel the sizzle on my feet), trying to make our mini play meal preps on a bonfire, borrowed utensils, two tomatoes, one onion, a handful of raw rice, one vegetable borrowed from grandma’s tenant to feed about 10 of our fake- hungry friends. The boys had to cut banana leaves and we girls used to cook our play meal. Grandma would come upstairs to check on us and be upset we were hanging out in the hot sun but would land up eating our meal since my aunts were taking too much time to cook the real meal for the family!
Oh! It is so much fun just turning on the memory switch…. Summer evenings are a different story altogether! No one needs to wake me up after the long afternoon naps below the ceiling fans that ran in high speeds, because grandma would sit on the porch exactly around 5 p.m with some ‘pattani’ (fried lentils) and ‘peanuts’ mixed in a big bowl and give a handful to all her grandchildren. These are times when you feel why God made grandma’s hand is sooooooo small. All of us kids would get it with our two little hands scooped together and drop in on our frocks folded up and held so tightly at that precarious angle where the peanuts don’t drop down and yet you save your dignity amidst your cousins. It is a precarious talent in itself!! I’m sure all girls reading this would understand my predicament!
Rest of the evening was bliss for the entire family munching on those goodies, my aunties telling us stories of prince and princesses, richly clad elephants and pretty colored parrots painted on my mind as they were narrated, with seven high hills and deadly monsters, thick forests and pretty wild flowers …..my little head would float in this world of imagination as the peanuts slowly disappear from my frock sac. The sun would have set, I would no longer see my ‘chithi’s’ expressive eyes or sharp nose, just her sweet voice in the dusky breeze and the ocassional crunching sound of peanuts…….hmmm…..! Carefree days…
Right at that young age, now analyzing retrospectively, my Gradma taught us the two crucial commandments of Jesus 1. Love God above all things – she always sought God first thing in the morning, everyday till she was in her mid-nineties. 2. Love others just as I have loved you – She must have tasted His love during her devotional quality time with God to love her younger generation enough to take the time diligently, to draw them to Him first thing in the morning and spoil them with her lavish love for the rest of the day! Her principles of Loving God and Loving Others – is probably the best investment she could have ever made in the future generation and leaving her legacy of faith to live on beyond her time on this earth.
The love for God and peanuts carried over to the next generation which I didn’t notice until I was a teenager. Looking back, I think my mom loved peanuts so much she would invent recipes that would add peanut as a paste to the currys she made. With no internet, or cook books it was on an experimental basis everyday! The results of her experiment were announced on how our faces squirm or glee after tasting the first bite at dinner time. This wild guess of her love for peanuts was confirmed with valid evidence, when I noticed that everytime dad upsets her in the morning, he would come home with a 100 grams of ‘masala peanuts’ for her in the evening. Our snacks changed every day as kids when dad came home from a tiring day at work but mom’s snack was always a constant denominator = masala peanuts. A ‘Nut’ antidote for a peaceful home, I guess!
One day in her late fifty’s as we were chatting over dinner as a family, me a final year medical student, mom diagnosed with ovarian cancer counting her days, she popped this question. What will you bring when you visit me at my grave when I am gone and buried? There was a silent silence that followed that impromptu question …..We all knew she was ‘dying’ but we still didn’t wrap our heads around her actual ‘death’ itself. ‘Bring me some peanuts’ she said laughingly, without thinking for a second, answering her own question…….‘Remember its masala peanuts okay?’ she said.
Looking back on my birthday at a this wonderful life I’ve got to live past Valli, past my Grandma, past my Mom, I wonder what makes these lives stand out now several decades later. Though there are some unforgettable moments, it is undeniably their precious ‘peanut time’ with me! Time they took instead of taking a bus, or watching TV or being on their cell phones or laptops but spending time with their loved ones over a handful of ‘peanuts’. Some made it extra special by throwing in a ‘masala’ to those seemingly mundane moments to make it a memorable journey beyond themselves, worth remembering at midlife ‘munch’ time. Grateful!
Psalms 90:12 Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom
One response to “Life in a (pea) nutshell”
What you will leave behind when you depart this world? OR, what you left behind up until now? Until today!