Confessions of an Abu Dhabi Born Confused Mallu

I’m a Malayalee who spent a significant number of my growing up years outside Kerala. This piece of land on the Malabar Coast has its own unique culture, tradition and way of life. If you are not brought up here you may just not get modus operandi of the place.

Confession 1 : The Malayalee’s Obsession with the Coconut.

 The sun was up in the eastern horizon in Kunnathur, the birds were chirping and some melodious Malayalam song was being played in the radio .The new bride me steps into the kitchen determined to learn some cooking. My mother-in-law looks at me with hope in her eyes, the hope to turn me into the next Masterchef. I give her the I-will-live-up-to-your-expectation look. She smiles and then hands me a half coconut. I receive it with enthusiasm. “Do you know what to do with it?” she asks me. I stare at the coconut curiously for a while and then back at her. Obviously I didn't have a clue.

Then she points to the coconut shredder placed at the corner of the kitchen.  Now for those of you who haven’t seen one, let me take the liberty of explaining it. It is a narrow plank of wood with legs that looks like a mini stool fit for probably a 5 year old to sit. Attached to one end of this stool is what a circular blade.  Again I stared at the Shedder curiously for a while and then back at her.  She smiles and asks me “Have you used this before?” I nod my head in humiliation. In Abu Dhabi where I grew up I've seen my dad pick up a packet of grated coconut from the departmental store and my mom storing it in the freezer.

“Don’t worry”, she says “I’ll show you how it is done.” She sits on the plank took the coconut from hand and starts grating it with great ease.  “Oh! Is that all!” I tell her, “No problem I shall do this.” I enthusiastically take the coconut from her hands and assure her that the job will be done in a jiffy.

I sit on the plank stool and something doesn't feel right. I get up and closely examine it. That is when the realization strike me that sitting on this fragment of a stool alone will be a Herculean task. So I manage to sit (read bend, flex and balance) on the plank and then I imitate the up-and-down motion of the coconut on the round blade. The coconut refuses to budge and I wasn't ready to let go… What followed was a 15 minutes of brutal combat with me on one end and the coconut on the other.

To cut the long story short, my brother-in-law who was watching this entire fiasco first in amusement later in bemusement volunteers to help.  Alhamdulillah for the small mercies in life.

After that day I just can’t look the coconut in the eye without a bit of heartache. Later that day I got to the bottom of the coconut story. First you call the coconut climber to throw the coconut down from the tree. Then you barbarically dehusk it to get the shell. After which you crack it open and grate it away to glory.

Coconut forms an integral part of the Kerala cuisine. We make sure we use all part of the coconut tree in our daily living and all parts of the coconut for daily cooking. The coconut water makes a refreshing drink. The dried copra goes into making the coconut oil. Coconut gratings whether fresh or dried goes into the making of the chutney, puttu or curry.What I don’t get is that why didn't we Malayalees find a simpler nut to be obsessed with.

Confessions to be continued… may be some other day…

A Visit to my Dad's Ancestral House

 

Our memories are what makes us who we are, especially our childhood memories. Some we remember vividly and some vaguely. This is an episode from the past that never fails to bring a smile to my face.

 

This happened during the summer vacation when I had gone with my parents to visit my dad’s ancestral house in Kochanur. I was 3, I guess. Chinnu was 4, Sheebu was 5 or 6. Shyjatha was probably 7 or 8. (The exact chronological age of my partners in crime is the part that I remember vaguely)

 

Kochanur is the village where my dad grew up. It had its own charm. It was green everywhere; the people were friendly and were always excited to see me as I came from ‘Persia’. I tried telling them that I actually came from Abu Dhabi but for them Abu Dhabi and Persia were all the same.

 

Apparently, the house we stayed in at that time was a renovated one. During my dad’s schooldays they lived in a older house. When my dad and his elder brothers went to the ‘Gelf’ and made some money, they decided that the old house was worn-out and they had to renovate it. So, they redid the place and along with the changes they made, my uncle decided to place a fountain in front of the house.

 

Since my dad’s elder brother was the oldest, most authoritarian and slightly unconventional in his taste for art, he decided that this fountain ought to be different from any other fountains. Hence, our unique fountain was indeed a masterpiece. Chiselled in white marble was an innocent young boy around 1 or 2 years of age holding his tiny pee-organ and peeing into a small pond of water. The fellow’s pee was the moving water of the fountain.

 

Thinking back now, this was perhaps the most inappropriate object anyone would ever place right in front of their house. Since my grand mom didn't share my uncle’s eccentricity and since she was the one paying the electricity bill, the stone boy would pee only when my uncle was in town. The rest of the year this naked fellow just stood there on the walls of the small pond showing the neighbourhood his bare butt and holding his pee-organ.

 

Coming back to the afternoon when I was 3. My parents had gone to bed for their post-lunch afternoon nap. My aunt had also gone to bed. My grand mom was in the kitchen clearing the dishes and giving instructions to the servants. My cousins and I were playing in the veranda drawing random objects on pieces of paper.

 

Now I clearly remember my mom telling me not to go out and play. I also remember my grand mom locking the grilled door of the veranda. An older cousin suggested we should go out. I asked them how we can get out when the door was latched. One of them climbed up the grills put her little hand out and unlocked it. Viola... the portal opened. Full of excitement and awe at the superpowers of my older cousins I got out. We sat on the wall of this fountain and continued our drawing on the paper game.

 

Suddenly the pen fell into the water. I remember someone telling “Let’s see who will pick it up...” All of us stretched our little hands into the water. I don’t know what the others’ stories were, but I remember mine with such great clarity. I kept stretching my hand, but the pen continued to float away. I stretched a little more and just a little more and yes! I had caught the pen. But suddenly my feet slipped and I fell into the water.

 

It was green all around (mainly due to the monsoons and algae built up).. I can't recollect whether I was floating or drowning. I don’t remember choking or struggling for breath. But I remember being surrounded by nothing but limitless green. Then gradually the green turned black.

 

My grand mom was in the kitchen when she saw my cousins running away from the scene in panic. Sensing something was wrong she asked them what happened. They yelled out to her, “Nihal died” and ran away…

 

My grand mom reacted. She started shouting and weeping waking everyone up. She rushed to fountain grabbed my two tiny hands that were the only thing above water and pulled me out.

 

Again, I have no idea what exactly happened after pulling me out of water. When I woke up, there were so many people around me. Most of them were crying. They didn't tell me anything, rather they just stared at me and I stared back. Before I could speak a word 'thud' came a whack. It was my mom crying and screaming at me “Didn't I tell you not to go out???...”

 

23 years have passed since this incident. My grand mom moved out of this house and went to stay with my aunt. Some local thief stole the pee-boy. The property was partitioned and sold. The house was broken down. Two of my cousins have built houses on that plot. My naughty older cousins now have kids of their age back then. My grand mom expired 3 years ago.

 

Even today when I tell my mom that I am going to a pool that is hardly 5 feet deep under the watchful eye of two trained lifeguards, my mom tells me ‘Take care ok… I still remember you falling in that fountain…”

 

 

 

The Starting Trouble

The trouble has always been to set things into motion. Many of you must have always heard of the word 'Procrastination'. Well, for you it might be just a word, for me its a way of life! I keep until tomorrow what I can  finish off today. Here I am finally getting myself together to write what is probably my first blog-post.

With great humor, I recount a 12 year old me reading something about a 'blog' in the last page of the then Gulf News tabloid almost a decade and a half ago.'Blog!.. Ah.. a new word' I wondered. Those were the days when you take everything your English teacher tells you seriously and you embark on an overzealous vocabulary-building mission.

I rushed to the sacrosanct Bible of English language, yup, my pocket Oxford English Dictionary to decode this new word. I enthusiastically flipped through the pages only to be stunned to a stupefaction. The bespectacled school girl me let out a gasp of horror as I couldn't find the word. For the first time in the whole twelve year life my most trusted guide had let me down. Suddenly the magical book had lost its charm. My puzzle solver didn't have a solution to this strange word. I was overcome with a new found sense of respect for this word 'blog'! I felt like standing up and saluting it.

All this was a long time ago, as the years passed by the bespectacled school girl grew up, went to college as a contact-lens wearing dental undergraduate. After that she briefly transformed into zombie PG student who had given her soul to the Department of Pedodontics. Fortunately that phase is over.

Honestly speaking, I feel like I'm released from the prison of Azkaban from the clutches of the Death Eaters.  I have broken free from the shackles that I has tied me down and this is period of my Renaissance where I breath the air of freedom and live my life the way I want to.

So today I decide  to revisit the word that once earned a respectable position in my cerebrum.

Maybe tomorrow I shall bungee jump from Burj Khalifa ;)