...rest in peace!! I seem to be mostly writing obituaries on blogger but it's only fair considering the fact that I've lost yet another relative - my youngest uncle this time. This time it's been less painful, even to his siblings, because he was an invalid for the last four years, having fallen along with an arecanut tree and broken his back irreparably. I remember how I went cold when I heard my mother over the phone telling me about it and I still anguish over that moment when he went on an impulse on a rainy day to climb that damn damaged tree and fell with it. Life changing moment, if ever there was one and if it's so nightmarish to me, I can't imagine how he would've cursed himself and the fate throughout the agonizing, almost vegetating four years of his life.
My youngest uncle is my mother's younger brother and elder to my twin aunts though they always referred to him as 'Tamma', just like everybody else. He was the only son to remain with his parents and work in the plantation as others had all found work in the cities. I always remember him as a very hardworking guy, always either going to work or coming from it. My earliest memory of him must've been taking 20Rupees from him for collecting the fallen arecanuts from the 'tota" everyday. This was my mother's idea who knew how much I liked the idea of helping my parents with some money and how the arecanuts were being taken away by passersby when they weren't picked by us. But I also remember being chided by Manjanna how shameful it was that I was taking money in spite of being one of the family. Of course I got ashamed and was all set to return the money but I remember my uncle shut him up well and praised my 'help' and I stopped feeling guilty.
Next...must be the coconut breaking and drying season in which my mother and Gangakka were the breakers, my uncle carried them up the hill to the drying area and it was the children's job to watch over them while they dried in the hot sun for a week or so. We always accepted it as our rightful duty and did it with enthusiasm for most of the time. Our uncle erected a small hut of 4 sticks covered with some coconut leaves and tarpaulin and we played, talked, sang and slept under that. Occasionally we would hear the summons from home below, asking us to bathe one by one, fetch our 10 a.m snacks or other errands like calling an uncle/field hand for food. Only at lunch time we would all be relieved from our duties by one of the uncles and we would trudge uphill with a full stomach to take turns in sleeping under the shade with a cool breeze in every direction. Monkeys were the biggest pranksters around and once one of them even jumped on one of my cousins and threw us helter-skelter. I had found a green snake on one of the trees one day and after that everytime I passed that tree, I couldn't help feeling that it would be there again, looking at me.
Then....a toilet was built with a lot of fanfare when I was around 10 years old and it was a great relief for all the visitors and natives alike who were either womenfolk or people living in well-to-do accommodations. But my uncle gave us all a scare by declaring that he wouldn't allow it for 'public' use - it would be only for the creamy layer which consisted of his four brothers, two brothers-in-law, 3 sisters-in-law and a couple of my high-flying cousins. We actually believed it because one could never be sure with our stubborn uncle but this one turned to be one of his jokes, after all.
Then...I guess I lost touch with him once I grew older and also, I must've come in for a sharp criticism from him for marrying outside my caste because my uncle is a hardcore Brahmin. On one of the visits after that, he even asked me if my husband beat me up because he was sure non-brahmins couldn't be trusted with their 'culture'. I did my best to control my temper then. It was also the time he fell out with all his siblings thanks to his obstinacy with respect to the design of the new house and rude behaviour to some of his sisters-in-law and sisters. He seemed to carry some resentment about their 'city-bred' status and visits by close relatives became rare. Then the tragedy struck and when I went to see him at the hospital, his only desire was to be able to walk at least like an unsteady toddler. That was not to be and ...
My youngest uncle is my mother's younger brother and elder to my twin aunts though they always referred to him as 'Tamma', just like everybody else. He was the only son to remain with his parents and work in the plantation as others had all found work in the cities. I always remember him as a very hardworking guy, always either going to work or coming from it. My earliest memory of him must've been taking 20Rupees from him for collecting the fallen arecanuts from the 'tota" everyday. This was my mother's idea who knew how much I liked the idea of helping my parents with some money and how the arecanuts were being taken away by passersby when they weren't picked by us. But I also remember being chided by Manjanna how shameful it was that I was taking money in spite of being one of the family. Of course I got ashamed and was all set to return the money but I remember my uncle shut him up well and praised my 'help' and I stopped feeling guilty.
Next...must be the coconut breaking and drying season in which my mother and Gangakka were the breakers, my uncle carried them up the hill to the drying area and it was the children's job to watch over them while they dried in the hot sun for a week or so. We always accepted it as our rightful duty and did it with enthusiasm for most of the time. Our uncle erected a small hut of 4 sticks covered with some coconut leaves and tarpaulin and we played, talked, sang and slept under that. Occasionally we would hear the summons from home below, asking us to bathe one by one, fetch our 10 a.m snacks or other errands like calling an uncle/field hand for food. Only at lunch time we would all be relieved from our duties by one of the uncles and we would trudge uphill with a full stomach to take turns in sleeping under the shade with a cool breeze in every direction. Monkeys were the biggest pranksters around and once one of them even jumped on one of my cousins and threw us helter-skelter. I had found a green snake on one of the trees one day and after that everytime I passed that tree, I couldn't help feeling that it would be there again, looking at me.
Then....a toilet was built with a lot of fanfare when I was around 10 years old and it was a great relief for all the visitors and natives alike who were either womenfolk or people living in well-to-do accommodations. But my uncle gave us all a scare by declaring that he wouldn't allow it for 'public' use - it would be only for the creamy layer which consisted of his four brothers, two brothers-in-law, 3 sisters-in-law and a couple of my high-flying cousins. We actually believed it because one could never be sure with our stubborn uncle but this one turned to be one of his jokes, after all.
Then...I guess I lost touch with him once I grew older and also, I must've come in for a sharp criticism from him for marrying outside my caste because my uncle is a hardcore Brahmin. On one of the visits after that, he even asked me if my husband beat me up because he was sure non-brahmins couldn't be trusted with their 'culture'. I did my best to control my temper then. It was also the time he fell out with all his siblings thanks to his obstinacy with respect to the design of the new house and rude behaviour to some of his sisters-in-law and sisters. He seemed to carry some resentment about their 'city-bred' status and visits by close relatives became rare. Then the tragedy struck and when I went to see him at the hospital, his only desire was to be able to walk at least like an unsteady toddler. That was not to be and ...
