1907 – 1931

Pattamma sat up.

She rubbed her hands, held them in front of her face, and opened her eyes slowly. She looked at the lines on her palms in the dim light. She pulled out her wedding-chain from under her sari, held it to her eyes, and murmured a short prayer.

She patted back her tousled hair and tied it up in a knot. She stood up and, with a look around, she straightened her sari that was in disarray.

The cow mooed from the backyard. Somewhere a cock crowed. Stepping carefully to avoid treading on the others still sleeping on the floor, she opened the backdoor and came out of the house. Stars twinkled in the greying night. Flowers on the plants along the fence, about to bloom, glimmered lightly. The air held the fragrance of the jasmine on the bough.

She picked up the vessels to be cleaned and left them at the well. She took out a piece of coconut husk from a pile, stripped it into thin strands, and collected a handful of the ash that lay heaped near the straw-loft. Going back to the well, she let a large vessel down it with a rope, and drew water. Sitting on her haunches, she cleaned the vessels thoroughly with the coconut strands, ash and water, set them aside, went back to the house where she collected from a niche in the wall some homemade toothpowder, brushed her teeth and gargled. She washed her face with water, and dried herself with the end of her sari.

She returned to the house, put a saffron mark on her forehead, trimmed the oil-lamp in the room for worship, lit it, prostrated herself, and prayed to the goddess that it should be a good day.

Again she went to the backyard, mixed a handful of cowdung in water, walked through the house and opened the frontdoor. She made a gesture, inviting the Goddess of Fortune into the house, and sprinkled some water. For good measure, she went back to the backyard and sprinkled some water there also, asking the Goddess of Ill Fortune to go away. She then returned to the front of the house, poured the cowdung water on the front yard, swept it thoroughly; and drew an auspicious design on the ground with rice-flour, not as elaborately as usual since it was getting late.

Her father-in-law would be up soon, and her sisters-in-law were not available to help with the housework today. Her younger sister-in-law, Sarada, would be over her period only two days from now. And the youngest, Komu, had gone to her parents’ house to have her first baby. It certainly was not easy to manage the house single-handedly even for three days.

She hurried into the kitchen, removed the ash from the dead fire in last night’s clay-oven, went out and added it to the heap of ash near the straw. She then cleaned the oven, smeared it with watered cowdung, and drew a simple pattern on it with rice-flour. Now it will be ready for use at night.

She now fed into the other oven, which had been cleaned and prepared last night, coconut husk and dried cowdung shards, struck a match and lit it. It blazed immediately. Thank goodness. Her mother-in-law, Meenamba, would have been outraged if Pattamma had used more than one match to light the oven. Among the household virtues a woman should possess, thrift loomed high on Meenamba’s list. “What is the use of the husband slaving away in rain and shine if his wife uses up all his income on boxes of matches?” was the way she would have put it.

And she would say: “In our days we never even used a match-stick. We would light a small stick of broom in the flame of the night-lamp, and use it for lighting the fire. As soon as it caught, we would wedge in a slow-burning cowdung ball that would smoulder all day long. When we wanted to light a fire again, we would simply blow on the cowdung ball until its fire showed, and put it among the husk, which would catch fire immediately. That is how a smart woman does her household work.”

A lively and active woman, Meenamba died suddenly after just a two-day fever. Four years ago. Since then Pattamma has had the entire running of the house in her charge.

She boiled some water, poured it into another vessel, and added two handfuls of coffee powder to it. She let it set for half a minute, and then strained the coffee through a thin piece of cloth, kept specially for the purpose. The coffee powder was nearly used up, would last for only one more day. Her father-in-law though had just brought a good quantity of seeds from Thanjavur. She would roast and powder some of that afternoon, and keep the rest to be done with the help of Sarada when she could come again into the house after the ritual purification.

The milkman had already milked the cow. Pattamma poured the milk into a vessel, set it on the fire to boil, and went to the hall to wake up her brood. She shook awake her eldest daughter, Sivakamu, who was lost to the world. “Here, wake up, Sivakamu. Do you know what time it is? Girls may not sleep so late, it is not nice.”

Sivakamu yawned. Sat up. Wailed: “Mother, you wake me up every day before dawn. I am so sleepy.”

“That is as it may be, but get up.”

“But Kondu is still sleeping?”

“Kondu is a boy, he needs more sleep. Stop talking back to me and make yourself useful. Aunt Sarada is not in the house to help. Go brush your teeth, sweep and clean the cowshed. Hurry up. Grandfather will be up any minute.”

Sivakamu rolled up her mat, put it away, and went to the backyard. She cleaned her teeth and washed herself. She let the cow, Lakshmi, out from the shed, and tied it to a coconut tree. She swept the shed and removed the dung, and cleaned the floor with two large pailfuls of water. By the time she finished the chores her mother had given her, it was broad daylight.

Grandfather Kalahasthi had returned from the canal after his ablutions, had his coffee, and had gone to the front porch. Ganapathi, Pattamma’s husband, and the uncles were gathered beside the well to clean their teeth and wash. Pattamma rattled off comments and orders at Sivakamu, who had now come in.