Blog 120 - My Roots, My Grandmother and "Emden"

Emden and my Grandmother

For a very long time, I never did catch on or understand why my Grandmother (maternal) would angrily address and scold me with the words “Emden, Emden”, when caught in some mischief or the other. Since I was the only one - amongst a multitude of other children, my cousins - that she used to allude to as “Emden”, I thought it was unfair of her to use that epithet and, in fact, resenting it to the extent of magnifying my mischief, which landed me in more trouble with my Grandmother and most of my aunts. Surprisingly, my maternal uncles would disappear from the scene on the pretext of some important work. I resented being the only one being called “Emden”, although I had no idea what it meant.

What does all this have to do with ships and shipping, one may well ask. Tarry, my friend, till the end.

The usual - supposedly more refined - epithets used by the elders of the family in my part of the world was “Saniyan, Saniyan”, alluding to the planet “Sani” or Saturn that brought a lot of problems to a person, when under its clutches. The problems would be, and included, loss of jobs, loss of property, loss of face in society.

Other epithets thrown at me were “Yaman”, as in ‘you will yet be the death of me’, ‘Yama’ being the God of Death amongst us.

Another used to be “Theevatti”, who was usually the village idiot who was responsible for carrying a flaming torch to light the way of a procession, later replaced by a gas lamp. The flaming torch was the “Theevatti”; “Thee” meant ‘fire’ and ‘vathi’ meant either receptacle or wick or bearer, not sure which. But, plainly, to my Grandmother, I was the village idiot.

So, as per my aunts, I was destined to be a flaming torch carrier or a ‘Petromax’ lamp carrier.

Of course, ‘rascal’ was the most common.

I understood all the epithets, except for my Grandmother’s “Emden”. Although not affected by any of the epithets, “Emden” stayed with me for life, the mystery of the word occasionally coming to the fore over the years, unresolved.

As my Grandmother died soon after, I had no chance of checking with her. As I grew up, I tried to find the meaning of ‘Emden’ from my uncles, aunts, all to no avail.

They all lived together in a place called ‘Vandavasi’ or ‘Wandiwash’ as the English named it, its only claim to fame being the battle that was fought between the English and the French for the supremacy of the South in 1760.

My Mother was the odd one out, as she had married a roving Army man, coming home to roost when delivering her children - me being one of them - and on summer holidays, marriages, functions, deaths, funerals.

An ornate house, double storeyed in the front, it was meant for communal living, with not much of privacy - as opined by modern habitations - with spacious common areas and a few small rooms.

Adjacent to the entrance to the house, on either side, was the ‘thinnai’, a raised platform under the cool shade of specially designed woodwork and tiles.

In one corner, my Grandfather would sit - when he was home from his fields - and read heavy Tamil and Sanskrit tomes, the book mounted on an X-shaped wooden stand (image below). Whether he had been banished into this rather cool corner by my Grandmother or he had opted for voluntary exile, I never did fathom. But he was one of the happiest persons I have seen, living life contentedly with his bullock cart and bull to take him to his fields and his corner of the ‘thinnai’ for his reading and sleeping.

Going past the ‘thinnai’ one enters through an ornate, heavy, oak door into a corridor that expands into a large space. Image of the door below.

In the southern parts of India, the front door used to play a very significant and important social role in the prosperity of the family. In much earlier times, the logic was that the family built a house when they were prosperous, the harvests bountiful, unlike the EMI debt laden situation of today. Pujas were performed and large houses were built. The erection of the front door was another separate ceremony on an auspicious day. Before installing the two vertical members of the wooden frame into the recesses dug for it, a bag of gems - ‘navarathnam’ or nine gems - along with gold coins, diamonds - depending on the wealth of the owner - would be buried in the recess before lowering the door frame, cementing and securing it, more or less in secret. Why is so much wealth being buried - one may wonder. The answer is posterity and the well being of the future generations of the family.

Generations pass and everybody has forgotten about it (the treasure under the doorposts). There has been a decline in the family fortunes and they are in despair. Under those circumstances, normally an astrologer is consulted, who opines that the decline in fortunes is because of the wrong positioning of the front door. He advises the family to shift the front door by about a foot or two.

When they dig to remove the door frame, they find the bags of gems, the gold and other valuables in quantities sufficient enough to revive their fortunes and get them back on track.

In modern times, the same practice takes place, except that the large and generous amounts of precious stones and gold have been replaced with a small pouch containing small pieces of the nine gems, a sliver of gold, probably costing about Rs 500 in total.

Flats and apartments are excluded from this practice.

With the front door open, the design of these houses was such that one can see clear into the backyard, along the full length of the house - a prerequisite of the "Vaastu' off those days..

The bull resides in a small manger in the backyard, looked after by one of the family or a servant, regularly washed and fed. When my Grandfather was ready to leave for the fields, the bull would be brought through the full length of the house and strapped to the cart that is parked in front of the house. My Grandfather would sit with the reins, ‘cluck’ at the bull - much as a cowboy says ‘giddap’ to his horse in the wild west - and go to sleep. Dutifully, the bull would trudge along and automatically stop when he has reached the fields. Turn the cart around and the bull would bring the cart back to the house without any guidance, all through the twists and turns of village roads, keeping to the side of the road without any guidance.

Footwear were left outside the front door. One enters a corridor that expands into the full breadth of the house, the main living and sleeping area of the family.

Dominating the left side would be the ‘mitham’, open to the skies, serving ventilation and sunlight purposes, recently grill bars put in place after the entry of thieves at night. Sunk lower than the rest of the house by about a foot or so, the sunken area provided space for drying various condiments on a piece of cloth, my favourite being ‘vadam’ which is a rice or sago based or ‘dhal’ based paste, set to dry and then fried, ‘fry-um’ kind of snack, even had with the main meal of the day. Long or short chillies, soaked in yoghurt, called ‘mor milagai’ and dried in the hot sun in the ‘mitham’, when fried added spice to curd and rice, one of my favourites.

Mitham

Mitham

Vadam

Mor Milagai

The pillars surrounding the ‘mitham’, ornately carved from oak or teak, supporting the tresses of the roof, were used as back supports when my aunts wanted to sit down and probably read a magazine or be in animated conversation with a visiting neighbour. These aunts were my ‘Chithis’, my Mother’s younger sisters. They were the ones in charge of the children.

The ‘mitham’ was the centre of all daylight activities.

On the far left corner of the ‘mitham’ was a raised cement cylindrical platform, on which a circular, thick, sandalwood board was glued on and with a sandalwood stick. One sprinkles a bit of water on to the board and lightly grind the sandalwood stick. A paste of sandalwood is formed, used in pujas and lightly applied on foreheads, like a ‘tilak’.

The right side of the house was a long, wide corridor, with the only two electric fans in the house, dominated by a large swing, the exclusive domain of my Grandmother, the autocrat, who would either be sitting or reclining on the swing, the absolute monarch of all she surveys, issuing instructions and running the household with an acerbic tongue, I was probably the only child whom she could not intimidate, as I paid very little attention to her, which is the reason why I was given the exclusive epithet of a yet undeciphered - for many years - ‘Emden’.

‘Oonjal’

The very same, long, corridor transformed itself into a dining hall during meal times, by the simple expedient of unhooking the swing, cleaning and mopping the floor and laying either banana leaves or thatched leaves as plates, whenever the number of guests exceeded the capacity of the room adjacent to the kitchen,

Banana leaves, thatched leave plates and cups made from folded leaves were all biodegradable and also proved to be fodder for livestock.

Thatched leaf Plates

Banana Leaf cups

Areca leaf cups

The mostly red cemented shining floor had various games etched into the floor, the most prominent one of ‘Snakes and Ladders’ covering 1 metre x 1 metre. Another was a chess board in cement and a game called ‘Daayan’, something akin to ‘Ludo’, using a brass or ivory dice, small in cross section and long in length.

The Dice for playing 'Daayan'

Another extremely interesting game was ‘Pallankuzhi’, a twin rowed series of hollowed out receptacles on a piece of rosewood or teakwood, now more or less reaching oblivion. Using small conch shells, it requires memory and mathematical skills to play it skilfully. By the age of five, I had learnt cḥess and ‘pallankuzhi’.

‘Pallankuzhi’

Going further into the house, there was another passage above which was a kind of attic, used to store the harvested grain. A small trap door at the bottom, allowed sacks to be filled and sent to the rice mill for polishing into rice. The sight of the grain falling into sacks seemed like gold tumbling down during certain angles of sunlight falling into that passage.

Over the years, my grandparents passed away, my ‘Maamas’ - my Mother’s brothers - all moved away, selling the agricultural land. My ‘Chithi’ - my Mother’s younger sister - stayed on in the same house, along with her husband and her son, my cousin. My cousin, having completed B.Ed (and later M.Ed and a PhD), was another remarkable person who illuminated my life.

He married when I was at sea and so, when down from the ship for my Second Class exam, I went to the village to meet them all. Eager to hear about my exploits at sea, all were gathered around me, sitting close to the ‘mitham’, all of us chattering away - I had always been well liked (except by my Grandmother), with the novelty of having been the first person in the family to opt for a career at sea.

But my cousin’s wife - newly wed - was standing a little distance away, leaning on a pillar, eagerly listening in but yet staying out of the circle of conversation. Shrewdly evaluating the cause of her non-participation as being the dominance of a very strict Mother-in-law, the social mores of the day, the traditions of how a daughter-in-law should behave, I was bemused. To stir the pot, I asked her directly to come and sit close by, rather than stand on one foot against the pillar, at the same time joking that tḥe pillar may fall down, although she was a wisp of a girl, then.

My ‘Chithi’ - her Mother-in-law - was aghast and said “No, no, no, no, that is not allowed” and argued against it. When she did not back down, I told my ‘Chithi’ I am leaving right now and went to pick up my bag. With that threat, she acquiesced and my cousin’s wife joined the small group. In later years, I found that the tables had turned and the bride was the more dominant. To her credit, she lovingly looked after her parents-in-law till their last breath.

My cousin, starting off life as a school teacher in a government aided school, later became a headmaster and totally submerged himself in teaching the village children in practically all subjects. It became his primary objective in life. Finding that children in surrounding villages were failing due to lack of any additional follow up after school, he devised a system wherein he would reach remote villages at night, with a friend on a motor cycle, and spend hours under the tree of the main gathering place of the villagers, in the light of petromax lamps, teaching male and female children, helping them to pass their board exams, sometimes with brilliant marks. Snakes on the dark roads did not deter him. He did this for countless years and free of charge.

In later years, I used to be humbled by the deference paid to him by any passer by, as we would sit on the ‘thinnai’ at nights and talk, my presence attracting a lot of boys and girls who wanted to listen to my exploits at sea. The probing questions that I had to answer astounded me.

The intelligence of our nation is in the villages.

Here was an unsung hero who impacted countess lives in a very positive way, bringing to them the foundation of the light of learning. He lived the most modest of lives and passed away a few years back.

I started with “Emden” and have rambled on about village life.

The fact is, almost forty years later, I came across an article in “The Hindu” about a First World War German battleship that terrorised the seas of the Bay of Bengal, Malacca Straits and even the South China Sea area. Colliers were captured for the fuel needed for the boilers that fed steam to their triple expansion engines. Merchantmen were attacked, their cargo transferred and released. Armed ships were fired upon, sometimes destroyed.

This was the German Battle Cruiser ‘Emden’.

Emden

One of ‘Emden’s 10.5 cm guns on display in Sydney

Some time in September 1914, the ‘Emden’ bombed Madras, then under the British, causing little damage but panicking an entire city. Bombs fell on establishments close to the coastline, as the range was small. About 5 Oil tanks, belonging to 'Shell' Company, which were along the coast, were set on fire. Many citizens decided to flee the city, using any transport available or walking away from the city.

My Grandmother was one of the thousands who had come from the village to Madras for their Deepavali shopping. Panicking on hearing the bombs fall, she, her family and other friends walked away from Madras, later finding bullock carts and buses to make the rest of the journey to the village of Vandavasi. Madras to Vandavasi was a distance of about 125 km.

(I was told the details by my eldest 'Maama' - my Mother's eldest brother - who was a kind of prodigal son, who fought with his parents and moved away. Much later, very much after the death of my grandparents, he returned to the fold and established contact with my Mother. He was, then, in the twilight of his life, in his late 80's.)

My Grandmother's sense of fright after the bombing remained a trauma for the rest of her life.

‘Emden’ became, in her eyes, the embodiment of all things evil.

According to her, so was I.

===== Rangan =====