Childhood summers unfolded like endless myths in Dharmadam, where six of us girl cousins would gather at Onaparambth, our ancestral house shaded by mangoes, jackfruit and pepper vines. The Arabian Sea was a ten-minute walk away, its briny invitation irresistible. We crossed to Thiruthi island during low tide, scribbling "Parashurama, you lost!" in the sand, our rebellion against myth washed clean by returning waves. Evenings were spent on the verandah, where Aunt Radha, silhouetted against the bleeding colours of the sunset, watched us with indulgent silence, as though she too understood that small acts of defiance carried their own kind of holiness.
The cuisine of the Thiyas, curiously absent from Kerala's celebrated culinary pantheon, was a mosaic of flavours both inventive and ancient. My grand-aunt Sunanda made unnakai - ripe nendra bananas filled with coconut, raisins, cashews and cardamom, fried to golden perfection - that perfumed the air with sweetness. Kinnathappam, spiced with fennel and shallots and ulava kanni, a fenugreek payasam thickened with jaggery and coconut milk, occupied places of reverence.
Serrated gooseberries plucked from our compound were simmered into a jam of wine-red brilliance, spread onto bakery-fresh bread in an act that fused the rustic with the urbane. Fish remained at the centre of our meals, whether as fried oysters spiced with shallots and pepper for breakfast, or fish curry soured with vilumbi fruit, its tartness our version of sambhar. Even today my Canadian son-in-law requests it on every visit, as though the dish were a bridge between continents. And always, in the background, there was Patanjali, the house help, grinding coconut, chilli and turmeric on stone slabs, her rhythmic pounding echoing across decades, a music of sustenance.
Memory, in my family, often arrives flavoured with mussels. My grandmother's mussel pickle, packed into jars I smuggled into hostel rooms, transformed bland rice into a feast. Aunt Thangam, who passed only last year, could conjure arikadaka - mussel steamed and fried in rice batter - for tea with a magician's flourish. A pilgrimage to Kannur took us once to Parassinikadavu Muthappan temple on the Valapattanam river, where Theyyam dancers embody the deity, listening to the troubles of the devotees and offering counsel. Here, caste dissolves, dogs are fed as sacred beings and the boundaries between the human and the divine blur in the firelit ritual.
The brilliance of these women lay not merely in their education or culinary talent but in the richness of their lives. Even now, Aunt Sitala, at ninety, embroiders tirelessly for charity, each stitch a testament to patience. Girija paints flowers with devotion that borders on prayer. Uma aunty, trail blazing in her own way, became one of Tamil Nadu's most beloved tourist guides, her voice carrying the grandeur of Chola temples and the intimacy of untold stories. When my husband's centenarian aunt from New York visited, she declared Uma to be the finest guide she had ever met. Watching them converse, two nonagenarians exchanging admiration, was like watching history unfold.
None of this would have been possible without the men who, instead of gatekeeping, opened doors. My father, a Brigadier in the Indian Army, gave my sister and me a childhood that was both disciplined and untamed : fishing expeditions, camping trips, pets of all varieties and rum bottles smuggled into the JNU hostel for our not-yet-husbands. His only advice on marriage was disarmingly simple : "Find someone who will take care of you and enjoy a drink with me".
When my sister married a Punjabi, his only concern was whether the man could indeed care for her, caste or region be damned. Our cousins, who lost their mother when they were too young, were raised by grandparents who taught them to swim in the kollam's waters, shoot at bullseyes, tend trees and even clean their grandfather's guns. Reverence was reserved not for patriarchal authority but for the sarpakavu, the sacred snake grove in our compound. It tended with a spirituality that was as ecological as it was religious.
For me, identity has always been both rooted and itinerant. I am deeply Malayali, yet my life has traversed the map of India, from the Kashmir valley to the Nilgiris, Madras to Delhi, Ranikhet to Uttar Pradesh. Now, in Chennai, in what feel like the sunset years, I find myself reflecting on a worldview shaped not by political manifestos or sweeping revolutions but by mango trees and mussel pickles, midnight card games and Shakespeare read in bed, embroidery circles and fish curry mornings, laughter that was as untamed as the sea. It is a worldview shaped by women - not loud revolutionaries but quiet architects of freedom - who stitched independence into the fabric of daily life until it became indistinguishable from existence itself.
....concluded.
Courtesy. Lata Govind.
Tailpiece.
Had got up at a half past 1 to go around the corner but sleep wasn't forthcoming and was awake till about 4!
Got up at 5, sent all the morning messages, switched on the hymns on the home theatre, lit up the lamp in the puja room, opened up the house for the day, fed the cats, made the morning cuppa and was ready for the barber who'd come in by 7.
Breakfast and bath, an hour later. Went to town to book the hotel rooms for DP and friends coming on 06 Oct. Changed my cell phone's cover.
Sukesan got us sweets and chakka upperi.
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