Busy Summer Those Days!!

Among the various activities on Sivarathri night,
I remember the making of Vibhuthi for the whole year as
an important ritual. On the days preceding Sivarathri, our
maid would make small balls out of cow dung, called muttan,
On the evening of Sivarathri,
after bath we would clean a small area and we
would make a small kolam there. we would then stack
all the dried cow dung balls there and throw on some umi
(chaff from paddy). My amma would then light the chaff
and the cowdung balls would gradually smoulder and burn
out completely over the next couple of days.The beauty of it
is that once the fire is burnt out, the balls of dung could
be extracted in its original shape, as balls of ash.
This ash was then collected and stored to be used as
Vibhuthi for the next year.
Vibhuthi is the sacred ash smeared on the foreheads of Saivites.

This reminds us of the all encompassing truth
that ash is what remains after everything is burnt
away and ash is imperishable. . The whole community was a
large spiritual kendra where one learnt the simple truths
on one’s own or as advised to.

Next activity was Karuvadaam making.
Early morning at 4 A. M. Amma used to prepare vadaam batter.,
a nice pasty substance with salt,chilies and asafoetida
The cooked batter will have a shiny surface when done.

We spread a or clean cloth,mostly Appa's Veshti,on a flat surface
where there is good sunlight and press the cooked batter
through a Muthucharam press. It is better to press the dough
when it is still lukewarm so that the batter flows easily.

Allow to dry till sunset. Remove the karuvadams from
the cloth; sprinkling a little water over them eases the process.
Dry them again for 2 more days until they are well dried.
Store in a cool dry box. To serve, deep fry the
karuvadams and enjoy!

Lesson learnt:In 1970,thick plastic sheets were avaialble
in the marker for Rs7/- per metre.My thrifty MIL advised
me to use my old nylon saree ,as it is also made of some synthetic material.I took a nylon saree and made all the vadaams both rice and sago.
It was scorching heat. At about 6pm. I brought the nylon saree
from upstairs and started removing the vadaams.
Normally vadaams would slip and come out of plastic sheets automatically.
But I had to struggle to take out the vadaams after sprinkling water on the back side of the saree.In two hrs I was able to remove about 15 vadaams only that too in bits and pieces.
My MIl felt really sad for giving this suggestion.The saree was so shrunk on the back side.The vadaam was so stubborn as a
two year old kid to come out of the saree.Perhaps it liked the saree much.Net result, vadaam lost, labour lost and saree lost.
Lesson still remains.
Next day I bought three metres of plastic sheet, repeated the process next Sunday with great vigour.Every situation is a learning process.
Thalir vadaam making was a project in itself.This could take in
as many as were available on hand. The whole
process had to follow a streamlined program to
achieve optimum result.
Accordingly 2 people would be wiping the leaves with a cloth
dipped in a mixture of oil and water, the next people on the line
would spread the batter on the leaves
(writing the vadam it was called),
the next would arrange them on the idli plate and hand them
over to the person sitting near the large fire wood stove
with a huge steamer (this would be a large utensil
called arikanchatti on which huge idli plates would be kept).
The arikanchatti would be half filled with water and some hay
would be put in the water so that the idli plate would sit tight
on the water. The whole thing was covered with a huge lid
with the idli plate inside the steamer. After the vadams
were cooked by steaming, they were taken out and the
next batch would go in for steaming. Now another set of
people would peel off the cooked vadams from the leaves
and spread them on the back of a new bamboo sieve.
Up to this point, the job needs skilled labour. Now comes
the turn of little children, who would take the bamboo sieves
with vadams to the next room and transfer these vadams
onto mats. The leaves from which vadams were removed
would again go to the first set of people to be cleaned
and then written in and then steamed. After an hour or so
the vadams would to go to courtyard to be dried in the sun.
More people needed now to mind the crows as well.
This process would go on for 3 -4 hours.
At the end came the most interesting part. The last batch
would be thickly written vadams which would be eaten raw
with a smearing of raw coconut oil on them. This was a
delicacy nobody wanted to miss.

But most of the fun was in eating the semi dried maavu
throwing blame on the absentee crows.Wow!
what a taste!
Such bliss is incomparable. Unfortunately, it is now unrecognizable.
This also is the season of preparing kadugumanga or
vadumanga (Tamil) which again is a time consuming process.
This is also the time when tamarind is processed. This takes
days and days. The tamarind had to be shelled and dried
and the seeds removed and the dried tamarind preserved
in earthenware pots or ceramic jars with a sprinkling of salt.


Vadaam season is over.Now children make strips/thatches out of coconut
leaves split into two halves.Appa taught us how to make thatches .Every alternate year we needed at least 1500 coconut strips to cover the roof before the monsoon.Ours was
a thatched house,though huge in size.
Daily we used to make 5 keetrus each and all the 18 participants
would complete a set of 1500 keetrus ready for rainy season.If we appoint labourers ,we had to give 50% of thatches as
labour charges.
Actually this was a good rehearsal for making plastic baskets
out of plasric thin ribbons some 30 years later.
Now father took up the session after mid April.All daughters and cousins were asked to do an exercise daily from Wren and Martin.
Alternate days it was mental sum exercise followed by essay
writing for 30 lines on
any subject chosen by Appa.The subjects varied from "my hobby, visit to temple,beauty of wedding/temple processions and thrill of hitting mangoes from others' groves" etc.Every third child in the neighbour's houses enjoyed the vacation fully, while we struggled making coconut strips or writing essays.It is this practice, though hated by us all during those days, turned out to be a blessing later to train my children in writing good English.
Now the house is empty. Children have settled elsewhere.
Dubbas are empty.Jars are clean. 250gm vadaam and 200 gms of pickles last for a year.

When I feel talking about this, my grand son says' Gapsaa adikkaathe Paatti.( Dont bluff)
What a lovely vacation! The memory is still green.
Jayasala 42

 

Thank you Viji. Hope you continue to stay in Kerala which may not be
very hot.
Jayasala 42

 

Dear Viji,
Thank you very much.Hope you continue to stay in Kerala which may not be very hot.
Jayasala 42