UMIKKARI
A lovely start
After a heavy lunch of nellu kuththiyari( finely pounded unpolished rice), a fiery curry of the juiciest and sweetest prawns, which had the fragrant taste of the sea in each delicious bite , nendrakaya(raw Kerala banana) andpayyuru( string beans), perretiya upperi(the vegetables are cooked in water with salt and turmeric ,and when done are finally coated generously with coconut oil), crisp pappadams, a wee bit of kaddu manga( spicy, tender mango pickle) that made us drink glass after glass of samabara vellum( butter milk) to fight the sting of the pickle, my aunts suggested that we take a little rest. Our room was upstairs, with a small adjacent room having a tiny built in ovara( a tiny section of each room that is partitioned off, to be used as a wash room only at night). The other two rooms belonged to my great aunts. Each room had massive teak beds and a huge cupboard. Every room had a very big framed Ravi Varma print of Maha Vishnu holding his wives on either side as they remained seated on a flying bird. I was transfixed by the beauty of this picture. My ammayi had already spread a metha paya( reed mat) on the floor. Somehow I preferred it to a bed. It was something different. She sat near me and fanned me with a hand held fan, made of dried palm leaf. I looked up to appreciate the strangeness and grandeur of a wooden ceiling. Soon my eyes closed listening to a chemboth( a crow like bird with brown wings and red eyes) calling from outside. When I woke up, tea was ready. Chakka chola (jack fruit crisps) and KayaVaruthathu ( banana chips)never tasted better. I observed that my cheriyamma was rolling out tiny wicks on her palms from tiny pieces of cloth torn from old veshtis, to be lit in the oil filled votive lamps, when dusk fell. Next, she took out the glass shade of each lamp and polished them till they shone. I hurried after her to the verragu pera( firewood storage place) from where she carried back, a sheaf ofola(palm frond) and an armful of mattal( the broad base of the palm frond). She stowed them under the hearth. Then she tore a piece of newspaper into little pieces. Into each piece, she tipped a little'Umikkari' from a tin (Umikkari is powdered, burnt paddy husk to which salt is added. This is the tooth powder which was used in all the Kerala villages a long time back) . Then she spliced a number of evenly cut eerkala( the stiff spine down the length of each palm frond) down the centre, and tucked a neatly folded packet ofumikkeri, inside each spliced eerkala. She explained to me, 'This is for the morning, for all your uncles. I asked 'Can I also have one?' She smiled and said, 'Will you like it after being used to brushing your teeth with brush and paste all these years? An eight year old's mind would not rest in peace until she was told how ummikeri was made. My aunt knew it instinctively, and told me she that would show me one day how it was made. Cheriamma then rushed to the nearestplaavu( jackfruit tree and collected a number of fallen ripe plaayela( jack tree leaves). I watched with fascination, as she neatly fashioned them into little spoons and pinned them into place with a tiny eerkala.Kanji was being prepared, and the heavenly smell of onnakka sravand mullan drew me magically into the kitchen where the fire blazed in the mud stoves. My aunts were busy breaking coconuts and they offered me the water inside each. I loved it. They then neatly gathered their mundu and settled down on wooden cheravas( coconut scrapers), and scraped a mountain of grated coconut. Another aunt pouried oil into a big 'Villaku' to be lit after sunset. My cousins and aunts went quickly to the 'kullam'(pond) for a last dip. The kitchen door was then kept partially closed. My aunt took a lighted ola kanni, and lit the votive lamp. She closed her eyes, and all the women folk of the house gathered close, folded their hands reverentially and repeated 'Deepam' It was such a lovely moment. I followed my aunt as she went from room to room softly intoningDeepam . She then stepped out through the central door past theapees muri(office room). In the front porch she held the lamp high above her head and showed the light to all the trees in the compound, all now hidden in the darkness, and said one last time 'Deeepam' On her return she went down the steps of the front porch, removed 3 burning wicks from the lamp, and placed them on the last step. All the children and the elders had by then taken a pinch of bhasmam( ash) from the bhasma kudam(ash container), and applied it on their foreheads, in the hollow of their neck and on their forearms. I watched each little movement with absolute attention. Everybody sat down cross legged on the ground, and sank into a state of deep devotion. Evening prayers were intoned in rhythmic chant. As I did not know any prayer other than 'Namashivaya and Naryanayanama, I began concentrating on the changing shadows on the wall, caused by the dancing flame of the thooku villaku( bronze hanging lamp). Wonderful cooking smells from the kitchen made me hungrier than ever. The only sound that broke this silence was that squeal of the protesting pulley, as water was drawn up from the well, followed by the long drawn, blood curdling, howl of a passing jackal. I felt no fear, as I was very much comforted by the fact, that inside the room, I had all my family around me. I felt a deep sense of peace and belonging which drove away all fear. There was the eternal joy of being together with loved ones, which made those moments more precious than anything else in this world (Radha Nair is a free lance writer based in Pune. She writes for national dailies, magazines. Feedback can be sent to Radha_1997@yahoo.com)
