Then…..
My mother-in-law had just brought in the milk she had milked and poured it into a vessel. She drew two lines of rangavalli inside. She applied turmeric and kumkum. She brought four or five glowing charcoal embers from the bathroom and placed them in the mud stove. She put a few pieces of firewood on top of them. She placed the dosa griddle on the stove. On the mud stove, she placed jaggery water for coffee. On another mud stove, she placed the milk. Hurriedly, she walked towards the areca nut plantation behind the house.
Leaning against the kitchen doorway, I was told, “Don’t touch anything. I’ll be back before the firewood catches fire and the griddle heats up. You don’t make the dosas.”
I nodded my head as if to say, “All right..”
If you crossed our small plantation and jumped over the fence, you would reach the plantation belonging to my father-in-law’s elder sister’s house. A path along the edge of that plantation led to the entrance of their kitchen.
For my mother-in-law, friendship mattered more than kinship in that house full of relatives. She would go there and, as usual, enquire after everyone’s well-being, share any new information or news she had come across (the forwarded messages their husbands had told them about the previous night), if there was anything to share, and listen if there was anything to hear. Then she would return.
As usual, I would keep watch over the griddle. She would return before it got hot. While making the dosas, she would give me her report.
Today…..
My daughter-in-law brought in the Nandini milk packet that she had left outside, near the gate, and poured the milk into a vessel. She lit the gas and placed the milk on one burner. On the other, she put the dosa griddle to heat.
Sitting right there on a chair at the dining table, I was told, “Atthe.. don’t touch anything. I’ll come and make the dosas before the griddle heats up.”
I nodded my head as if to say, “All right…”
She hurried to her room. She fetched her mobile phone, which she had left charging.
I was waiting for the griddle to heat up. She came back and, as she poured the dosa batter onto the griddle, wished her relatives and friends Good Morning on her mobile phone and told me the latest news and the forwarded messages.
Back Then, I stood… Today, I sit… nodding my head…
Veena Shanbhogue
Translation and Preservation by Sumanth Shanbhogue for Shanbhogue Publications
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