“You know what the astrologer told me after examining my horoscope?” quipped Thatha for the hundredth time. “This is the horoscope of a Sanyasi. There is no inkling of marriage, children, money, or property!” he exclaimed animatedly, shaking his right hand. Yet, three kids, four grandchildren, a decent bank balance, and various cultivable lands later, here was Thatha at the ripe age of 75, sitting on the dusty oonjal waiting for his second cup of coffee. Thud! Paati slammed the dabara–tumbler on the wooden oonjal and walked away, muttering under her breath. Thatha looked unfazed and proceeded to pour out the piping hot coffee into the dabara, seemingly content at annoying paati for the tenth time since morning. The favor would be returned at lunchtime when food was being served, but this was too good an opportunity to let go.
Cheechan Thatha, as he was fondly called, was the first of four children born to Jayalakshmi Ammal. How the name ‘Srinivasan’ changed to ‘Cheechan’ remains a mystery. Maybe a child with a lisp mispronounced his name. Maybe someone devised this nickname to differentiate him from the numerous other namesakes in the family. But the name stuck, and he was known by his pseudonym. Cheechan Thatha was born in an era when official birth records did not exist. But he knew that he was born under Krithika nakshatram, Chitra maasam. Once, I called him to wish him a happy birthday, and his response was, “Oh? Is it my birthday? Okay, what am I supposed to do now?.” This, in essence, summed up his personality – Practised nonchalance.
Thatha prided himself on being a rebel in his youth. In the days when men were not allowed to cut their hair, he sported a military-style haircut. When boys around him were content to take up a job after their SSLC exams, Thatha insisted on completing bachelor’s degrees in Physics and English and a third in Education. When his father advised him to take up a plush, well-paying bank job, he picked up the humble chalk piece to take up a career in teaching. “But why thatha?” I would ask in astonishment. “Simple. After a hard day’s work, I can just knock off the chalkdust from my hands and walk out. I can go home and have a life. I need not lose sleep over whether the money I lent to a borrower would be paid back”, he would exclaim, animatedly dusting off the imaginary chalkdust from his hands.
Indeed, he did find time to pursue his hobbies – photography and sketching in his younger years and farming in his retired life. Thatha was a creative storyteller. He would jot down snippets, anecdotes, jokes, and puzzles in his little black diary and share them with us when we visited him for our summer vacation. Oh, his obsession for diaries! On the first of January every year, he would receive a dozen diaries as gifts. But he would be disappointed with every single one of them. “They don’t have a full page for Sunday,” he would remark. “I am a busy person. I don’t have an off day.” Every single thing that happens in the day would go into the diary.
He was a creature of habit. He would religiously jot down every financial transaction in his “accounts” notebook. At the end of the month, the balance sheet from this “daily book” was copied into a “monthly” notebook. All twelve books for a year would be neatly stacked and tied with a thin, brown rope. His passion for organizing articles was unparalleled. Every day, after reading every word of The Hindu newspaper, he would neatly fold the paper and its supplement editions and stack it with the other newspapers of the month. All the papers HAD to be organized chronologically. “20 Hindu papers weigh 1 kg, ” he would confidently proclaim to the old newspaper vendor as he weighed this month’s bundle.
He was known for his discipline and meticulousness. After his weekly trip to the local bakery, he would carefully unpack the biscuits and neatly stack them into air-tight glass jars. His hands would reach out for exactly two of them at tea time. And it was always two. I don’t know if he ever yearned for a third one, but I never saw him dip his hands into the jar to reach for another.
Boredom was not a concept that he was familiar with. He would always find something to do. His day would start at 6 am. He would claim that he didn’t need an alarm clock as his brain would know precisely when it was dawn. Two coffees, daily prayers, and lunch would be done by 12 pm. After his afternoon nap, he would stroll into the kitchen for his 2 pm coffee. He would then cycle for four kilometers, back and forth to the nearby town on the pretext of running some errands.
One of his most prized possessions was his “vethalai-paaku pai.” It was a simple, unassuming, faded brown purse that was gifted by City Union Bank in return for investing in a senior citizen fixed deposit scheme. It housed a dozen betel leaves, areca nut, and a little tobacco. He would take great care to see it not carelessly thrown around the house. The house was a thoroughfare, and laborers and maids would walk in and out as they pleased, and the sight of the vethalai paaku pai was a welcome stop for most of them. “Do you know one betel leaf costs one rupee now?” he would pique in anger when I told him he was needlessly worried. His love for betel leaves was only paralleled by his devotion to Amrutanjan strong balm. You would always find a bottle under his pillow. “It’s an addiction,” he would admit candidly.
Curiosity and quirkiness were his distinguishing qualities. He once brought a stray fox cub home. To everyone’s bewilderment, he coolly said that he wanted to see if looking at a fox’s face first thing in the morning brought good luck, as a famous Tamil proverb claimed. “The day was pretty much ordinary and uneventful,” he claimed as he untied the tether on the fox and let him go to the nearby forest. But the fox had had a good two days. He was offered the choicest food from paati’s kitchens and savories like murukku, thattai, and biscuits from the local bakery. Thatha’s hatred for bats, cats, and rats was legendary. Right from installing nets in the ceiling to dissuade bats from hanging upside down to enticing rats with poisoned bananas, he would devise innovative solutions to the pest problems at home.
As my life became slowly engulfed in exams, coaching classes, and later work, my visits to Thatha’s place became rarer and rarer. On the few occasions when he would be in Bangalore for a short visit, I would beg him to stay longer. “But…I have a lot of commitments back in the village“, pat came the reply from this nonagenarian, much to everyone’s amusement.
“I have no attachments,” he would proudly state. “I have no fear of the unknown. It’s the guilty who fears death,” he would sermonize. Yet, the one thing that scared the living daylights out of him was his fear of missing trains. He would ensure he reached the railway station well before the scheduled departure time, often two hours in advance. “Train and time wait for none”, my all-knowing Thatha would remark. He embarked on his final journey in 2021, bidding adieu to paati, his three children, and the ancestral home he grew up in. The entire village was at his doorstep to pay their last respects. But I’m sure he would have shrugged indifferently and felt they were making much ado about nothing.
“Do you see birds or animals living with their sons, daughters, and grandchildren?” he would reflect as we were tending to the unruly shrub in the garden. “Do you see the cat over there who delivered three kittens last week? She will pounce on you and scratch your face if you try to touch one. The same cat will abandon her kittens and walk away once they are independent,” he would go on pensively. “We humans are stuck in this vicious cycle of family and emotions. We ought to let go of the people we love,” he would add.
I sip my morning coffee in deep contemplation and wonder – if a person dies, is he truly gone? My eyes glance over the book once gifted by Thatha, now lying carelessly on the table. This is my Bible,” Thatha had spiritedly confessed, shoving a copy of “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living” into my hands. “You will find it useful.” As I hold the book in my hands and flip through its pages, it strikes me that our dear departed do not really leave us. They reside in a corner of our brain as warm memories. Inanimate objects like these rekindle the fond moments we spent with them. Thatha may not be here today, but his image constantly flashes before my eyes. His discipline and systematic nature pervade all aspects of my life. His philosophy of life is something that I fall back on when I tackle its more difficult moments. Thatha certainly has had a towering influence on me. And his words of wisdom will continue to ring in my ears for the remainder of my worldly years.