Some background info- Oommathurai was the legendary king Veerapandiya Kattabomman's general and brother. Our summer vacation place is Thappu mama's place in Pudukottai. Thirumayam fort is a stone fort that exist till today in Thirumayam, which is a town 20km south of Pudukottai.
"Oomathurai is still alive. If you go to the Thirumayam fort even today, you may be able to catch a glimpse of him". "It can't be true uncle" we cried in unison. "Those days the warriors were so healthy because of their fitness routine, they never fell ill. He can hold his breath for half an hour under water. They did not have cancer or heart problems back in those days" said Dharma uncle with utmost seriousness. Dharma uncle was (and probably still is) a close friend of Sekar mama. Sekar mama is one of the three elder brothers of my mom. Anand, Balaji(both my cousins who were of the same age as me) and myself with all the wisdom of twelve year olds lapped the story up. We wanted to confirm it with Sekar mama. "It is all true and....by the way, very few people know about this secret" he said.
We were filled with a sense of adventure and wanted to go to Thirumayam to meet Oomathurai. That summer we did. It was the summer vacations. I think that we had just finished seventh grade and were on our way to starting our eighth grade. We had Sekar mama fashion some aluminum swords (unsharpened of course)from his fabrication unit. We made darts out of matchsticks, needles and Xray film . We made blow darts out of paper, needles and rubber bands and PVC pipe for blow pipe.We were ready to meet him but we were taking no chances!! What if Oomathurai attacked us?
We organized a bus trip to Thirumayam fort after much begging and pleading. Ramesh, Thappu mama's office assistant chaperoned us. We hoodwinked him into leaving us alone. We searched high and low in the fort but there was no sign of Oomathurai.We were utterly disappointed. When we asked Ashok (Balaji's older and wiser brother), he had a laugh and told that Dharma uncle and Sekar mama had taken us for a ride. We were initially angry , but had a great laugh over the whole incident.
The reason for narrating this incident is this. Back then, we had no video games, no computers and no fancy gadgets. We had a sense of adventure and curiosity. Most importantly we had each other. We had uncles who had the time to spend with us and had the time to spin a tall tale to amuse us and intrigue us. Will our kids have the opportunity to take such vacations, spend time with each other and get to know their extended families?
I am hoping that they do. I know that hopes and reality often do not meet.
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5 comments:
hi vas i didnt know u could write this well - good job! - keep it up!
vijay
Oh my Gawd ! I was rollin on the floor laughin while reading the post !! I picturised each n every frame of ur description :D !! And best, I am reminded of lot of more the adventure-boys stories !! And esp the ' blue-rickshaw incident with Sekar mama!! ha ha ha!!
To realise the reality o this post is quite dis heartening..Besides, such real time stories bring a big smile to every-every one even today !!
Roots.. what we all had as kids and may not be in a position to offer our own. Even with the internet, international flights and phone calls, we interact with our cousins minimally. Maybe life was a lot more simple during the good old days where we had time for our extended families but given the present days, sooner than we may realize, we will be talking about spending 'quality time' with our own children (with kids, quality and quantity matter!!)
..and, almost on a tangent, in those days, children were a lot more active, ate healthy (of course, cupping our hands for a load of ghee before our meals, feasting on fried home-made goodies during summer vacations such that our old school uniforms would no longer fit us after just 2 months of summer holidays may be exceptions) and maybe above all, kids consumed less artificial food (very little sodas, diet or no diet) and a whole lot of fresh food (without preservatives). Our moms and grandmoms would add turmeric on the slightest excuse (remember all our white clothes with yellow spots?) and then we find out that turmeric may have anti-cancer properties while high volumes of 'diet' sodas have been associated with an increased incidence of cancer in rodents. As a mom, I am thinking that we need to imbibe more wisdom from our grandmoms and make a conscious effort to steer clear of artificial food -for our sake and for our children- at least, we can pass on good health as a legacy to our kids.
Rishi, konjam maanatha vangita, but it was really funny thinking back those days and every summer vacations and all the fun we had.. those days may never come back, but pretty good memories to be cherished - Balaji
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