My maternal grandparents (Valiappachen and Valiammachy), were gorgeous, when they got married my Valiammachy was very young, if I write the age it could raise too many eye brows, but that was the norm in 1920’s . I remember her saying she was carried back home, from the church after the ceremony. Our ceremonies are quite long takes minimum 2 to 3 hours, and she had to stand the whole time. She went back home and lived with her parents until Valiappachen finished his graduation at college.
She studied up to 8th Std. she was quite brilliant and had an excellent memory of poems and idioms. Every engineering semester exams, when my friends, the budding engineers congregated at home for combined study, we had more fun reciting Malayalam poems and idioms with Valiammachy, than working out fluid mechanics and bending moment. It was a treat.
They were the most amazing couple I have ever come across. They were in perpetual love and those days love was about devotion, care, reverence, respect, good food and lot of children.
My grandparents had 4 boys and 4 girls and all 8 of them together have 18 grandchildren and 27 great grandchildren, and 2 great great grandchildren. There was a unique photograph of my Valiammachy with 5 generations of first born all girls in a row.
Their life was embedded with love and care. Life was about discipline: in everything from morning till night. Routines had no monotony, there was no boredom, and we never felt the burden of years rolling past us, days were full of thrilling activities and they were so charming, everyone was content, there was no greed and unwanted desires.
There was a lot of fragrance in the routine, simple, earthy and divine. This couple was amazing, and the various satellites, all my uncles and aunts and cousins lived happily around them.
Peace and faith was the armor that protected them throughout their lives. I am sure they had difference of opinions and challenges, but they were never blown out of proportion. Nothing could disrupt the peace in their day to day lives. The days started and ended with prayers and the lovely hymns Valiappachen sang with and without his false teeth, they still resonate in my ears.
They lived in such harmony with nature, they could listen to the birds and predict the changes in weather, they knew the time of the day so precisely looking at the position of the sun. The moon and the stars told stories of life beyond the universe. Valiammachy could determine pregnancy in any one, be it 2 legged or 4 legged in a minute, just by a look, sensing the finite details in anatomy and behavioral patterns.
In my younger days, seasons were just two, rain or no rain. Summer was so mild we never felt the heat like we have now which is causing so much havoc to lives in Kerala.
My grandparents knew which crop to plant, the change of crop from rice to sesame, tapioca, yam, kaachil, string beans, spinach, and all sorts. There was a science behind this rotation. It was to support the nutrients in the soil; it was to aid the www (wood wide web).
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