Giving,my dear,should be spontaneous!

Giving,my dear,should be spontaneous!

The following words scream from the TV screen,"The Joy of Giving”,Giving week’ etc.
Iam a simple housewife just like anyone else.I would not call myself a great giver or one who gets pure pleasure in giving.But I know onething, that is giving should be a spontaneous action,it should not be motivated by elements like cheer from around,a tag that he or she is a good soul or to feel good that you have done something great.When there is a motive in giving somebody ,then the sanctity is lost.

There are rich people who donate money if it will help them avoid taxes,there are people who give and insist that their names and the money that they donated get mentioned in leading newspapers.

When I think on these lines,many of you may feel that Iam cynical, I can see an elderly woman’s face.She enjoyed the joyof giving bit by bit.No she is not Mother Theresa.She, whom I had the good fortune to know in my younger days, was a simple housewife belonging to a middle class family.

Jaya mami and her husband owned a big house in Ayanavaram.When that gentleman retired,they converted the big house into small portions,what we call as single bedroom apartments and rented them out,the pension money that Jaya mamai’s husband got, not being sufficient to run a family with an unmarried girl and a son who was studying.Well, we were her neighbours and my mother and Jaya mami wee good friends.Very often I would go to Jaya mami’s house to chat with her daughter.I was puzzled in the beginning by what Jaya mami did every afternoon when she sat down to have lunch.She would sit down,her daughter would spread a plantain leaf before her and serve her food,Mami would sit there without touching that food.

I asked her one day,”Mami,what for you are waiting?The meal is getting cold, no?Why don’t you eat?”
Mami smiled at me and said,”Just wait,my child”
A few minutes went by.Gopalu,the milkman arrived.

Gopalu brought milk from a nearby village,if I remember right Gudiyaththam or some such place and every day he would arrive at around 1 or 1.30 in the afternoon.
Mami looked at Gopalu with a concern that only a mother can show her child and asked him,”Gopalu have you eaten anything?”

“No ma”said Gopalu,lay down on the floor and wiped the sweat on his face.Mami told him to go and have a wash in the tap that was in the verandah of the house.When he returned after a wash,she took the plantain leaf with food served for her in front of Gopalu and with out a murmur Gopal sat down and ate the food.We could see how hungry he was.I looked at mami ,there was a divine smile on her face.She was enjoying the sight of Gopalu relishing the food.

I looked at Rama,Jaya mami’s daughter and my friend.She took one look at the expression on my face and she laughed.
She dragged me inside and said,”Mythili,this has been happening for years together.My mother won’t touch the food or tiffin servd to her immediately.She would always insist that somebody may come who may be hungry,we should have enough to give them.Gopalu is her favourite son,she would have waited for him till 2 o’clock also.”
I was spell bound.

I have to tell you here that Jaya mami and her family were a lower middle class family.The income that they got as rent from the tenants was not sufficient to meet their expenses.

Most of the days Jaya mami would give her food to somebody or other,there won’t be more food in the kitchen,she would have some kanji ,some days she would just chew on pan leaves and take a nap,with that illuminating smile on her face.

I have to share with you another incident involving Jaya mami that I cannot and would not erase from my memory.One afternoon when I went to Jaya mami’s house I saw her sitting on a small stool and grinding rice and dhal for idly batter, manually on a grinding stone, that took the pride of place in her verandah.I and Rama were sitting in the hall and chatting away.A middle aged lady entered Jaya mami’s house.Mami welcomed her heartily.She bade Rama make coffee for her and asked her to give her some tiffin also.That lady sat own had tiffin and coffee.Mami asked her daughter to finish off the grinding and came to sit near the lady, whose name I did not know even at that time,for convenience’s sake,we can call her Meena.

Meena looked at Jaya mami and said ,”Mami my sister in law is arriving today with her family.All of a sudden she rang up my husband in the office and told him that she would be staying with us for a couple of days.Iam expecting her anytime.Fact is there is not a single rice grain in the house.My husband says,”You somehow manage today.I will borrow money from marwadi shop and we can manage the rest of her stay.Now what shall I do?”
There was tear in her eyes.Jaya mami went near Meena and wiped her tears.She made small talk with her for sometime.When Meena got up to leave,Jaya mami took from Rama the vessel in which she had collected the batter ,brought the vessel to the hall,she gave the vessel in the hands of Meena and said,”Meena, Your sister in law is coming in the evening only,no?You can make dosas for her family tonight.They will enjoy the dosas.don’t worry.
Tomorrow,if your husband can manage money it is ok,otherwise I will give you my chain,you can mortgage it and take the money,ok?”

Meena had tears in her eyes when left mami’s house,carrying the vessel full of idly batter.

My dear friends,you may think,”What is the big deal?What is so great about giving a vessel full of batter.But ask any housewife whether it is a simple deed to give away the batter that she ground laboriously.
I sat there dumbfounded.My heart forgot to beat for a second.

I have to tell you about my father.My father,who retired as PostMaster was a rolly polly person.Very short,very fair,very round,there was a permanent benign smile on his face.People simply loved him,not because he was fair and round but because he was a giving person.It gave him pleasure to give and give.

He kept a glass jar full of peppermints in our hall .Children came to our house all the time and he tirelessly distributed the peppermints to them.When peppermints were over, it was left to my mother to buy more and keep the jar full.He was called the peppermint thatha.

I can narrate hundred incidents that remain green in my memory to illustrate the fact that my father derived great pleasure in giving others,but I will share with you one incident that has remained etched in my memory till today.

One morning my father entered our house after his tete a tete with his friends.He called out to my mother and said,”Make paruppu urundai khuzhambu for lunch today.Venkatnarayanan,my friend,cried today .He said that it is ages since he tasted paruppu urundai khuzhambu,his wife says that she just cannot afford to make that khuzhambu,not for the entire family.I told him that we will serve him paruppu urundai khuzhambu today.”(For the kind attention of KAMALJI and the likesaruppu urundai khuzhambu is a sambhar made with dhal dumplings.Very tasty)

My mother told my father,”I have finished making lunch today.I will make paruppu urundai khuzhambu tomorrow.”

My father raised his voice,”If you can’t prepare ,I will make it for him.”

Now it was my mother’s turn to get irritated.She knew by experience that if she did not make that khuzhambu,my father would enter the kitchen.Vessels flew in the kitchen.

My father brought his friendMr.Venkatanarayanan home.He made him sit in the kitchen,,sat by his side and served him food.He served him piping hot paruppu urundai khuzhambu on hot rice,served ghee,and watched him relish the meal with his benign smile on his round face,all the time fanning his friend with a hand fan.Venkatanarayanan enjoyed his meal.Once he finished eating,he got up and went to the backyard, washed his hands and sat on the steps leading to the verandah and wept.We stood there watching him in silence.He got up,embraced my father ,then went away. wiping his tears.I can never forget this scene as long as I live.

My father the short round fair man passed away and we shifted to Madras.We lived in a big house that accommodated seven families in Triplecane.This house had a huge verandah in the front and there were thinnais in the verandah.We the kids had a great time using the thinnais as our play area and the women used to sit there in the evenings and chat away.After dinner all of us would enter into our respective portions and then Poonaikutti Rasaththi would enter the house to sleep on one of the thinnais.She had taken permission from the house owner to sleep there in the nights.Poonaikutti Rasaththi would invariably be accompanied by not less that five or six kitten atleast.She called them her children,Who was Rasaththi?She was a beggar woman,clad in torn cloths,with bobbed hair and a sweet smile on her face.Mostly she fed her kitten with whatever food she ,managed to earn,if she had not earned sufficient for her kitten,she would look to us.My dear friends,we the inmates of the house were also poor.We knew what it was to keep a smile on the face and say cheerfully,”Oh,ys,I ate just now”while the stomach was grumbling”Almost all of us knew what it was to go with out food.So the mothers always kept something for Rasaththi.Rasaththi would not eat unless she fed all her kids ie the kitten that followed her.

Well,time has rolled by.Riches have come to me but the riches can not give the solace and peace that the old memories bring to me even now.I think of Jaya mami,my father the short fair round Venkatachari and Poonaikutty Rasaththi with warmth and affection.They were great,not because they shared with others the bounties that they had but they did that with out expecting anything in return.

King Pari’s fame, who gave away his chariot to the mullai creeper, is sung even today.The mighty rich are praised and win accolades when they donate for the right causes ofcourse.But the common people about whom I have written gave because,giving was in their blood.It was religion for them.They did that spontaneously Jaya mami did not gather an audience when she gave away her lunch or dinner,My father did not need an applause to egg him on and POnaikutty Rasaththi did not look around to see if anybody watched her feeding the kitten.Their actions were spontaneous therein lay the beauty,the charm and the sanctity of giving.

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My dear sri,
Thank you.Happy that you liked the post.
love
mithila

 

Dear Jaya,
It was wonderful to read about your husband.Such people make this earth a paradise.

When Iam in a hospital,nowadys I spend lot of time there,I always see people who help each other.I see people who are happy to share or give their homemade food to others.I see people who are happy to sit by the side of patients who have no visitors most of the days,and spend time with them.This is also giving.Mothes shuld teach their children to derive pleasure from such kind deeds.
Thanks for the lovely FB.
love
mithila

 

My dear Mindian,
Your chithi is a noble soul.God sends such people to us just so that we look at them and learn from them.

When we look around us we can see many like your chithi and Jaya mami who get pleasure in giving,mostly thay are simple people,for them giving otherwise sharing your hings with others,the needy ones is the very essence of life.
love
mithila