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The vanished tribe of Mukunnamama
– A tribute to an original ‘Madras Walker’

Talakkodi Madathil Mukundan Nedungadi, whom we all knew as Mukunnamama (the Malayalam pronunciation of the name) was Father’s younger maternal uncle. He was nearly of Father’s age and was the complete antithesis of Father’s elder uncle who was tradition bound, ill tempered, fretful, and humourless.

Almost every year Mukunnamama (MM for short) used to show up from his native village Cherpalassery in Malabar and park himself for a few months in our house in Madras. We kids – my elder bother and I initially and a decade later our younger siblings – used to look forward to these visits of MM with great excitement and anticipation. For MM was Arthur Conan Doyle, Alfred Hitchcock and Oliver Hardy1 all rolled into one and something more: a willing accomplice in any pranks that we chose to play, even on him.

We children knew very little about MM’s early life. He never married, and had no obvious means of livelihood, except perhaps his inheritance. In short a typical Kerala ‘gentleman-of-leisure’ of those times. A man of frugal habits, his only petty indulgences were smoking bidis and inhaling ‘snuff’.

In Madras, the mornings began early, with MM gulping a jug full of water in one go and then letting out air in loud belches or expelling the water through his nose. The rest of the morning was occupied by an elaborate bath, prayers and scanning the newspapers. It was however in the evening that MM came into his own when he ventured out into the city. His favourite destinations were either the Park Town-Moore Market complex or the Broadway-George Town area, the ‘happening’ places of those days, a good 5 to 8 kilometers from our house. His usual routes were either via Triplicane and Marina Beach or through Mount Road. Invariably, he would cover the entire distance to and fro on foot.
He was attired usually in a dhoti and a white shirt with sleeves midway between half and full, ‘Kamaraj style’, sometimes with an umbrella to guard against the afternoon sun.

The strange and the bizarre attracted him. What a normal pedestrian might overlook or even avoid were his favourites, such as the road side magician, medicine man or acrobat. He even knew the name of one magician – Jaleel. With intense curiosity he would watch the shows and sometimes even offer himself as a volunteer as he once did, to become the subject of a hypnotic trance! I suspect he occasionally used the services of the roadside barber for his limited tonsorial needs.

In the Moore Market his interests were in exotic birds from distant lands and magical potions and herbs. Once he returned from Broadway with the gory details of the sensational Alavandar murder case2. Ramakrishna Lunch Home and Udupi Hotel in George Town were MM’s favourite eating places and he used to regale my younger siblings about the qualities of ‘hotel chutney’ served there, till one day suddenly cholera struck him and he was in agonizing pain, rolling on the floor. Father had to get him admitted to the Infectious Diseases Hospital, Tondiarpet where he spent about a week after which a chastened MM became wary of ‘hotel chutney’ which was suspected to be the culprit. So the ever adventurous MM got a taste of the common man’s Madras of those days too.

These evening peregrinations provided him with the fuel for the role that he played best: a spinner of yarns and a raconteur par excellence. In an age when, save the occasional visits to the cinema, the only entertainment for children was story telling by an elder relative, MM was a past master in the art. He had the unique skill of ‘stitching a coat around a button’, embellishing his narrations with tantalizing pauses, quaint facial expressions and modulations of his voice, all the while maintaining a serious facade. Nearly always his stories had a moral.

Amazingly, even a decade later when he was well into his sixties (a ripe old age those days), when my younger brothers played tricks on him, MM had lost nothing of his zest for fun and frolic. Whether it was landing with a thud on the floor as he lowered himself into an ancient ‘easy chair’ in which one of the wooden rods securing the seating cloth had been removed, or when a bidi, stuffed with the explosive mixture of Deepavali crackers blew up in his face, he acted the part of the bumbling country bumpkin to perfection.

Lest one gets the impression that Mukunnamama was the traditional village idiot, let me add that behind that façade was a shrewd, well cultivated mind, someone who could quote with facility from ancient epics and scriptures and yet, was ever ready to partake in the next episode of fun and frolic. It was, I suspect, a carefully cultivated personality, probably the only way he could reciprocate the hospitality of his nephew year after year by being the family entertainer for his nephew’s young sons. Years later the lasting image I have is of MM sheepishly hiding his bidi behind his back, whenever Father suddenly appeared on the scene: a rare case of an uncle too embarrassed to smoke in front of his nephew!

Oddly for a man who epitomized fun and laughter, MM used to often recite a sombre Sanskrit sloka:

Anayasena maranam, vina dhainyena jeevanam
Dehi me kripaya shambo thwaiee bhakthim achanchalam
(O Lord, kindly provide me an easy death, a life without hardships, and unwavering devotion to you.)

That is exactly the way he departed from this world, suddenly and without troubling any one. How does one measure the ‘worth’ of someone like MM: no impressive CV, no worldly possessions worth mentioning and no progeny to carry his name forward? In fact, a nobody in worldly terms. Yet, he represented a tribe that has since vanished from our midst, someone who asked so little of this world and yet spread much happiness, goodwill and joy. Above all, a person whose memory still engenders excitement, mirth and laughter, even decades after he left the scene. Can there be a better legacy to leave behind than that?

¹ The portly half of the famous Hollywood comedy duo Laurel & Hardy of yesteryears.

² A famous crime of passion of those days in which the body of the victim Alavandar, a Broadway businessman was discovered stuffed in a decapitated condition in a steel trunk in a compartment of the Indo- Ceylon Express train. His one time paramour and her husband were the prime suspects.

– K. Balakesari
balakesari_k@hotmail.com

“What I love about Madras which is now Chennai?”

Having spent 31 of my 70 years in Chennai, which was and still is Madras for me, I look back often – and particularly on 22nd August every year, when Madras Day is celebrated since 2004 – at my journey through the time spent in this wonderful city which is 379 years young.

“I was neither born nor bred here. But I know this city”, in the words of Arundhathi Subramaniam who wrote a poem aptly titled ‘MADRAS’.

Participation in the annual photographic competition, joining heritage, tree and park walks around our Gandhi Nagar colony and other venues in the city, attending concerts / recitals, listening to Endrum Padhinaaru, writing essays on topics related to the city which I love, arranging events for our PROBUS Club of Madras (South) of which I am the current President, sums up what I like about Madras aka Chennai. I continue to live here after my retirement and even after the marriage of my two daughters who have moved to spread their wings, with the hope that I will be able to add some more memories to my collection, which continues to grow steadily with the passing of years.

CHENNAI stands for:
C – Civilized People
H – Harmonious Environment
E – Excellent Medical Facilities
N – Natural Parks and Beaches
N – Numerous Religious Places
A – Architectural Heritage
I – Industries and Information Technology

while

M in MADRAS is for Memories – of Margazhi, Music, MTC, Metro, Marina, Mysore Pa, the Murugappa group of companies, and of course (S.) Muthiah, the renowned Historian.

A is for Architecture, with which Madras is replete, in temples, palaces, learning centres – old ones like the University of Madras and the new ones like the Anna Centenary Library.

A is also for Arisi, raw and boiled. It is also for Anjaneya ­Kovils spread all over the city from Mylapore to Nanganallur.

D is for the Dosai of many kinds – paper, plain, masaalaa, ghee roast and many more. D is also for Dina Thanthi, the newspaper in Tamizh with which the natives start their day. It is also for DakshinaChitra, where heritage houses have been preserved. D is also for the thousands of Devotees, who throng the temples daily and in lakhs on special occasions like Vaikunth Ekadasi, for Dina Malar, another staple local language newspaper, and for (Vincent) D’Souza, prolific journalist and Executive Editor of several neighbourhood weekly newspapers.

R is for Rasam, without which saappadu in the afternoon is incomplete, and which is served in small and large Restaurants. R is also for Rajinikant, cinestar, our Thalaivaa.

A is also for Aaraadhanaa, performed on various occasions and Archanai conducted ubiquitously at temples of which there are many.

S is for the famous Silk or Pattu Sarees, and also for (Thayeer) Saadam, which a true “Madraasi” can eat at the end of his afternoon Saappaadu as well as at any other time of the day.

Remembering the many happy years I, my family and my friends and associates have spent in this glorious city, I am reminded of the following lines :

“The long rails recline into a distance
Where tomorrow will come before I know it.”

– From ‘Madras Central’ by Vijay Nambisan

Deepak Bhatia
B-3/20, CEEBROS PRAKRUTI, First Main Road,
Gandhi Nagar, Adyar, Chennai 600 020

On Open Spaces

A city like Chennai must have a minimum of 10 per cent dedicated to large public parks and open spaces. Handkerchief city parks are a waste of time. If Greater Chennai is 750 sq.km, the city must have 75 sq.km of parks, nature reserves, trails etc. Now the cluttered Marina Beach is the only solace to 8 million people. More memorials will further diminish Marina. At State level, TN should have at least 16 per cent dedicated national parks and reserves. In addition rivers and water bodies and waterfronts must be fully protected.

Now we have reached a very sad state, beyond repair, all because of incompetent governance and incompetent city and regional planners.

R.Krishnamoorthy
Singapore