Rajah Paati

I was reading this article today about the Ambani brothers and Reliance I was reminded of a neighbour we once grew up with.

Rajah Paati lived next door with her daughter and son and was one of the first people I knew who owned Reliance shares. Apart from a small house that looked ready to be torn down and rebuilt, the five hundred shares of Reliance Industries were the only savings her husband had left her when he passed away a few years ago. The dividends from the shares, her sole income, helped her keep her head above water and even put her daughter through a BA degree in Tamil. Paati regularly attended the local Reliance shareholder meetings even though she was barely literate and had just one good going-out saree which she had to share with her daughter.

With a daughter about to enter her twenties, Paati fretted constantly about finding the right groom. Her son was of no use to her and was more often a bane than boon. She had reconciled herself to the fact that she was on her own for the remainder of her life with no one else to depend on. She never spoke of it as a hardship though and was often matter of fact about what she needed to do to take care of her future. She often told my mother that she had to keep her eye on the shares and make sure she converted some of her shares to highway bonds in due time because otherwise she was going to die penniless and alone.Mummy tried to console her saying that her son and daughter would rally around her in time, when she needed it but Paati either dismissed it outright or just smiled and said nothing.

Rajah Paati had hardly any time for self-pity or sympathy.  Every summer she would be determined to make sure that our family(and a few others in our neighborhood, I suspect)  would not go without pickles. Paati would help mummy make several jars of mouth-wateringly delicious and spicy mango and lime pickles, showing her when and where to get the best limes, mangoes, red chillies, coriander seeds, etc. Paati even made sure mummy actually wrote down how much of everything was needed. She also gave detailed instructions as to how the limes and mangoes were to be washed, dried and made ready for pickling. Mummy faithfully made sure everything was done exactly as she had wanted.

We came to recognize December and Christmas by the fact that Rajah Paati would at our house making unholy amounts of laddoo, murrukku and adhirasam. Oh, how we kids adored her then.  Paati tried to teach mummy to make vadam and appalam as well, not to mention tons of other Tamil dishes. But between raising three kids under 10 and working full-time, I am not quite sure if my mother really wanted to be making all of these things herself.  But Rajah Paati’s enthusiasm won her over every time and she would be in yet another cooking project  with her the following week. As I watched them cleaning, prepping and then cooking, I often wondered how the frail body of Rajah Paati held so much energy.

Daddy helped her sometimes with her bank accounts and so on but Paati almost never asked for anything in return for all that she did for us.  The only thing she ever wanted from us was some tea and Eucalytpus oil when we returned from our summer holidays at our native place in the Nilgiris. Most of the time though, she just seemed happy to come over and have a  chat and a cup of tea with mummy. As a precocious pre-teen, I had no clue why my mother or any of us would be suitable company for anyone, leave alone her. Our families seemed to have nothing in common, or so I thought.

As the years rolled on Paati relied more and more heavily on her shares to tide her over. She sold some of her shares to get her daughter married and her son eventually found himself a job. However Paati’s responsibilities just seemed to increase. Her daughter faced a lot of trouble from her in-laws and constantly need more money. Her son disappeared after a few years (not sure what exactly happened there). Paati grew more frail and eventually she stopped coming over to help us with sweets and pickles. Gradually Ananda Bhavan and Grand Sweets replaced what Paati would help us with at Christmas. She still continued to come over occasionally for tea with mummy but the visits became less and less frequent and eventually we saw her only if there was a holiday or festival.

We eventually moved out of our house to another one in a very different part of the city. My parents kept in touch with her through friends and other neighbours, from time to time. We heard that her son came back after a few years and later, that her children demanded she sell the house and split the proceeds with them. She, apparently,split the entire proceeds of the house between them, but refused to part with the remaining shares. Her children eventually did abandon her just as she predicted and she moved to a different house in the same locality and lived on her own with just the dividends from her shares. A couple of years later, we heard the news that Paati had died.

Thoreau once said,

However mean your life is, meet it and live it: do not shun it and call it hard names.

Rajah Paati epitomised this for me. She lived an enthusiastic,  useful life, and more importantly, with complete honesty.