Parvathi akka’s early life and marriage
Parvathi, my sister is passing into oblivion even when her siblings and inheritors who have lived during her life are still inhibitors of planet earth. She died on 17 February^ 1983 chaired to death, Much before her physical body was charred and cremated leaving only a handful of ashes, her heart was seared, her mind incinerated, her soul burnt. She was said to have been 65 when she died.
As far back as I can remember Parvathi Akka was a part of my life at Cadavasal which from my birth till I left for studies in college to Madurai in 1943. I do not know when she returned to the Cadavasal house. I have no recollection of her marriage, her husband and her losing him in Madras! do not know when my memory cells got activated to record images of Cadavasal. I called her only Akka and she was called so by most of the young girls and boys in Cadavasal of my age. My earliest recollection of her was that she was different, different in the way that she was not a part of the Golu Sumangalis though she arranged the Mangal Kumkum plates with coconuts etc. She will never have her lunch without reading her Puja book. Even now as I conjure up images of Cadavasal, now a house that is now not ours, I see her sitting on a wooden plank with her sloka books and reading loudly.
There are very many images of Cadavasal life, with one constant in Cadavasal house - Parvathi Akka, She was ubiquitous despite her life of virtual seclusion, a social isolation. She will wake up in the morning, what dreams she had, what thoughts she nurtured, what tears she had, what agony she suffered no one knows She will have her coffee and take the brass pookoodai (Flower basket of brass) and pluck flowers from the various plants. If the bowers supporting the creepers or the branches with flowers were too high, she will take a wooden stool and climb up on that to reach the flowers. She used a contraption a wooden stick with a 6" piece of stick tied with coconut fiber rope at an angle with the longer side facing down forming a sort of triangle to pull branches down from trees. She will finish her flower collection, separate flowers for my mother's puja and keep the rest. She had infinite patience-She will take the plantain tree bark and take the fibre to make continuous thread for stringing flowers. After her sloka reading, (as I write 1 hear her voice "brama Murari Surarchitha Lingam, Nirmala Bhashitha Sobhitha Lingam" etc. she will have her lunch and sit in the Tavaram (lime courtyard) facing East with the Southern wooden pillar as her back support and go on stringing flowers, There were days when servants or other visitors from the Agraharam brought flowers for her to string. Mahizhamhu (I do not know the English equivalent) is a tiny flower with a great fragrance and to season, the flowers used to form a carpet under the tree. Parijatham a flower of exotic fragrnce that is said to have caused some friction between Satya Bhamna and Rukmini to Krishna's discomfiture, Mara Malligai, a white flower with a long stalk and all permeating fragrance, Panneer Poo, a smaller version of maramalligai, Shoeflower, Arali were her daily collection. Sometimes she will get Thazhamboo or Marukkozhundu or Vetriver as gift to her from a visitor. Whenever I came home from Madras for holidays, the train used to pass by Kollidam station. Whatever be the time of the day or morning, I used to find the Vetriver seller and pick a buch for her, She used to wrap it in a wet cloth and use it for many days. People understood that she can not be giver, flowers to bedeck herself as she was a widow, and so they brought loose flowers etc as gifts for her to use them in her daily occupation. She never strung the flowers for herself. She will make garlands, fix them in the various pictures of Gods and Goddesses, keep some for my mother and some for her to give visitors. I do not think at any time, a sense of anger at her fate or jealousy at the life of others who can have the flowers ever crossed her mind. Almost through the day (sometimes till 11 or 12 p m) she will sit and string the flowers, My mother used to tell her, "Parvathi, rest for a while and then go back or come to bed and you can do this tomorrow"; but she chose to ignore this request.
She had the plantain bark fibre rolled on spindles like sewing thread and at any given time there were more than a dozen of them. She had her own code as to which should be used first and picking them up, she will wet the thread before use. There were days when she said, Ennai Indha Madhiri Balan vittuvittu poivittare1 (Balan has left me like this) and her voice broke. She wiped her tears and went back to her chore, these outbursts used to be in her early days of widowhood. I never understood her agony but came to realize her anguish much later. She called her husband "PV Saar" for his name P Vaidyanathan, the Sir was an addenda, and Balan on other occasions A picture of her husband, an oval bust with a round cap and a jacket, ear rings prominent used to hang in the Western side of the Northern wall of the thavaram, just adjoining the Vasappadi (doorway) leading to the Thavaram from the centre hall. Sometimes she will pick up a flower and keep it on the photo. Sometimes there will be kumkum and Chandanam marks on his forehead. The annual shradh for her husband was performed by her. The purohits used to perform the shradh taking the necessary authority from her in the form of a Dharbai (Kusha grass)) with the appropriate mantras. For her, in her faith and belief it was the day when Balan will come back and she should ensure that everything is right for him. Every Shradh she performed must have kindled her memories, but never kindled any jealousy. A few days before the Shradh, she will be muttering, 5 days more,4 days more for Balan to come and after the event, she will sometimes say, one more year I have to wait, Nobody perhaps ever understood her misery more than my mother. In the early years, my mother used to shed her own tears lying down in the swing watching Parvathi stringing flowers. Parvathji had a box about 5" by 3.5" by 1 -5", satin lined in which was a picture of her husband, a miniature of the same picture in the koodam (inner courtyard)- I have seen her pick this picture up and look at the face fondly with unsaid prayer. I do not know what happened to that miniature picture.
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