Veranda Tales-Dussehra memories from the past

Storytelling has been an integral part of my life since childhood. I grew up listening to stories during the hot summer evenings and nights with my cousins. Mothers and grandmothers would gather all of us children for story time. It was usually pitch dark except for a very faint light coming from the flickering candle. Power cuts were as frequent as the hot and humid summer days. We all spread out on a cool concrete floor or bamboo mats on the veranda intently listening to fascinating stories about kings, queens, princes, princesses, and peasants alike. Stories about love, life, families, and people entertained and taught us life skills. These stories transported us to distant worlds, strange yet familiar. Often the same story told by two people sounded different as storytellers added new twists and turns adding their personal style and flair to the stories.

Storytelling wasn’t limited to summer evenings and bedtime. I was surrounded by adults who didn’t pass up an opportunity to share their wisdom using the art of storytelling. These rich vibrant oral traditions include songs, poems, stories, and సామెతలు (Sametalu are proverbs in Telugu). Men and women sing songs as they work in the fields, grinding grains and spices and doing other daily chores at their homes. Stories are often used to teach important life lessons, interpersonal skills, and survival skills. These stories and the time spent listening to them made our lives richer leaving an impression on me. This series is all about reliving those memories as I share these stories.

అయ్యవారులకు ఐదు వరహాలు వారి పిల్లలకు పప్పుబెల్లాలు (ayyavarulaku idu varahaalu vaari pillalku pappu bellaalu)

అమ్మ (Amma is mother in Telugu) grew up with two older brothers, two older sisters, one younger brother, and one younger sister, a total of seven children including her. The oldest sister who was my grandparents’ firstborn died in infancy. It is hard to imagine having so many siblings as I have just one younger sister. It is hard for me to imagine giving birth to so many children year after year. My grandmother must have been either pregnant or nursing for a span of 20+ years. The good thing was అమ్మ (Amma) didn’t have to look for people to play with. She made friend’s with her siblings’ friends.

On my recent trip to visit her, she reminisced about running errands for her eldest sister and her friend who lived at their house for a few years while her family moved to a small village nearby. అమ్మ (Amma) would run errands and they provided tutoring help when she had questions about her school work. The errands were courier runs involving walking long distances carrying textbooks, notebooks, and letters to their friends’ houses. It didn’t sound like అమ్మ (Amma) enjoyed being messenger girl, but it appears she didn’t have much choice since she needed their help to get her school work done.

అమ్మ (Amma)’s two eldest sisters got married and went on to live in the same town and in the same neighborhood a short walk from each other. Their husbands’ worked in the same industry. When we went to visit them we would stay at both their houses, splitting the number of days equally between the two households. పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma) is mother’s elder sister or father’s elder brother’s wife in Telugu. My eldest పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma) was a heavy set women and she wore long తిలకం (Tilakam) on her forehead to signify her devotion to విష్ణు (Vishnu). I remember her to be very busy scurrying around the house taking care of her four children and her husband. My second పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma) is soft spoken and beautiful. She is the total opposite of her older sister. She looked very calm as she went about doing chores around the house with a beautiful smile on her face. She doesn’t look stressed even to this day and her smile is still as beautiful as ever. She calls అమ్మ (Amma) every single day to connect with her only sibling still left on this earth.

When I was about  six or seven years of age, we visited my పెద్దమ్మలు (peddammas) during విజయదశమి (Vijayadasami) or దసరా (Dussehra), a ten day festival. The tenth day commemorates the day of goddess దుర్గ (Durga)’s victory over మహిషాసుర (Mahishasura) after a nine day long battle. It also commemorates రామ (Rama)’s victory over రావణ (Ravana). This ten day festival is an important one we celebrate in our family. When I was growing up I would look forward to విజయదశమి (Vijayadasami) and the ten day school holidays knowing that దీపావళి (Deepavali) would be right after it in just a couple of weeks.

I barely started going to school when we visited them. On one afternoon, I found my eldest పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma) very busy in the kitchen preparing large quantities of sweets and కొర్ర బియ్యం పొంగలి. Korra Biyyam is FoxTail Millet Rice and పొంగలి (pongali) is porridge in Telugu. She made the కొర్ర బియ్యం పొంగలి (Korra Biyyam pongali) without much liquid to be able to make లడ్డు (laddu) to hand it to people. Laddu is a spherical sweet made out of various ingredients cooked in sugar or Jaggery syrup.  I remember her standing in front of a stove stirring a large pot full of పొంగలి (pongali). Once the sweets were ready she asked us to help put them in goodie bags made out of newspaper. We were busy all afternoon packaging the sweets. I didn’t know what they were for at that time. Later in the evening, a large group of students and their teachers came to the house. They stood on the veranda singing songs for a while. పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma) gave students and teachers sweets and కొర్ర బియ్యం పొంగలి (Korra Biyyam pongali) లడ్డులు (laddulu). She gave money to the teachers.

It is a tradition for teachers to take their students from house to house to sing songs during విజయదశమి (Vijayadasami). People give them sweets or పప్పుబెల్లాలు (pappu bellaalu), a dry mixture made out of equal parts of శనగపప్పు (senagapappu) and బెల్లాలు (bellaalu). శనగపప్పు (senagapappu) is split Chickpea lentils and బెల్లం (bellam) is Jaggery in Telugu. This protein filled snack tastes delicious. My recipe uses more Jaggery to satisfy my sweet tooth.

అయ్యవారులకు ఐదు వరహాలు వారి పిల్లలకు పప్పుబెల్లాలు (ayyavarulaku idu varahaalu vaari pillalku pappu bellaalu) sameta describes the tradition. It means, “Five varahas to teachers and chana dal and jaggery to their students”. వరహాలు (Varahas) was the standard unit of gold coin of the Vijayanagara Empire. Each coin weighed 3.4 grams. The coinage was in use for several centuries after the Vijayanagara Empire ceased to exist. This sameta refers to the coinage from that time.

I think of this sameta every year when విజయదశమి (Vijayadasami) comes around. The memories of watching పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma) making sweets, కొర్ర బియ్యం పొంగలి (Korra Biyyam pongali), helping her package the sweets, and watching the students and teachers in awe as they sang songs come flooding into my mind. Whenever December rolls around bringing Christmas carolers from our neighborhood school to my doorstep, I think of the students and teachers who came around to పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma)’s doorstep. Memories of both my eldest పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma) with her తిలకం (Tilakam) and my second పెద్దమ్మ (peddamma)’s beautiful smile warm my heart.