Hemantha Kalam - 105 "Memory Streets"

                                                                                  Memories don’t leave like people do;                                                  They always stay with you...

Sir Tom Jones

Men and some animals (known to us) have memories, however vague or strong they might be. We will not be able to say whether animals could have favourite memories, but as human beings many of us have some or more favourite memories. Well, so do I. In fact, I have too many memories that many of them are more of a burden as I belong to the breed that forgives a lot but seldom forgets!

So I was dwelling on my favourite memories and then started writing this blog with one favourite memory of mine (in fact that of almost all of our siblings), which is about my father. I have so many memories of my father that I can perhaps write a book on them. So this is a slice of those.

As mentioned by me in my earlier blogs, my father was working in whichever way his talent pushed him, to make ends meet.

During the early 1960s, he started stabilising a bit when he started working for a gentleman who ran two companies – one was called SYGA Corporation and the other SYGA Movies. My father was the manager of the first and an associate director in the second. I have reasonably distinct and vivid memories of his work in both.

But the favourite memory is from the first – SYGA Corporation. This was an indenting office in Madras (Chennai),  for an Indian company called the Gwalior Rayon Silk Manufacturing Company Limited (later name changed to Grasim Industries), with its manufacturing plant located at Mavoor, Kozhikode (Calicut), Kerala, India (if I am not mistaken, this manufacturing plant does not exist anymore there). The job of the indenting office was to check on the availability and prices of raw material needed by the plant, on a daily basis, from various sources in Chennai, and inform the factory appropriately and promptly so that their procurement department would place orders directly to a vendor of their choice.

My father used to go to office around 11.00 am, work in the office to cater to the needs of the plant, as also taking care of the necessary communications, leave office to go to George and Park Towns and the Sowcarpet area in Chennai (between Chennai Central Station on the West, DARE house on the East, Broadway area in the South and Mint/Mannadi area in the north).

For this purpose, his company did not provide him with any vehicle, not even a bicycle. So he used to commute initially by bicycle but as we started growing up he too started aging and preferred to commute by public transport and the nearest facility to his office was the bus service.

Depending on the day’s requirement of material, he used to alight sometimes at Wall Tax road (adjacent to Chennai Central station) and start walking the streets to meet vendors and find out the availability and prices of the raw material needed for the day.

He would cover areas and streets like Pai Kadai, Evening Bazaar, Mint Street, Govindappa Naicken Street, Flower Bazaar, Godown Street, Badrian Street, Anderson Street, Lyons Square, Broadway, Sembudoss Street, Armenian Street, Thambu Chetty Street, Linghi Chetty Street, Angappa Naicken Street, Thatha Muthiappan Street, Seven Wells, Mannadi, Muthialpet, II Line Beach, Burma Bazaar etc., and many more depending on the need. For at least a couple of decades he was the uncrowned king of these streets like many other petty traders in these streets too. Every vendor my father met or had business in these streets loved him.

This walk would continue till about 9.30 pm by which time he would have covered a major portion of the area, when he finally would call it a day, more because the vendors were closing than because of lack of energy on his part, and take a bus from Broadway bus stand. The last buses of the day were always crowded and one needed deftness to find and hold a seat which my dad used to do with aplomb. Even the most irritated and irate person used to calm down on seeing his smile.

As I entered school and later college (which was located at less than 500 meters from his office) he started taking me around too, just to show me the ‘world’ in its true sense. Being a bit of laissez faire guy that I am, I never had his energy levels and used to crib often for walking so long and for so many hours. Being a foodie, one of my favourite cribs was to ask him for evening snacks; in restaurants where the different aromas used to waft onto the streets; which he almost always used to pass by saying that we are ending our work for the day and should not stuff ourselves, else we cannot justify our dinner. There were times when I used to point blank refuse to accompany him, if he did not buy me snacks in the evening.

Once or twice a week he also used to buy and bring home vegetables from ‘Kotwal Chavadi’ which was the wholesale vegetable market in the city (before it was relocated to Koyambedu) at the time and was located at Lyons Square. Part of Broadway near the Lyons Square was cobble stoned (British era) and even in the normal times it used to be a bit painful to walk on the smooth polished dome like cobbles. In rainy season it used to be dreadful added with slush and stink. There used to be ankle deep water filled with vegetable wastes and walking on the slippery cobbles, without spraining an ankle, was an art.

My father used to hold his office brief case in one hand, umbrella in the other and used to bargain for vegetables where no bargaining was available. But those vegetable sellers, who loved my father, used to offer him good prices and generous in measuring / weighing too. My father used to wear real stylish cooling glasses or they all just looked good on him whichever way, but also used to lose them mostly at the vegetable shops by forgetting to pick them up when they fell from his pocket or when he placed them on some vegetables while picking the good ones!.

I must have moved with my father in the evenings like this for several years alright. My cribbing continued, but later, only much later, could I (the dumb guy that I am) understand the value of my father’s personal tutelage in teaching me (later, all my siblings) the markets, the products’ availability, the art of negotiation et al., for which I am forever indebted to him. Unknown to me then, the seeds, for my qualifying in Materials Management study, were sown in those days itself.

My favourite memory in this episode is that somewhere in 1973 (yes, half a century ago) one evening my father asked me to come to his office straight from college to go to Parry’s corner. We met Mr. Kishan Lal Khanna, a good friend of my father, at a pre-fixed place on Thambu Chetty Street and slowly walking through Armenian Street, Broadway, Lyons square, Bundar street, Govindappa Naicken street, we finally reached Kasi Chetty street. That was the first time I was entering Kasi Chetty Street as earlier, there was not much of an occasion for us to go there since it was a street well known for products in the grey market.

But, apparently, unknown to me as yet, that was a special day. We went shop after shop where my father was asking for good and stylish imported wrist watches. Allwyn and Titan were not born yet and HMT models were considered not stylish enough at that time.  Finally both of us could agree upon one model of a watch, interestingly in grey colour. Those days, my father used to wear a beautiful white dialled and light weight Swiss ‘Favre Leuba’ watch, and I was wondering why he was buying another watch, as he is not known to squander his money. This watch, after a deep bargaining, was fixed for Rs.230.00. My father paid the cash and asked me to wear it. He had a twinkle in his eyes when he saw me wearing it.

That was my first watch and gifted by my dad on the occasion of my entering a college, the first to do in our family. That was one happy day and this is an unforgettable memory of my father. I tried resurrecting the now defunct watch several times, even last year, but though it has not lost its sheen, it is just not functioning. Perhaps, its function now is to remain a good living memory for me.

Later my first job was in the same area for about a year and a half when both of us used to meet sometimes in the evenings and together bring vegetables home. My work over the past eight years takes me to the same area again and every time I walk on any street in the area, I find myself walking along with my dad, invisibly though. I see him everywhere in the area.

Today (14^th July) is the day he passed away six years ago. Interestingly that was a Friday and today is a Friday too!  There has not been a single day when I don’t think of him or do not reminisce my association with him. He had been a dad of a different stock and I could not or can’t ever be like him and I am glad of that, so my father’s uniqueness is unscathed and untouched.

I do hope that he would be busy wherever he is with that infectious smile of his and bringing more smiles on to others’ faces, or would he be singing, without a care for time? How I would love to know!

So folks that’s about it for this blog.

Until the next, 

Krutagjnatalu (Telugu), Nanri (Tamil), Dhanyavaadagalu (Kannada), Nanni (Malayalam), Dhanyavaad (Hindi), Dhanyosmi (Sanskrit), Thanks (English), Dhonyavaad (Bangla), Dhanyabad (Oriya and Nepalese), Gracias (Spanish), Grazie (Italian), Danke Schon (Deutsche), Merci (French), Obrigado (Portuguese), Shukraan (Arabic and Sudanese), Shukriya (Urdu), Sthoothiy (Sinhalese) Aw-koon (Khmer), Kawp Jai Lhai Lhai (Laotian), Kob Kun Krab (Thai), Asante (Kiswahili), Maraming Salamat sa Lahat (Pinoy-Tagalog-Filipino), Tack (Swedish), Fa'afetai (Samoan), Terima Kasih (Bahasa Indonesian) and Tenkyu (Tok Pisin of Papua New Guinea), Malo (Tongan), Vinaka Vaka Levu (Fijian)

 

Hemantha Kumar Pamarthy

Chennai, India