“Wake up Nina, We have work to do”
“Oh Ammachi please let me sleep for another 5 minutes”. I tried to hide my head under the pillow.
“Nina, wake up, everyone is waiting for you”. She removed the pillow from my head.
“Who is waiting for me?”I asked her .
“We will talk about it later, will you please hurry and get ready?”. She replied
I got up and sat down on the bed. “What is going on Ammachi, Why can’t you let me sleep for a little while? You are like my mother, allergic to seeing me sleeping peacefully”
“Oh Nina, the workers are waiting for you, so they can start the paddy harvest”
“huh?” I looked at her.
“Go, quickly brush your teeth and come to the paddy fields”
I had no idea, why everyone is waiting for me. I quickly brushed my teeth and went to the paddy field.
I saw atleast 10 women waiting near the field. Most of the women were squatting on the floor, talking to each other and occasionally spitting the tobacco. When they saw me coming, all of them got up and stood as though I am a teacher and they are showing me respect by standing up.
I looked at the women and at Ammachi. This is weird.
The women wore short saree blouse and colourful lungi. They didn’t cover their bosom. I felt extremely uncomfortable and shy. It is the first time I saw women wearing saree blouse and lungi and not covering their bosom.
Ammachi gave me a sickle and asked one of the women to take me to the field.
I followed her holding the sickle. I wasn’t sure how to hold the sickle.
Should I hold it up like a flag? or should I hold it down like a bag?.
I had no idea. Finally I held the sickle close to my chest like a newborn baby and walked towards the paddy. We stopped at the tiny bund that separates our field from our neighbour’s
“mole, you need to step down and cut the paddy stalk with your sickle. Before you cut,say a prayer in your heart for a bountiful harvest” the woman told me.
I contemplated if I should remove the hawai chappal before going down to the field. I didn’t want to get my feet dirty so I opted not to remove my beautiful chappal uncle Jacob got for me all the way from America.
I put my foot gingerly on the floor and my chappal along with my clean feet sank in to the wet mud. Soft mud squished between my toes. I tried to lift my feet up. It didn’t move. The mud reached up to my ankle and my imported hawai chappal was stuck in the mud. I now had one leg in the mud and another on the small bund. I had no intention of getting my other leg and my imported hawai chappal dirty. I tried to balance like the crane in the water on one leg and cut the paddy.
I turned and looked at Ammachi to see her reaction. She was laughing.
I knew it must have been a lovely sight, me balancing on the field and trying to cut the paddy.
‘aha, nobody is going to have fun at my expense’.I placed both my legs in the mud and stood up. My feet was itching and I held the sickle in one hand so i could use my other hand to itch my feet. It must have been the force needed to lift my hawai chappal out of the mud and the weight of the sickle working together, I fell on my butt in the wet mud.
I could hear everyone laughing.
“Shankari, don’t just stand and laugh, get down and help Nina”. Ammachi ordered while laughing at the same time.
Shankari gave me her hand and helped me to get up. My hair was on my face and I used my hands to push it away. I didn’t see I had mud in my hand and now I had mud in my mouth and on my face. It tasted yucky and I spat it out.
I quickly said a muddy prayer in my mind for the bountiful harvest and cut few stalks of paddy.
All the women yodelled.
I wanted to get out of the field and I couldn’t find my chappal. I had to use my hand and search for my chappal in the mud. I was so glad when I finally found it and quickly climbed out of the field holding the chappal in my hand. Ammachi laughed even more when she saw me, with mud on my face,hair,hands and up to my knee.
I didn’t want to look at her and I walked straight to the well so I could wash the mud off my body.
“Nina, ask chakki to give you some coconut fibres, so you can scrub your body”.
You only scrub the buffallo hide and I was angry with Ammachi for thinking that I belong with the animals. I stuck my tongue at her.(I couldn’t place my fingers behind my ears, because the clay was already drying and my fingers didn’t move)
nice blog 😀
its real fun to play with paddy field mud! It just takes you IN….
and the smell! ohh I would say its the real smell of our land…so nice!
chirpings and sounds….winds…
ohh god…good old nattinpuram…
Nattinpuram Nanmakalaal Samrudham….
Ishtleen:Thank you for visiting my blog
Q8techdrive:those were the days!!!
yeah, during childhood we stick to things very much that are gifted to us. I like to play in mud.. you face must have been colorfull ?… what happend to your spects? were you able to see?
ariyatha pilla choriyumbom ariyum ennalle 🙂
so Ms. kochamma inaugurated the harvest alle.
Sujit:there was mud everywhere..and i learned I shoouldn’t try to clean the dirt in my mouth with dirty hand…
Jithu:yes i did, without even understanding wht I was doing.. Ara enne kochammannu viliche??
reminds me of “koythu” at our tharavadu… “katta methikal”..”nellu alakkal”(with para) etc etc.. we used to play hide and seek at huge haystacks.. that was fun.. good old memories … 🙂 ..
nostalgia :((…..
ho, that must have been real fun…I suspected midway that the ‘American chappal’ would be lost in the ordeal. Nina usually messes up things :))
so was the harvest bountiful that year??
Ormakal okke valare nannayirikkunnu ‘immigrant lady dr’.’Gruhaturatham’ ennanu bloginu pattiya peru.Ethu Kathayano,anubhavamano? ..chilayidathokke exaggeration kandu. Arundathi royiyoduum avarude God of small things nodum ningalkku vallathorishtam thanne undu.It reflects in your blog.Enkelium nannayittundu.
– Nattukaran (‘Immigrant alle’) –
haha
nice one
talk abbout different experiences in life
WOW…thats something very awesome experience…I always loved the paddy field …the greenary has always attracted me …:)
Cheers
IF I were given a sickle for the first time too,I would wonder…whether to hold it like a flag or a bag….Oh mY GOD..that was soooooo funny!!!
You did have to get down and dirty for this one,didn’t ya?
haha n everyone had a hearty laugh at your expense..poor thing!
muddy prayer….lol
talking about mud n clay…I am actually wearing a white clay mud mask that I bought today at the store.So i can imagine what you may have looked like with all that mud..LIke I am right now hahaha
fun!:)
Monu:it was fun… and we had a para and kachi thura and i use to hide inside the kachi thura when I did something extremely naughty
Arjun:Calamity Jane eh?
Ajay:it was indeed an experience
Dawn:Thanks for all the time you leave a lovely comment
Maya:The sickle part was funny.. i felt like walking with the sickle and shouting inquilab sindabad, viplavam jayikette..
And the fields can be deceptive..i didn’t expect my feet to just sink in the mud..
So funny and so cute. 🙂 I am trying to imagine a little girl with mud in her face and hands and hair and trying to keep as dignified a stance as possible. :))
Loved reading it.
Hahaha.. you are funny. I thought every kid would enjoy getting down in the mud.. at least for once? I would.. especially when given that much importance 🙂
Did you get in again after that? or was that the first and last?
wow.. thats a lesson for the century!! 🙂
Quills:I did walk as dignified as possible with my muddy imported hawai chappal..
Geetha: if you lived the better part of your life in Penang, the only mud you get to play is the clean one..the one you find at the nursery school..If i ever touched the mud anywhere else, Amma would have roasted me alive..basically I didn’t expect my feet to just sink..it was smelly too
Sujit:indeed!!!
This was a really funny post ,i could almost picture you with the sickle and deep down in the mud.
Starry nights:if you could see me walking..then I am succesfull in transforming my mental images to written words… You gave me hope..thank you