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My mother’s sewing kit was an old quality street sweet tin and it held threads, buttons, bits and bobs . She always saved every bit of thread, even the leftover threads from the sewing needle after she did some mending. After few months, there was something that looked like a bird nest made of various colour threads in the sewing kit and it was my job to untangle them and help Amma save every bit of those tiny useless threads! There was no point trying to tell my mother that she was never going to use those threads..
Sometimes my memories are all tangled like the threads in Amma’s sewing kit.

I have been thinking about my grandmother a lot lately..
Yesterday while I was with my accountant trying to finish my tax returns, I remembered my grandmother’s ledger book.
It was hardbound with pinkish/purplish cover, the corners were bluish black colour.
But what I remember the most was the colour of the paper inside. It was a lovely shade of light green. All my notebooks had white paper with an annoying tinge of purple and the paper always absorbed the dampness during monsoon season, where as the paper in Ammachi’s ledger book was crisp and neat.
If I was well behaved, Ammachi always let me have a sheet before I went back home. The process of tearing a paper was done under strict supervision. You were only allowed to take a sheet from the middle of the book, even then it has to be checked that nothing was written on it and only ammachi was allowed to tear it, so as to not to damage the binding.

I was not allowed to touch the book, but would look at it when Ammachi wasn’t around.  I couldn’t read most of what she wrote, only few words. According to my father, my grandmother was using the old Malayalam script,
There were two columns. varavu, chilavu (incoming/outgoing).
She recorded every single transaction..She was the custodian of the land and was taking care of it for my father. She wanted to make sure that everything that she did was recorded.
But what fascinated me always was the 10%  ( tithe)she gave to the church at the end of each month. She didn’t balance the budget, instead she gave the 10% of the varavu (incoming). She and the local pathiri (priest) were always at loggerhead and fought all the time. But the last sunday of each month my grandmother attended the church holding an orange colour envelope that held the 10 % of her income for that month. She often said , “kaisserkkullathu kaisserkkum, yehovakkullathu yehovakkum”
( Jesus said “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s. Matthew 22:21)

As I filed my tax return, I wonder if I would ever be able to live a life like my grandmother lived..not to bend my knees at any time for anyone for any reason at the same time never sacrifice my ideologies and beliefs?

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