I come from a joint family environment during my early childhood days. My father’s brothers and a sister kept in touch and gathered on the Death Anniversary celebration of their parents. For a long time, the event though sad used to be a celebration of life and sibling bonding. The joy in working together for a common goal meant so much to my father and his siblings.
I lived in the family home the longest compared to others. I observed the way each of them worked and how things used to be when they got together. Now none of the brothers and sister are alive with the passing of my father, the last member of the 7 siblings and some countless cousins from both their parents’ sides.
Our big family situation meant we are in mourning for all consecutive years. We might have forgotten the family rules for festivity completely! At least, I don’t have any recollection of celebration rules for festivals, but I’m well aware of death rites and rituals.
The family instilled on us to perform without fail the anniversary celebration of the dear departed. The rules such as visiting the dead person on his or her passing meant more to us than celebrating a festival. So, when I see KDrama holding death anniversary scenes, I am reminded of the joint family and the solemnness of the death anniversary and its impact of celebrating life and the memories of the passed family member.
Death is a final statement that marked the end of a person’s journey on earth as they moved on to different realms of existence. For me, death was and will be a celebration of a life well-lived however one might feel about it. All lives are well-lived for me! It in turn let me celebrate the fact of a person’s existence on earth and the human connection.
On account being a girl child of the family, my participation during the anniversaries were limited to cleaning the floor and in the case of short-handed man-power, I used to serve food to the visiting Pundits which was part of the ritual.
It always begins a day before the actual death anniversary (the day and star of the person who passed away). My mother would ask me to make the dough for pooris and she would take care of making milk, jaggery, and dhal based drink. The accompaniment to pooris were coconut chutney, the grinding of which is my responsibility when I was past eight grade.
The relatives would trickle in from working in the office and all would wait until everyone arrived. The family members each took a task based on their skillset. My father and his younger brother would do the vegetable purchasing. This is then followed by pre-cutting the vegetables for the next day event for the Mami who would come home for cooking the Shraddha meal.
After the buying and cutting of the vegetables are done and prepped, we sit down to have our dinner and hit the sack in Srivatsam for the night. This is the time when the family would chit-chat and catch with each other.
The next day early in the morning the hall is emptied out for the ritual and the sofa set goes into the veranda and rest either folded to minimum usage space or moved to other rooms. Once the dhotis and sareers of the siblings and their spouses are washed and sundried until it is ready for use. The kitchen work is done by cooking skilled family members in wet clothes
The first person who takes the head bath gets the rights to hang the wet clothes on the cloth lines. These clothes must be unblemished by unbathed human hands. The clothes are washed on earlier and left in the bucket to be hung on cloth lines. The previous day, it is my job to bring down all daily clothes from the line so, it doesn’t sully the sanctity of clothes washed for the next day.
One of the brothers takes care of the brick for creating the temporary homam kundam for the rites. These bricks are collected and stacked under the staircase for usage. It is my duty to rangoli the kundam with Kolamaavu and Kavi or turmeric powder. The turmeric powder is more of a substitute than accepted one.
Later, we had got a Iron homam kundam and were easier to port around once it cooled down to bearable temperature for moving. Father made sure to get all the rites materials from kush leaves to flammable wooden sticks, to cakes of cow dung, and place mats for the shastrigals to sit down around the homam to perform the rites with the head of the family performing the karma.
The fire for the homam is brought by the spouse of the person who is performing the karma. The rites takes about two or three hours based on the arrival of Shastrigals. Once the rites are all done then, the first batch of food is served and the conversations is excitedly about the good food and tasteful presentation.
There are rules for the presenting and plating of the plantain leaf. The order of food being offered to the pundits have to faultless and offered humbly. South Indian cuisine for the death anniversary have certain elements that is different from celebratory feasts.
The ellu seeds or sesame seeds and raw rice played an important role in the rites and in the main cooking also. There are sweets and salt items done with these sesame seeds and rice. Homemade sweets are done specially for the event.
The second batch of women folk would sit down to have their lunch which would be around 4 pm. Once the entire batch of lunch are done and the floor cleaned, meanwhile the shastrigal would move to veranda to have their digestive paan specially prepared for them to self-serve made to their preferences as the men folks would join them for a conversation.
By 5:30 pm the members of the family crash to catch on their rest or leave to their home to rest there. At 6 pm post late chai session, we, at Srivatsam would reset the hall since the existence without the television is unimaginable for my father. The egging factor would be the match that is missed out.
The life gets back to the usual after some smart moves of furnishings. Even though it was a little physically tiring but it was also a moving gathering of family members. It was nice to watch my father and his siblings’ banter and joie de livre. In these few hours of coming together to perform a karma assigned to them gives them a moment of pause to reconnect with their life and living a frozen moment of kinship.
Itinerant Storyteller 