Manorama looked small amidst some younger folks, resplendent in her antique silk sari, and her old heirloom jewellery, and she smiled and waved back at me , with the hand she wasn't using for eating the meal. She would now be around 80, or maybe even more. A lady with , what may today be called a "petite" build, she was often a visitor to my parents , when I was a child. As I grew up, one thing was very clear. The only thing petite about her, was her build.
Her parents, in-laws and my grandparents belonged to the same coastal village.An idyllic lush green and blue coast which remains the same even today. My grandparents migrated to Mumbai in the early 1900's. Somewhere around the time of our independence in 1947, she and her husband left their ancestral house due to economic compulsions and land tilling problems, and came to the city.
The question of a livelihood arose. In a village society which allowed idleness as a valid activity, because your father was a do-er of good, her husband wasn't really trained for anything. And so she decided to start something of her own. A home made pickle business.
My grandfather helped her with the seed money, and she started her mango pickle business in a two room set up, which was actually her house then. She at first sourced the juicy raw mangoes from their own small land holding left behind. Transport wasn't very easy, telephones sometimes didn't exist, and she would often go and wait at the transport terminal to check if her stuff had come. For a girl from a hugely protected rural traditional set up, even dealing with the burly drivers and enquiring about things required guts. Her husband didn't keep too well, although he did accompany her occasionally when he could. She would come see my parents when we were children, and had a secret admirer in my mother, in whom she would often confide. She learnt how to visit places with her pickle samples, and seek orders. My mother helped her with some contacts, which were mostly places which had cafeterias which served food and slowly the orders grew.
Her husband did all the accounting for the business, decided on expenditures, and salaries of helpers, 2-3 of whom she was able to hire. Things were progressing, even on the personal front and there were two young children now. But by and large , she was the one who slogged at everything, the pickle, the housework, attending to house guests in the tiny apartment, and she ensured that the children never missed out on any of the traditional observances throughout the year, which she enjoyed as a child in her village.
At one point her husband fell sick, was detected with tuberculosis at an advanced stage. The sky fell on her. Her children were still young, the pickle business was picking up, and now this. For a while she fumbled. Then got her act together. Her husband spent his last months being cared for in a wonderful fashion, and one day, it was just Manorama and her two very young children, who faced a daunting future.
The family who had hitherto commented on her "forward" ness, suddenly got interested, and the husband's younger brother came down to help. He took over the marketing and customer liaison stuff, and left her to concentrate on the production. She was now a confident woman, who could think about the future of the business, and they took a loan to get bigger premises, and capacity. Her pickles were gaining a wonderful reputation, and she branched out into several more pickles and chutneys. Her children went to good schools.
The same relatives who were amazed at her industriousness, now started insinuating things. She was a widow, wasn't she ? And the brother-in-law stayed with them ? Rumor had it that the children thought he was the father ?
She often poured her heart out to my mother, and consulted her. They discussed this, and the brave lady took a very bold step. She shut up everyone, by simply marrying her brother-n-law. This was a complete sensation at that time, and I remember she and her husband coming by, to pay respects to my old grandmother after marriage.
There weren't any stars in her eyes, but there was certainly peace in her heart. The stars would shine later.
Manorama prospered like never before. She bought land, built her own house, with an area earmarked for her pickle factory alongside. She now had some mechanized help, and trained a few people to use the stuff. A delivery van routinely rushed around delivering orders of pickles to industry canteens far and wide. She named her house something that meant "blessings". She was happy, and wanted the world to know that.
Her son got married. She had visions of retiring and handing over the business to her son.
When the second piece of bad luck happened. Her husband died. She was a widow for the second time.
As happens in many families with very capable women, the son had never seen hardship, never worried about a future, and egged on by a wife , who only saw the fruits of prosperity, he declined to have anything to do with pickles. The house was now in a prime city area, and he sold the land and the house to a developer who would build high rises, and give them 2 apartments in return. Manorama had no grandchildren yet, or the son would have thought of the future differently.
The bulldozers came. Manorama wasn't around to see the temple she had built, crushed to rubble. She went back to her native village on the coast, and upgraded her husband's ancestral house. Nothing fancy, but something that gives her old tired body a feeling of simple comfort; a kitchen garden, a few mango trees, and an old car that she uses when she needs to travel close by, driven by the gardener's son , who she is putting through college.
There are fruits and fruits.
There are no more fruits on the family tree. Manorama occasionally frets, but has great faith in God. Her son and daughter-in-law have come up in the world, but have no one to enjoy it in the future. At one time adoption was considered, and Manorama was the foremost supporter. But the daughter-in-law had a problem with someone elses' blood, so to speak, despite the glaring fact that she herself was not a blood relation anyway......
To Manorama, this is just one more problem she faces in life.
She had come to see us when my mother passed away.
" One way to handle a problem is to also know when it's not your problem...." she said. "And so I have left the whole thing and returned to my roots. "
She looks even shorter now than she was, but is still ramrod straight. The hair has silvered in glistening way, and the walk has slowed. But the light in her eyes in still there.
"I have my garden, my fruits, and make my fresh pickles and I share them with the neighbors . I have wonderful memories of an amazing life that I had.
Like the mangoes, I pickle and preserve these memories, and they do get better with age!"
(And rummaging inside her embroidered bag, she fished out and gave me a small bottle of fresh homemade chilly pickle, from her own garden........)
