MY PRE-SCHOOL YEARS - 8

Earlier I talked about my Upanayanam. But there are a few other ceremonies one has to undergo before one reaches the stage of Upanayanam. I was told that the rituals start even before you are born, with two ceremonies called Pumsavanam and Seemantham. After you are born, there is Jathakarmam, namakaranam, choroonu,nishkramanam, choulam, kathu kuthal etc.

Jathakarmam is performed by father within 36 hours of birth. Namakaranam is giving a name to the child and choroonu is giving rice meal to the child for the first time. Nishkramanam is taking the child out of the house for the first time. Usually during this time the child is taken out by the father to a nearby tree. Choulam is the first hair cut and kathu kuthal is piercing the earlobes.

I must have undergone all this because we were very traditional during those days.

Cutting the hair for the first time, I think, is probably the first major ritual that I could remember. The head is totally shaved but for a small bunch which is tied into a knot, called kuduma. The aunts would go ga ga over me saying, I look very cute with my new hairstyle.

Kathu kuthal (piercing the earlobes for wearing small earrings called kadukkan) was the  ceremony which stands out in my memory.

I must have been just about 5 years, when Damodarettan pierced my earlobes. Damodarettan was a distant relative. He must have been about 60 or 65 years old at that time and was very friendly with us children. During the ceremonies, sometime during the homam, Damodarettan got up, came to an unsuspecting me menacingly holding two Kara Mullu (long thorns from the bushes) and mercilessly pierced my earlobes. I was shocked. The thorns were left in the pierced hole and it would be taken out only after the wound was healed.

Immediately after the ceremonies, I remember, I rushed to Malu teacher, held her very tightly, cried and cried. I also remember that for next couple of years I was so scared of Damodarettan and in my mind, I would equate him with all the demons in the stories that great grandma had been telling me.

In fact, Damodarettan’s house was about 3 or 4 kilometers from our house and I used to go there every month for something called ‘Iruttoonu’. What I remember most about these trips was that I would carried on shoulder by a servant for the full way up and down and while coming back after a meal, I would be carrying a mudpot with some water in it and a coin of two annas, a square coin, inside the water.

What I am coming to is this. For next two or three months, I refused to go to this house for iruttoonu. I had visions of Damodarettan waiting at the gate with two big kara mullus and as I would enter the gate he would jump on me and pierce my ears, nose, tongue etc. So, I would cry my heart out refusing to go and great grandma would tell.

‘Do not make him cry. Let him not go. Let them know that for tomorrow they have to call somebody else.’

Then in the night great grandma would tell a story where invariably a demon was demolished by somebody seemingly weaker and this would lift my spirits. I would dream in the night of demolishing many demons, some of them invariably resembling Damodarettan.

Of course, in a couple of years as I grew up, I became very friendly with Damodarettan and we had talked about this many times with some good laugh.