Falling nostalgic……..

Have you heard that when you keep certain things on your hand for a while, they have the power to turn you nostalgic dragging your brain back in time and bringing memories long forgotten?  This is true and happens to me frequently.

Last week, I bought a kilogram of sea salt and was taking it home balancing the packet on my palm.   The packet was a smooth polypropylene material.  The name of the product was printed on one side in ‘fire red’ with the declaration that it was ‘sea salt’.  There was a transparent window through which  I could see the ‘free flowing’ salt crystals too.

My memories go back to my childhood days when I used to buy one or two pounds (It was pound, gallon and Anna1 in those times!)  And keep the quarter Anna (balance of trade!) with me!   Shops were few, small and were least flashy.   Most of them opened at six or seven in the morning and closed around ten to eleven.   At night, some shops had ‘petromaxes’ (truly luxurious lighting!) and many others used oil lamps or kerosene lanterns, shedding their feeble light around them.   In this light, we could read product slips written in pencil and distinguish coins that were in copper, brass and some kind of white alloy.   I am sure, now children cannot even read bold letters in those dim lights.  Maybe we had better eyesight or now the children's eyesight is poor.

This was the case with our village.   But in the towns and cities of those times, shops were selling some more products like medicines, dresses, toys and some essential goods.   Specialty shops, super and hypermarkets, star hotels etc. were not even heard of!   There were two petrol pumps in Palakkad town. One by ‘Caltex’ and the other by ‘Burmah Shell’.   Whenever I was taken to the town, I  watched curiously how petrol was filled in cars and wondered where the petrol came from!

These days, we buy commodities in large quantities, fearing a famine or World War III is going to take place next week!  Those days, people used to buy goods for one or two days and after that, they again went for a fresh stock.   Indeed, there weren’t many commodities in the shops like in the present day to be bought!     

Earlier, there were no factory-packed goods in different measurements that were easy to handle and display on shop windows.  All things came in one bulk pack and shop owners sold them by weight or measure.     I remember ‘Britannia’ and ‘Parry’ were the harbingers of the modern customer-friendly small packers.   They marketed their biscuits and sweets in attractive small ‘carry home’ tins printed with colorful pictures (Only tin packaging could keep moisture away!).   The other was bulk packing in metal tins with tight lids.   Biscuits and sweets just came in these tins or were packed in a kind of paper that seemed to be dipped in wax.   Some had the hobby of collecting these empty ‘wax paper’ packets!

During my childhood days, the ‘Chereppettans’ shop was for us what ‘Lulu’ is for children of today.  There was the concoction of the smell of various products like oilcake, cotton seed (for the cattle), bananas, washing and toilet soaps, kerosene, agarbattis, camphor and other products hung around the shop all the time.  !   Even when the shop was closed one could feel the pleasant aroma.     Whenever I pass grocery shops, I try sniffing, but I do not get the concoction of smells that once rushed to my nostrils while passing Chereppetta’s shop!

 Chereppetta used to keep crystal salt in a wooden box standing on four legs.   When the salt in the box reached the bottom, one bag of salt would be emptied into it.   Salt was measured using an ‘²Edengazhi’ made of bamboo.   Those times, the weights and measures department didn’t even exist – I think

So, how were things packed?  That is the interesting part.   The packing material was teak wood leaves tied with thin jute strings.  Old newspapers could not be used as they would get torn off if large quantities were packed with them.  Plastic bags and staplers hadn’t made their appearance.    The teak leaves are thick with a net fibre spread all over, resembling a cotton surgical bandage.   These teak leaves were conically arranged like a funnel, filled with the weighed grocery, the opening closed with the remaining parts of the leaf and tied around tightly with a thin jute thread.  A big cylindrical roll of this jute fibre would hang from the roof of all shops with the thread at arm’s reach of the shop owner.

I always waited for a chance to go to Chereppetta’s shop as he would always give me a complimentary ‘Naranga mittai²’ every time I went and purchased something from his shop.   I did not know those times that Chereppetta was bribing me to visit his shop and not to go elsewhere!  I would never walk to the shop but would run all the way.   For me, the lure of ‘Naranga mittai’ was more than the purpose of buying something for home!

Even before reaching the shop, I would call out “Chereppette! Edangazhi 4uppu”.    The cost of one edangazhi of salt at that time was half an Anna (equivalent to the present three Naia paise!)  Chereppetta would soon take a big teak leaf, turn it into a cone, insert two or more leaves around it and change the cone large enough to hold an edanghazi of salt.   He would dip the bamboo edhanghzi into the salt in the box, fill it and empty it into the cone.   Then pat the sides of the leaf cone to fill the salt tight in the cone and then carefully close the mouth with the protruding tip of the leaves.   Next, his hand would automatically pull down the jute string and make two or three tight windings around the packet.   Now comes the interesting part.   No knots were made and no knife or scissors were used to cut off the string connected to the roll above.   Using his left hand, he would keep the parcel close to his chest, – as if it was his dearest love!- keep the thread running between the thumb and index fingers of his hands, he would unfurl the spun thread and the next moment, with a twitch of the right hand, the rope would get snapped!  After this, both the ends were wound so tight that the parcel would not open even if dropped on the floor. The parcel and half Anna would change hands and then Cherappetta would point her finger, asking me to wait.  He would open the lid of the ‘naranga mittai’ jar, take one mittayi -only one!- and give it to me smiling.     

I looked again at the salt packet in my hand.  It didn’t look simple and unattractive like that of a village shopkeeper’s packing of six decades ago.   In those days, the packing didn’t look smart, smooth and colorful, but was not a threat to the environment like that of the plastic ones.   The thread will be carefully removed from the packages and kept rolled into a ball for reuse.   All the houses had a big role in this kind of jute thread. The teak leaves were left to dry in the backyard to be used as fuel while cooking. 

I wondered what would happen to the plastic cover of the salt packet in my hand!  It may go on rolling in the streets and finally end up in a landfill along with millions of other such plastic waste in the soil for hundreds of years to come.   In this ‘all plastic age’ it is even possible that the salt packet I am carrying might be made in a neighboring country with a sufficient quantity of ‘plastic salt’ also in it!

1.        1. One Anna was equivalent to the present   six Nayapaise .(0.0432 Cents!)

2.       . 2.Edengazhi was a measuring device in Kerala.

3.      3.‘Naranga mittai’ is a half moon shaped hard boiled sweet candy with an acidic taste of lemon.

4.     4. “Chereppette, one ‘edengazhi’ (measure) of salt”.