I remember Athimber(D.Padmanabhan), in his later years in India, Chandrika,
Bangalore with their dog, Nushka and his days with Sidhharth and Saroja.
He was very religious and was asking me to recite
a Hanuman manthra. Nandini and myself went with
Athai and Athimber once on a to a trip of Belur, Halabed
and Shravanabelgola for a week. Nushka accompanied us
also. This might have been during my Dec vacation in
1965 or so. Athai was always very hospitable and used to
have 2 cooks in Bangalore and made very elaborate meals,
one salad, one green vegetable, Keerai and one fried vegetable
for the afternoon lunch. For snacks there was always something.
In the night they had a North Indian cook to cook subji and chappathi.
Athimber was very independent and used to stay in the
Cosmopolitan Club during his visits to Chennai.
Even when he visited Buffalo, he told me he never
wanted to impose on anyone and stayed in the motel near by.
Siddharth and Athai stayed with us. He was a man with
high principles and set high moral standards and hence
found it hard to deal with Indian bureaucratic governments.
Athai, though may not have had a lot of formal education
in her youth, played a great role as his highly intellectual
wife. Though she was a vegetarian and was conservative
in her habits, took the challenges of the old ICS system well
and adjusted to his habits and played the part of a supportive wife.
She made a lot of friends easily and was outgoing and very
courageous. She was not afraid of anything. Since she was
very fluent in Hindi, used to take us to Hindi movies where
she would be our interpreter. We did not have sub titles then.
She was highly religious and when I used to share my problems
with her in U.S., used to ask me to read Sundarakandam in
Sanskrit etc. Even while staying mostly at home, she kept herself
very well informed about a lot of events in the Indian community
both here and in India. It is amazing how she kept in touch
with so many people until her very last.
She was a very good cook and improvised a lot of easy
recipes for me which I still have.
No comments:
Post a Comment