Veranda Tales-Nanna laughs like Bhima

Storytelling has been an integral part of my life since childhood. I grew up listening to stories during the hot summer evenings and nights with my cousins. Mothers and grandmothers would gather all of us children for story time. It was usually pitch dark except for a very faint light coming from the flickering candle. Power cuts were as frequent as the hot and humid summer days. We all spread out on a cool concrete floor or bamboo mats on the veranda intently listening to fascinating stories about kings, queens, princes, princesses, and peasants alike. Stories about love, life, families, and people entertained and taught us life skills. These stories transported us to distant worlds, strange yet familiar. Often the same story told by two people sounded different as storytellers added new twists and turns adding their personal style and flair to the stories.

Storytelling wasn’t limited to summer evenings and bedtime. I was surrounded by adults who didn’t pass up an opportunity to share their wisdom using the art of storytelling. These rich vibrant oral traditions include songs, poems, stories, and సామెతలు (Sametalu are proverbs in Telugu). Men and women sing songs as they work in the fields, grinding grains and spices and doing other daily chores at their homes. Stories are often used to teach important life lessons, interpersonal skills, and survival skills. These stories and the time spent listening to them made our lives richer leaving an impression on me. This series is all about reliving those memories as I share these stories.

కాగల కార్యం గంధర్వులు తీర్చినట్లు (kaagala kaaryam gandharvulu tirchinatlu)

I was about five or six years of age when I was enrolled in a school in the town where my grandparents lived. We were there for the summer like all other summers to spend time with aunts, uncles, and cousins. While adults were busy chatting and doing household chores, all of us kids ran around playing.

We were very creative in coming up with plots for our games. We would be running around the yard playing a train game. In this game, an older cousin was at the front of the train as the engine, the rest of us formed the train cars in the order of our ages. The youngest was the kaboose or guard car.  We held on to each other holding on to the shirt or dress the person ahead of was wearing. Whoever was in the front playing the enginexz had to sing the coal engine song, “Coo chook chook”, moving their arms like the wheels. The kaboose had to wave red or green flags whenever the train made a stop and to start moving.

We had predetermined stops all along the yard as we went in circles around the house. The train would stop in the backyard where there was a well and large trough of water for water stop. We would make another stop at the front of the house to check on our lawyer grandfather talking to his clients. We would make another stop by the left side of the house where our grandmother sat on a నులక మంచం (nulaka mancham is cot in Telugu). It is a wooden framed cot with natural-fiber ropes for the webbing. The left side of the house had a అరటి చెట్టు (arati chettu is a banana tree), and a గన్నేరు చెట్టు (ganneru chettu is Oleander tree in Telugu) . గన్నేరు చెట్టు (ganneru chettu) had a beautiful pink flowers. We had one or two of them in the yard and a very large one growing right next to the large water trough in the backyard at our grandparents’ house. It is ironic that these beautiful fragrant flowers would become fruits with poisonous seeds. The stop by the side of the house could be a longer one if our grandmother wanted to chat with us before she let us go. This train game could go on for hours until we got tired. We would lose a few cars along the way and the kaboose would be replaced when the youngest got tired, thirsty, hungry or plain got bored.

During the afternoons it wouldn’t be wise for the train to be running making noises as the adults were busy with their siestas. My grandfather was away being a real defense attorney leaving his office room empty. We took over our grandfather's office room for a courtroom drama. We had a judge, prosecutor, and defense attorney.  We had witnesses with very creative cases. One afternoon we had a corpse brought in as evidence with our youngest cousin featured as the corpse as we could carry him easily. A witness showed up carrying the youngest cousin in his arms as the youngest cousin played dead.

When we got tired of the courtroom drama, we would move to my grandfather’s bedroom enacting ghost tales. We would all pretend to sleep while one of the cousins became a ghost. We would close all the windows and hang blankets to block out the sunlight for our ghost game. There would be screams and shouts when the ghost made an appearance. This game went on until our sleeping beauty adults got mad at us.

I was busy having fun when I was told I had to go to school on a Monday morning. A small van which was already full of school kids in their uniforms showed up at the door to pick me up. There were a couple of nuns in their habits keeping the kids quiet. I started crying and didn’t want to go. My cousins were standing at the door watching me in their teary eyes as I was being forced to get in the van.  When they finally managed to get me on the bus, I cried all the way to the school. I was sniffling and wiping my tears as I sat in the classroom until the morning recess time around 10:30 AM.

I got out of the classroom and spotted నాని బాబయ్య (Naani babayya) waiting next to his Royal Enfield motorcycle parked under a large tree. Father’s younger brother or mother’s younger sister’s husband is called in బాబయ్య (babayya) Telugu. నాని బాబయ్య (Naani babayya) was my father’s younger brother. I ran to him and got on his motorcycle and refused to get off the bike. He came to check on me and I have a sneaking suspicion he came to rescue me. He was my knight in shining armor riding a Royal Enfield motorcycle. He didn’t have any armor or a sword to fight with the school staff. But he took me back home anyway. I held on to him as we rode back with my heart as light as the breeze that surrounded me. The packed lunch was uneaten and my cousins greeted me like a warrior who came back home victorious. This saga continued for the next four days. Then came Saturday, half day school day was the day I actually spent the whole school time at school. I stepped off the school van as the teacher praised me for being brave and hoping for a better week.

There was no next week. I didn’t have to go back to that school ever again. It turned out my grandmother enrolled me in the school with the hope to keep me close to her. My father couldn’t part with me and couldn't say no to his strong willed mother. He let things play out for a week and then put a stop to it. I was teased about my school saga for several years.

I asked my father later what he would have done if I liked the school. He didn’t have a good answer except, కాగల కార్యం గంధర్వులు తీర్చినట్లు (kaagala kaaryam gandharvulu tirchinatlu), you took care of the problem with your crying with one of his belly laughs. He then told me the story from the epic మహాభారత (Mahabharata). భీమ (Bhima), one of the five పాండవ (Panadava) brothers says it when their allies గంధర్వులు (Gandharvulu) defeat దుర్యోధన (Duryodhana) who came to humiliate his cousins, the పాండవ (Panadava) brothers who were living in exile because of his evil scheming. He wanted to show off his strength and make fun of the poor conditions his cousins were living in. దుర్యోధన (Duryodhana)  and his entourage tresspassed the గంధర్వ (Gandhara) lands and ended up getting in trouble with them. దుర్యోధన (Duryodhana) and his party were taken captive. When the word reached  పాండవ (Panadava) brothers about what happened, భీమ (Bhima) says కాగల కార్యం గంధర్వులు తీర్చినట్లు (kaagala kaaryam gandharvulu tirchinatlu). The meaning of the phrase is, “గంధర్వులు (Gandharvulu) took care of what needed to be done”. This phrase is used when something that needs to be done gets taken care of by someone else.

Whenever I hear this phrase, I remember my elementary school saga, what నాన్న (Nanna is father Telugu) said and his belly laugh just like Bhima’s. In my imagination, నాన్న (Nanna) laughs “ఆహ్ ఆహ్ హ (ah ah hah)” holding a గద (gada is a blunt Mace (bludgeon) in Telugu or Sanskrit) just like భీమ (Bhima).