Veranda Tales-Where are my sunglasses?

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.

చంకలో పిల్లవాడిని ఉంచుకుని ఊరంతా వెతికినట్టు (Chankalo pillavaadini unchukuni oorantha vethikinatlu)

I misplaced a book a while back and am still searching for it. I searched in every single place I keep books in my house, which is pretty much every table, desk, bookshelves, and any surface books can be safe from getting wet. I have a lot of books and it is not enough by my account. I am so tempted to just get another copy of the misplaced book instead of waiting for it to make an appearance one of these days.

Searching for things we misplaced is a human condition. The misplaced items are usually placed in a safe place which makes them hard to find. On occasion we are looking for something that is right under our noses. I had the habit of using my head to rest my sunglasses when I didn’t need them for a bit, only to go looking for them all over the place. Some of these habits become so automatic that we don’t even realize we have done that. I would ask my kids if they had seen my sunglasses and they would say, “Hmm. They are on your head!”.

My spouse was looking for his cellphone all over the house one day until he asked me to call his phone so he could locate it. When I called, the cell phone started ringing. He was looking around to isolate where the ringing sound was coming from. He couldn't isolate it. Our two boys were watching this whole situation unfold and then one of them said, “Dad! Your butt is ringing”. He turned around to find it in his back pocket. He was happy to find his phone even though he was the butt of our jokes for a while.

చంకలో పిల్లవాడిని ఉంచుకుని ఊరంతా వెతికినట్టు (Chankalo pillavaadini unchukuni oorantha vethikinatlu) sameta illustrates the above scenarios very well. This sameta means, “Searching for a lad or boy who is being carried in your axilla or armpit”. చంక (Chanka) means axilla or armpit in Telugu. In this context it is axilla. It is common for parents to carry their child on their flank, having them sit securely on their hip bone. I used to carry my children like that until they got bigger and heavier for my side flank. Then I started carrying them by having them sit on my shoulders with their legs dangling around my neck for me to hold on to them. As it turns out, carrying a child on your hip might not be good for your hip. Carrying my children helped my knees get stronger. However, carrying them on my left hip, the joint rotated just enough to shorten my left leg a fraction of an inch to create problems that needed physical therapy to fix. It was an interesting discovery that repetitive actions could have damaging effects on our bodies.

I heard this sameta used by people whenever the parents of a daughter look for a suitable man for a while and find someone they have known all their lives. According to Indian tradition, parents arrange marriages for their children. According to the age old tradition, the process starts with పెళ్లి చూపులు (Pelli chupulu) where two families meet at prospective bride’s family home to assess the feasibility of an alliance between them. A literal translation of పెళ్లి చూపులు is “Marriage sights”. The process of searching for a suitable alliance could take a year or longer involving many పెళ్లి చూపులు (Pelli chupulu) visits to several families of prospective brides. 

Parents talk about their daughter’s cooking, sewing, knitting, and household management skills and the other side talks about their son’s employment status. Each side is evaluating the other based on their criteria for a good alliance. అమ్మ (Amma is mother Telugu) tells me the first question her father asked was how much money నాన్న (Nanna is father in Telugu) made. He was concerned if నాన్న (Nanna)’s salary was enough to make ends meet. నాన్న (Nanna) wanted a wife who was educated and was concerned if the dowry he would get was enough to pay his sister’s dowry. The money exchanged hands going from one family to another and on to the third and both నాన్న (Nanna)  and his sister were married a few months apart.

After making fun of short men who came to marry her, అమ్మ (Amma) managed to marry నాన్న (Nanna) who was a whole foot and few inches taller than her. He could have easily carried her in his చంక (chanka). He took good care of her all through their marriage. She was devoted to him, fiercely defending him. As they say in Telugu, “ఈగ వాల నీయకుండా చూసుకుంది” (She didn’t let even a fly land on him). She was totally lost after he was gone. She was like a little child who got separated from her family at a సంత (Fair). It took her a couple of years to start living again.

I remember చంకలో పిల్లవాడిని ఉంచుకుని ఊరంతా వెతికినట్టు (Chankalo pillavaadini unchukuni oorantha vethikinatlu) sameta whenever I think about my absent minded search for my sunglasses. Memories of my hip troubles due to my carrying my children in my చంక (chanka) followed right after and then the fun memories of my husband’s butt ringing.