A PART-TIME PUROHIT/ PRIEST
The term is a deliberate coinage to indicate the degree of ‘tentativeness’ which seems to associate itself with some people, who are ready to exploit sentiments associated with certain customs/ practices. I choose to name the person a ‘Priest’, not by his attire or attainments, but for what he did on that occasion. It was a hot evening in the third week of March -1961. Yes, that was the time, when I had to kill the whole stretch of holidays lasting for nearly 3 full months. Just in a span of 3 days and a half, all the 6+ papers of SSLC exams would be completed including a session for ’optional’ Hindi. The present generation of youth may wonder as to what I am speaking about. Yes, on 15 March, SSLC exams of Madras state would begin every year and one need not await any time table from the examination board. School teachers then used to caution us seriously, using the Shakespearean quote ‘Beware the Ides of March’ to forewarn us of the starting of exams on March 15; on both sessions [morning and evening ] exams were held with no time for ‘revising’ the contents for afternoon sessions. So, mere 3 days + a few hours were all that was needed to carry out SSLC exams across the state. By the evening on 18 March onwards, we had to bid our time in anxiety of ‘success’ in the exam, chance of securing appropriate score for College admission and so on. It was indeed a phase of uncertainty with no further scope to go to school; a strange and imposing ambience in colleges; the need to learn under English Medium and the not so sure place of study- my father having already been transferred to Mysore and above all, most school friends had proceeded to places- Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta or Bangalore and a few to unknown hamlets in Southern Districts. Literally, we [SSLC ’appeared’] boys were roaming like Donkeys in the hot Sun and were often reprimanded by elders ‘for wasting time’. Go and learn Type-writing and Short hand from Venkateswara Institute on South Chitra Street. The then practice [after SSLC Exams] was to get trained in Type-writing and short hand scribing as a ‘qualification’ to job-seeking. I was not too inclined to be a Typist or PA to some section head in Government Office. I started nagging my mother to send me to Mysore for vacation, as my father had joined duty there. My mother said ‘wait till father sends you some ‘Pass’ or Privilege ticket’. What to do? ‘Donkeying‘[moving around like a donkey] was the best option sans expenditure. No fellow ever had more than 8 Annas in pocket. [it was enough for 3 days.[ 8 Annas= 50 paise]
On one such donkeying process, I came across the so-called ‘Priest’ on the steps along the northern bank of Cauvery river in Srirangam. As I was gazing the thin trail of water along the edges of the river, the ‘Priest’ came on a bi-cycle. He left it leaning on the huge platform at the base of Peepul tree on the northern edge of the river. As he turned around, a semi-rural, semi-urban looking man got near the ‘priest’ with folded hands; I was not too sure of what the two were planning by 4.30 or 4.40 pm on a summer evening. The ‘priest’ said ‘Oh you are here?’ Go and take bath in the river. The man said “Saami, I took bath in the morning itself”. ‘No, take bath now and come in wet clothes to that eastern platform.’ In the next 12 minutes or so, the semi-urban man came to the prescribed spot. The ’priest’ said sit looking at the Sun. The man said “Saami unable to see the Sun”. The ‘priest’ said ‘don’t look at the Sun; just sit facing the direction of the Sun’. “Sari saami”. The ‘priest’ spread a banana leaf before the man and quickly laid a measure of rice and evenly spread it to about ½ an inch thickness and kept a cluster of unripe banana fruits on the ‘rice bed’. Now ‘you repeat what I SAY’ He started saying a number of prayer like sayings and now asked the man ‘what is your name and his name? ‘Whose name saami’. ‘The name of the man for whom you are offering ‘Thithi’ now’, said the ‘priest’. His name ‘Ramasamy ‘ saami. ‘My name ‘solai saami’. The ‘priest kept on saying something with intermittent utterances of ‘Ramasamy’. After some 10 minutes, ‘priest’ said ‘worship Ramasamy’ by praying towards the Sun. He kept praying with eyes closed. After 3-4 minutes, the ‘priest’ gave a few coins to him and said, leave the coins in the river water. As he let those coins into water, he noticed that the coins were the old, 2 Annas in square format. Now, the semi-urban asked ‘seththavanukku sellaa kasai uduriye saami’. ‘Why do you leave demonetized coins for the dead man?’
That was enough to infuriate the ‘priest’. ‘Priest’ got up from his place and asked ‘Ramasamy eppa seththaar?’ ‘When did Ramasamy die’? Semi-urban Solai replied 1955 or 1956. THE PRIEST EXPLODED ‘Do you know when the present naya paisa system came?’. ‘Yabagam illa saami’. ’ I don’t remember’ ‘Priest’ said-1957 –a year after ‘Ramasamy’ died. ‘You idiot; if we leave new coins for Ramasamy he may not understand the actual value. He will painfully struggle to spend and curse us’. I don’t want to perform ‘Thi thi’ any further AS YOU DOUBT ME. You go to some bigger priest and pay heavily’. ‘Saami saami theriyaama sollitten’ manniucchkunga’. [Please pardon me; unknowingly, I said something, not knowing the purpose. Please pardon me’]’Naan mannichchu enna panna mudiyum? Ramasamy unnai mannikkamaattaar”.‘nee kavalaiye illaama peasaraye?’ [‘What is the use of my pardoning you, ‘Ramasamy won’t forgive you for your utter disregard for him; you speak recklessly’]. ‘Priest’ folded up his towel and laid it on his shoulder.
At last, the semi-urban man paid the fee Rs 4/- TO THE ‘PRIEST’. How brilliantly, the man [‘priest’] justified his using demonetized coins for offering to a departed soul! By, late evening he would retrieve those coins from sand bed of the river and use them for another gullible client; may be, after ascertaining death details. As a school boy then [1961], I had a funny experience at the most unexpected place and time. ‘Priest’ gathered the banana, rice /leaf and vanished towards the direction of Tiruchy.
Prof. K. Raman
