This rather ordinary looking teakwood chair has a tale to tell, for it carried my great-great grandmother from Kulasegaram to Trivandrum in 1939, when she wished to see my mom who had just been born that year.
My mother, bearing the unfamiliar name Mathini (മാതിനി, ‘Maadhu’ to her friends at Women’s College), was the youngest of three children, all daughters, born to Lizzie Thankiah (1904-1979) and M S Thankiah, both of whom were Tamil pandits in Travancore government schools near Meykamandapam. They moved to Trivandrum on getting jobs in the vacancies of Tamil pandits in government schools there. Grandma lost her husband when he was around 44 (while he was headmaster at the Tamil LPS, Chalai). She was Tamil pandit at the Maharaja’s School for Girls (the building today houses the Oriental Languages department, University College) and when it was shifted to Vazhuthacaud during Sir CP’s time (Cotton Hill School), she was part of the move. The all female household lived in their old tiled house – originally a thatched one – in the vicinity of the village office at Thirumala, Trivandrum (which they had purchased after M S Thankiah sold their first home at Edapazhanji). The house at Thirumala was sold about two decades back. Mom often told stories of how strict grandma was with them and how she avoided favouritism in front of the other schoolgirls, giving them lower marks than the others, and not allowing them even an extra papadam for the noon kanji that was served in the school.
Rachel (or Rahale), my great-grandma, had been a teacher in the LMS mission school, what we would call today a primary school teacher. Her husband, P Gnanasighamony, was also a school teacher and what we term an upadesi, a combination that fetched tremendous respect in their village of Azhagia-mandapam. Gnanasighamony, like his son in law later on, would die at the young age of 48 (the cause of his death was typhoid). His younger brother, P G Manonmony, was a graduate of the Law College where the A G’s Office stands today, and became a munsiff in the Travancore government, with his own horse and servants.
Interestingly, though mom’s ancestors were LMS Christians, Gnanasighamony was a Salvationist, one of the LMS people who had gone over to the new sect which was introduced in the 1880s in the villages around Nagercoil. Gnanasighamony’s maternal grandfather was a Vaidyan, specialising in pillavaidyam, and as is customary, refused to teach the healing art to his five daughters. This included Gnanasighamony’s mother Wesley, a Bible woman in the LMS (Bible women were engaged to visit otherwise inaccessible women in their homes and read the Bible and speak about the gospel to them). A tale is told of Wesley’s grandfather once mixing herbs in his hands, suddenly seeing the young woman watching, throwing the whole thing out in a trice. Great-great-grandma was very enterprising though, and retrieved that mix and analysed it, and learned enough by covert observation to mix medicines on her own. She passed on some of the knowledge and a book of medicine she acquired to Rahale. Traditional medicine in the family practically ended with Rahale, but I can distinctly remember the thick green oil grandma brewed and made my baby siblings drink when I was an infant. Rahale had learned lacemaking and cross stitch during her schooling under LMS missionaries, and earned King George V bronze medals awarded for displays of lace work in exhibitions arranged in British India by the missionary ladies.
Rahale was the daughter of Natchatirom and Samuel, of Kulasegaram in today’s Kanya Kumari district (former Travancore). This is where the story gets interesting, because Natchatirom was the daughter (or grand-daughter, the details are hazy) of a Nadar Christian woman and a Brahmin convert, in the early days of the LMS missionaries. Their names are not known, and this is all the information I could coax out of my mom who is 81 now. In the early phase of the LMS mission work there were rare instances of Tamil Brahmins converting to the new faith and of course, losing their caste as a consequence (this is not like the myth of Namboodiri Brahmin ancestry of the Nasranis).
One piece of family lore that mom has retained is about Natchatirom’s father finding a Bible lying on the village street one day, which he opened to find a wedding ring inside, and the names of bride and groom on the presentation page. It was immediately obvious to him that the Bible and the ring belonged to the LMS missionary and his wife. He noticed the hoof prints on the street and set out to follow the tracks of the horse, eventually reaching the missionary’s bungalow. The couple were of course impressed by his honesty and loyalty, and insisted on his staying in the bungalow as his assistant. This continued for a while. Later in life, the missionary still continued to favour them with regular gifts of produce such as coffee and tea leaves. Natchatirom and Samuel had a two storey house in the village and a villuvandi, both a rarity in those days.
Photo dated 1946, Raman Pillai Studio, Trivandrum
And so it was that my mom was born at Thirumala in 1939. When she heard the news, great great grandma Natchatirom instantly wanted to see the baby. She set out from Kulasegaram with her relatives and the chair shown above was used to carry her on the shoulders of four men (or maybe two, we cannot be sure), rather like a litter or sedan chair. As often happens with family lore, there is another version of the story, in which it was Gnanasighamony’s father Paramanandom (or one of Paramanandom’s brothers) who was bitten by a sudden desire to visit their daughter (or niece) Lizzie in Trivandrum, to taste some rice with the chammanthi she made! It is impossible to be certain today. It’s possible that these are two different incidents and they got conflated over time. Anyway, the journey was arduous, taking a few days on foot, often through barely traversable foot paths, and after her / his visit, she / he left the chair here as a family token. She (or he) probably was carried back home on men’s bare shoulders. The seat of the chair was originally rattan/wicker work, which I got replaced with wood when it deteriorated. So ends the story told by an antique teakwood chair.
Note: This post was revised on 10th October 2021 to correct some inaccuracies and to reflect some uncertainty about other aspects.
Acknowledgments: Vedasiromony Justin, ‘Power of Faith and Patience’. Trivandrum, 2009 for some of the genealogical details.