Days got wrapped up early, my father said, when he was eight years old.  A day began at sun up and got over at sundown, the span of the day was defined by the light hours.  Supper was cooked as early as 4 o’clock in the evening and the kitchen was cleaned as the western skies put up a scarlet show before the inky blue blurred into dark grey. The most important job for the evening was lighting the lanterns. About five lanterns called the Hurricane lamps were lit and placed at various rooms, other than these there were kerosene lamps that were placed at soot filled corners and triangular crevices on the wall in strategic places to cast a glow on the passages. Pazhani, the school peon who caried home in the evenings my grandfather’s files and books, would find my grandmother with the lanterns. He offered help.  

Pazhani took the glass lanterns out to the thinnai. He cleaned the soot from the glass that settled like a thick cloud, trimmed the wick, filled kerosene in the lanterns, lit the wicks  and kept the flame low. He then took the lanterns to various rooms and left them there. It was my father’s job at sunset to gently turn the knob to push the wick out and the flame burnt brighter. My father ran from room to room bringing light into the house. 

Just then my grandmother called Pazhani to the spare room to give her a hand in pulling the rolls of beddings stacked over the large iron trunk. My grandmother who was frail and smallbuilt appeared dwarfed before the stack of bedding. Pazhani, naturally, being a kind hearted man, offered help again. He dusted the bed and the sheets in the courtyard, lay the reed mats on the floor, placed the beds on them, spread the sheets and tucked them in neatly. My grandmother was anxious that he finish this fast and leave early as her husband did not know that Pazhani was delayed here after his duty in school. She knew that there was still time before her husband returned from school, he came close to sunset, his long shadow falling on the cobbled stones outside the door way.

As soon as my grandfather returned he washed his feet, hands and face with the water stored in a brass gangalam at the mitham. He then went up changed into a fresh veshti, and with angavastram thrown over his bare torso, he came down. My father who was playing on the streets with his group of friends was summoned for dinner. My grandmother served dinner for my grandfather and father and then ate hers. She collected the left-overs in a banana leaf and placed them on the thinnai outside, after covering it with another leaf. The ra-pichaikaran who went from house to house collecting food, would come much later, pull the leaf into his large aluminum thooku to share the food with his family who waited at the street corner under the lamp post.

My grandmother heaped the empty dishes in the mitham for Thayee to scrub the next morning. With the next chore in mind she went to the kitchen. She sat on her haunches facing the kumiti that had burning coal embers. She fanned the embers that turned a bright orange at the edges but remained cool blue at the core. She carefully padded her hands with rags and carried the hot kumiti to the room just outside the kitchen. She kept the kumiti below the oil lamp that was placed in a triangular recess in the wall. She brought the vengala pannai that contained milk, placed it on the kumiti and covered  the pot  with a plate. She then dimmed the lamps in the kitchen worrying about having them turned over by rats. Like all days she prayed that there shouldn’t be any accidents in the night. She closed the door, reached for the iron chain that hung from the top of the door and fastened it on the loop that was set on the wall above the threshold. She slid a ladle into the loop to keep the chain in place and protect her kitchen from the prowling black cat that wanted to break in to feast on her curd and the rats that ran freely all over the kitchen . She dimmed the lanterns in all the rooms and went outside and sat on the thinnai to catch up the day’s gossip with Brogijatha Ammal , a middle aged widow who lived next door  with her son Ambi.

On certain days Brogijatha Ammal took her time to keep the nocturnal rendezvous with my grand mother because her son Ambi who worked in the office of the Karyakartha of Govindaraja Perumal Kovil came home late. On those days my grandmother kept a watch on her son who played on the streets with his group of friends. She called out to him – Mali ,don’t hide in the dark corners. There might be insects there. Mali, don’t jump from the wall, you have just eaten a full stomach. My father had no ears for any thing, he concentrated on dodging the wiry framed Vasan who was determined to catch him.

My grandfather retired upstairs to his room to look through his files and read books.  Cool breeze blew from the open windows, the starless night hung outside like a dark blanket, flowing into the room to spill into the corners where the light from the lantern could not reach. An eesal bearing the tidings of rain bombarded desperately the lantern, losing its butter- paper wings. The heat of the glass singed the insect and it curled and fell on the wooded table. There were more of them, offering themselves as sacrifices on the altar of fire. My grandfather dimmed the light and waited as the insects were eaten by the fat lizard that had made its home behind his deceased cousin’s large photograph that was hung on the eastern wall.

It was after ten minutes that my grandfather resumed his work. His eyes were sore with long hours of work through the day. He waited for the cues that would end his day. Sharp at eight o’clock ra-pichaikaran came rattling a spoon on his plate. That was when the people retired for the day, closing their doors, relegating the ownership of the quiet street to the pichaikaran and his family. 

My grandfather heard his wife calling his son back home for the day. He heard the heavy  door being closed, he heard the patter of his young son’s feet on the floor as he ran about the house unable to stall the energy that coursed through his small body. In a brief while, his son would come up carefully bearing a shombu of hot milk spooned liberally with sugar, a layer of cream trembling on the surface. Mali would wait for his father to finish the milk, searching on the walls and the ceiling for the lizard that frightened him so much and kept him away from his father’s room.