Take off with Natarajan

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“Gopala?”

“Enna sir?”

“Enga pora?”

“Cinemakku poren”

“Enna cinema?”

“Sivakavi”

“Enga nadakkudthu?”

“Edison Theatre”

“Yaar nadikkira?”

“Thyagaraja Bhagavathar”

Two men orchestrated this conversation as they walked along the streets in the evenings. They were advertising a new movie in town. On their heads, they balanced gas-lights with posters of the movie pasted on them. A band travelled in a bullock-cart in the mornings to promote the movie. Men distributed colourful notices as the cart went around. Little boys followed it, hoping to get hold of a poster or two.

I remember Coimbatore as a quieter place. Horse-drawn carts were seen everywhere. You could travel to the railway station for two annas. Tubs filled with water were placed along the way — the horses would often pause to drink from them. They would sometimes stop right there and fall asleep!

There were fewer buses on the roads — most of them belonged to companies such as UMS, ABT and MCS. ABT’s buses were coloured green on the sides, MCS had aluminium-coloured buses and UMS’s buses were saffron-coloured. You had to pay something extra to occupy the front seats of Ooty-bound buses. For, you got a good view of the scenic hill-station as you rode.

My grandfather lived on Telugu Brahmin Street. The area was isolated, with just the occasional cycle and horse-cart. When my cousins and I visited him during the holidays, we played a game that we made-up. The horse-carts had license numbers and we would add them up each time they crossed us — the one who had the biggest total, won.

We watched movies in Light-House Theatre on R.S. Puram. As we waited in our seats for the movie to start, we could admire the moon and stars projected on the ceiling and walls. In the summers, we would walk by Valankulam, and eat such sweet cucumbers. People cultivated them on the banks and sold them there.

When Soviet leaders Khrushchev and Bulganin visited the city in the 1950s, my friends and I cycled all the way from Tirupur to see them. Bulganin sipped tender coconut in a farm in Vadamadurai — even today the place is called ‘Bulganin thottam’!

If our family wanted to pray at the Marudhamalai temple, we had to inform the gurukkal, who lived in Vadavalli, a day in advance. We would start at dawn in a bullock-cart, and the gurukkal would come along. There was a huge depression on the road along the way. It was called ‘Yaanai Pallam’. Travellers dreaded to cross it, for there were chances of being ambushed by bandits who lay in wait there. Once we reached the foothills, we would get off the cart and trek up the hill — there were no tar roads in Marudhamalai in the 1940s.

Lunch in Venkatesa Lodge near Railway Junction was an interesting affair. It was frequented by cotton merchants from Tirupur who came to do business in Coimbatore. After a hearty meal eaten on a plantain leaf, they would sit under a peepul tree and discuss cotton prices. It was said that if you wanted to know the trend of Coimbatore’s cotton market, all you had to do was have lunch at Venkatesa! As it was a time not many of us had radios at home, we would all crowd in front of Ideal Lodge on DB Road to listen to cricket commentary from a loudspeaker.

Before electricity came to the city, oil-lamps on high poles served as street-lights. Every evening, a man would arrive at around 6 p.m. with a ladder to wipe the glass covering, pour oil and light the lamp. We had a thayir kaari who brought thick curds home every morning. She carried a basket on her head with 10-15 pots of curds, balancing the lot without using her hands! After delivering a pot, she would draw a line on the wall of the customer’s house using red earth. This was her way of keeping accounts. The line was sometimes thick and sometimes thin, based on the quantity of curds she sold. At the end of the month, she would add them all up for her payment!

SOURCE…THE HINDU  ..MARCH 20 2012