.......................Apam and fish:

“The Biblical Feeding of the Multitude:
The disciples were only able to find 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. Jesus blessed the food, broke it, and gave it to the disciples, who distributed it to the people present - 5000 not counting women and children - all of them being fed.”

It was eight in the evening. A shrill voice piped up in the busy, noisy street: “Apam faar
Rs. 5. Big Fat Feesh faar Rs. 30.” There were too many foreigners in the place, to visit their Lady of Velankanni, the Mother of Jesus Christ, so the meager Tamil-drenched English helped. The Shrine of Velankanni stood very close to the beach, and millions thronged here to pray to the Mother of Jesus.

The 35 year-old Chellama (aka the Apam and fish lady) sat swathed in a rugged blue and brown stone-washed sari. She looked 50 though; the heat and soot from the four hot stoves right in front of her had inflicted that change. A little girl of around five sat next to her. Her hair was plaited in two and she went about helping her mother serve the Apam and fish in big banana leaves. Mother and daughter had that haggard appearance, but what contrasted their rags and no-pitch ragas that they croaked aloud while making their Apams were the cheer in their voice and the twinkle in their eyes. They were here for making two ends meet and paying the little girl’s school fees- and the ‘Lady of Velankani’ had blessed them abundantly. She was not only their Goddess, but their mother and Protector.
A Phirang lady walked towards the roadside stall in amusement. She wore a pair of khaki shorts teamed with a pink, tank top. A black backpack hugged her sun-tanned back and pink sneakers cushioned her pedicured feet from the sand and stones below. Her blond pony struggled to stay still- the sea-breeze split it in manifold stands and the wayward strands streaked her cute, cherub face.

“I want two Aapems and one big fat fish please (smiles),” said the Phirang woman.
Chellama smiled back at the lady and said, “Welcome Madam. You looking veereey bootifool. Two minutes- haat Apam and big feesh”

After two minutes, her daughter, Arokia Mary flipped two hot Apams and one big fish onto a fresh, green banana leaf and handed it over to the fairy-lady. “One day, I’ll be like you fairy-lady, they tell me stories about fairies like you at school,” Arokia Mary thought with a solemn resolution on her face.

Post-Tsunami, the number of pilgrims thronged in larger numbers at Velankanni. People, after a long day of prayer and adoration entered the busy street that led them from the main shrine of Velankani to the Beach. Chellama’s Apam and fish stall stood at the entrance alongside umpteen other similar stalls, enticing the hungry pilgrims with their steamy stoves and the delicious whiff of red-hot-curry-masala-slotted fish.

A horde of strange trinkets, colorful confetti and unimaginable paraphernalia in the string of small shops brought the place to life. A number of hair-tonsure shops welcomed people who wanted to sacrifice their hair for their beloved Mother of Velankani. When one reached the sea, there was more fried fish, varutha kadalai (fried peanuts) and a lot of horses with people riding their backs.

Sharp at midnight, Chellama and Arokia Mary wrapped up their stall, collected all their earnings and put the notes and coins it into a purple cloth-pouch that rested in Chellama’s bosom.

“1000 Rs. Arokia, after a very long time.”

Chellama hugged Arokia Mary tight and they walked back to their hut with the left-over Apam batter and marinated fish. They reached their sparse, but sufficient one-room house that had been recently built and painted in bright green along with the hundred other similar houses in the same row from the Tsunami Aid. The green paint on the walls seemed a little brighter today. Chellama took the money from the purple pouch, laid it in a bronze box and hid the box in between her saris in the shelf carved in the inner walls. She usually kept the money on her body, but decided against it today.

The small wooden clock kept ticking. The silence of the night formed a think blanket over the sleeping mother and daughter.

“Click. Click.” The wooden door creaked open, the lock having been picked. A dark figure broke into the house. He adjusted his eyes to the dark and spotted a woman and a child sleeping in sound contentment. He smirked and walked to the only furnished part of the house: the shelf. He carefully rummaged through the clothes. He found the bronze box and opened it greedily. He picked all the notes save for the sole 2 hundred rupee notes and replaced the box. He quickly walked out of the house, into the breezy night. He wasn’t smiling.

Chellama woke up in the morning, stretched a little and woke up Arokia Mary. After getting Mary dressed in her blue and white uniform, she went over to the Bronze box to collect the 200 rupee annual school fee.

The money was missing. Only two hundred rupee notes flapped in the box, as if offering an apology.

Chellama smiled!

“He’d left the two hundred rupees. He really loved his daughter. Instead of beating her black and blue and taking all the money she usually had had on her bosom, he had silently taken away all but his daughter’s school fees without a fuss. She had trusted him with the bronze box in the shelf and he had reciprocated that trust in the way he knew best. Even her fisherman- husband had a heart, and she knew ‘The Mother of Velankanni’ had begun answering her prayers.”

“Very soon, he’d stop stealing the money altogether, cease beating her for good, quit alcohol forever and love her for a lifetime.”

Faith moveth mighty mountains. Trust never rusts. Love is always a boomerang, however late the strike-back.

p.s:

1.this is my tribut eto my Velankanni trip.

2.My birthday falls tomorrow, and I'm not here with family/friends- sudden, unavoidable training in B'lore :(:(

3. L0ve you all. Will be back soon.