DEEPAVALI is a festival that all of us look forward to. This festival is celebrated between October and December, which sadly falls during the monsoon period.
These months were extremely challenging as rubber tappers earned less in this period than in other months throughout the year due to heavy rains which made it difficult for them to tap.
However, this did not stop me from looking forward to enjoying the pre-Deepavali fun.
FOUR-WEEK HEADSTART
The fun would begin four weeks ahead of Deepavali.
Whitewashing the house with chalk paint made of limestone was challenging. My brothers and I would arm ourselves with padi paintbrushes and mix the limestone chalk.
We would start the task at 10am and complete it by 3pm, but if it rained then our task would be delayed. My parents, siblings and I would wash our house together then, leaving no corners unattended to.
This would be followed by putting all the fittings and furniture back in their respective spots in a cosy home that housed two rooms and a kitchen.
Our house would shine under the gas lamp that hung right in the centre of our home.
Once the painting was over, my father and brothers would ensure a sufficient amount of firewood for the festive period.
COOKING UP A STORM
Then the focus would turn to my dear mother's department.
She and my sisters would roll up their sleeves and get busy making murukku and other delicacies that were a must to celebrate the festival of lights.
The heavy pounding of rice would be done traditionally, usually with two or three ladies taking turns at the daunting task which could be heard all around the neighbourhood.
Next was the sieving of the rice flour to get its soft and silky texture to make the suttu murukku and atchi murukku; the most prominent goodies for the festival.
The ladies of my home would also painstakingly prepare other cookies and bites for us to feast on amid the merriment of the festival.
DRESSED TO IMPRESS
Next on the agenda was shopping. Most of the time, our Uncle Macam-macam and Uncle Oomayaan would supply the materials and clothes.
Besides being a good rubber tapper and farmer, my father was also a very good tailor. He would be busy stitching and sewing outfits for neighbours with his good old much-treasured Singer sewing machine, which was one of his most precious assets.
There would be a long line of neighbours dropping by to have their measurements taken, select their materials and patterns, and eagerly try on their outfits.
My sisters and I would also send Deepavali greeting cards to relatives and friends through our estate in-house postman who frequented the Petaling Post Office near the Saraswathy Tamil School.
We would ardently wait to go to the estate store to pick up greeting cards addressed to our family, and on Deepavali eve, would decorate our home with these cards.
The excitement on the eve would be at its peak, with my brothers and I trying to catch cockerels for Deepavali.
We had many chickens in our coop, and would catch three or four of them. We chased them till they were exhausted and succumbed to their fate, and then handed them over to our father who would slaughter them for our feast.
My father would also buy mutton to add variety to our menu. We would then go to bed around 11pm.
DEEPAVALI: DAY ONE
My mother and sisters were up by 6am on Deepavali morning to prepare our festive breakfast — the yummiest, most scrumptious idli and thosay with the creamiest chicken curry ever tasted in our lifetime.
After oil baths followed by family prayers, we would sit around the dining table adorned in our new shirts or T-shirts and shorts to enjoy the piping-hot food and chaya or teh tarik.
My mother and sisters, also decked in their festive attire, would keep topping up the food until we rose from the table and they would then feast on their breakfast served by my brothers.
By 11am, my brother's work colleagues would drop by. More than 15 of them — mostly Malays and a few Chinese — would sit, enjoy brunch, and end their day with dinner before going home.
My mother and sisters would continuously be cooking chicken, mutton and rice to cope with hungry guests who loved the food. My brothers would serve a few bottles of beer, much cherished by all the guests. No inhibitions to taboos, but no one would get drunk.
After they had left at around 9pm, we would all help to clear and clean the crockery, cutlery, tables and chairs, and refill the cookie jars for the next day.
Despite the busy and tiring day, we would play firecrackers if we had the chance. We also received Deepavali angpows of RM1 or RM2. With such lovely things brought to us by Deepavali, we would sleep with anticipation of the second day.
DEEPAVALI: DAY TWO
As was the norm on the second day of Deepavali, my brother Chandran and our neighbour Madhavan — known as Unni Yeta — would rush to KL Lido Theatre in the morning to purchase movie tickets.
In the 70s, almost every year, there would be an MGR movie being aired in conjunction with the festive season.
We had no mobile phones nor any other way to contact my brother, so with fingers crossed that he managed to purchase our tickets, my parents and their eight children and Mr Ramakrishnan's four children would leave for KL Lido Theatre.
We would walk two miles from the estate to the nearest town bus stop. Just imagine 14 of us walking and trying to catch the No. 55A Ayer Hitam bus (KL–Klang Port Swettenham Omnibus Service) to Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur.
The buses would come fully laden with passengers from Ayer Hitam Puchong. Almost none of them would stop because most were full. We would still try to squeeze into these sardine-packed buses and somehow always managed to make it on time to the cinema (the current Public Bank) as the bus would stop right in front of the building.
There were years my brother and Unni Yeta could not get tickets, so we would purchase them "black" from someone who made bulk purchases, but at a much higher price. RM2 tickets would cost us RM4 or RM5 each.
It would not have mattered, as we could not go home after coming so far without watching our favourite MGR movie.
The movie would end at 5.30pm and our challenge going home involved taking a bus to the Klang Port Swettenham Bus Station and then switching to another bus to Batu 6 ½ Jalan Puchong.
We never had the luxury of dining out, but would sometimes quench our thirst at hawker stalls around the bus station.
As the 55A bus arrived at the terminal, the boys would jump in from the back using the bus emergency door to book seats for their families. I was one of them. We would reach home in a sardine-packed bus and smelt like sardines too, from the aroma of sweaty armpits holding the bus ceiling bars.
Our walk home on the estate gravel road would be filled with stories about the movie and our day out. The boys would talk excitedly about the fight scenes and stunts, while the girls would admire the beauty of the heroine and the storyline. We would reach home tired and smelly, but a cold shower would turn our frowns upside down.
END OF FESTIVITIES
Then the sad feeling of "Deepavali is over" would kick in.
My parents would prepare themselves for the next day's early morning chore of resuming work, and we, as usual, would dread the idea of going to school.
Even if it were the school holidays, we would still moan and groan as we would not be able to sleep in but instead wake up and help our parents in the estate.
Our memories of Deepavali will always remain special, as the fun and excitement started a month before with the preparations for the festive season.
The actual Deepavali celebrations may have been for only two days, but those will always be the best two days of our lives. For all of us at the estate, the festival of lights brought much joy and happiness, and lit up our homes and hearts every year without fail.
The next instalment of the Estate Chronicles will be published in a fortnight