VATI KOTUTTHU ATI VANGAL GIVE A STICK AND GET BLOW
Dear friends, I was thinking of the abovephrase we very often use in Malayalam and Tamil. The teacher wanted to blow astudent. He was searching for the stick usually a CANE of 3 feet length with aquery- Evitae chooral? (Where is cane?) If the same student himself getthe stick and ask him to give blow? I had a primary school friend like that whowas broad minded. In middle school onlyon those days class monitor should clean board, teacher’s table, arrange chalk,cane etc. If the stick was not found, theteacher may become calm in a minute in most probability leave the student witha warning. Purposely students used to hide cane sticks. In general the meaning is whenone is irritated already and to bounce upon a person, and another make anirritating statement provocative him, he may bounce on the person made thestatement. Knowingly or unknowingly we allwould have got blow by giving stick. Many jokes also are there out of suchincidents. For some people it is a nature to get blow likethat. Today my posting is about Vatikudutthu ativangal. Sincerely, Gopala Krishnan. 12-10-2013. Reposted with addition and editing on 17-5-2021. R. Gopala Krishnan 1. Vasudevan getting blows. It was the time I was studying in5th standard. Vasudevan was over grown, a last bencher in the class.He would not study. One day in the morning teacher by name Govinda pillai camefor teaching science. He was a least appreciated teacher who would blowstudents very hard in palms and legs. He wanted to review home work. Hesaid those who have not come without doing would get blows. Three persons werethere like that including Vasudevan. As if he was asked to come near,Vasudevan went near the teacher first before him. Teacher asked- Entha homework cheyyatthathu. Vasudevan stared at him. Again he asked- Chodichhathukeattillae- Entha homework cheyyatthathu. Now Vasudevan smiled. He became angry and started blowing in thepalm of Vasudevan. 1-2-3- Still Vasudevan holdingpalm and no tears or reflexive action. He could with stand pain. Now theteacher stopped blowing him and asked the next ones. Each of them gotonly one blow. During interval everyone who gotblow went near Vasudevan. He coolly said- Entae kaikku nalla kattiya. Vedanikkilla.Kalatthu jnan Govinda pillai sir karthya yani amma sarente kootae vazakkukkotunnathu kandu. Aaa deshyama (My palm is thick and I can with stand pain. Morning I saw the teacher wasquarrelling with his wife. He wasshowing that irritation to me blowing more) What a broadminded nature in thatage. Vasudevan did not study in middle school. Probably he would have taken tosome other job like black smithy. 2. Teachers meeting For a short period I was a highschool teacher in 1964 at Trikkariyur.At that time there was a TEACHER’S MEETING in the school where I was working.For the teacher’s meeting, teachers from other schools would come. Except oneclass students, others would have holiday. Even this class would have just one hourteaching. Discussions would be there based on it. 8th standard one division was earmarked from my school. There was a specialstudent. He would not listen, misbehave and laugh unwantedly. My colleague Mr VishnuNampoothiri was taking class. After finishing the teaching of the subject heput one SIMPLE QUESTION-For his bad period to this boy who was smiling. The boy replied- Yesterday you did not taught. Nampoothiri clarified- Now I havetaught. Then he replied- No, You have nottaught this. Nampoothiri asked the boy to sitand put the question to another student. The session completed with morequestions and all other students well answered. Next day, Nampoothri told mereferring to the incident why he put the question to that boy- he said, He was WAKING UP AS IF TO ANSWER. I thought he would at least answer one simplequestion. I never felt he would talk so in the session... Vati kotutthu ati vangi… Before I was giving myresignation, Nampoothiri desired one day I must go to his illam and take food withhim. So I went with him in an after- noon. Nampoothiri family was orthodox. Heinvited me to come to hall. All food were brought and kept already with leaf. Heput the leaf for both of us and he started serving more to both of us. He said itwas custom, and I should excuse his family not serving. It was a new experienceand information to me at the age of 20. After meals he said, we are leaving. His wife came almost covered exceptface with a smile. He introduced, my wife. Children had gone to school. 3. My colleague Mr Swaminathan… I was working at Kodaikkanal. Anew engineer came there for laying transmission cables. He was an engineer promotedfrom operator’s cadre by a competitive test. (In fact from one post to other we are all promoted only). For cable laying trench work wasin progress. His officer scheduled to come on a day for inspection. The officercome late with some problemof vehicle while coming up the hills. Since he came late all WORKERSHAD LEFT. It was winter time. My friend who was in the office, wentto the area where trench was taken telling he would come to the trenching areaas said early. We advised him to remain, and go with the officer the nextday. He did not hear. The officer came, not seeing himin office got annoyed, started moving in the direction of trench. He came nearthe engineer. He asked to measure the depth at three or four locations. To his misfortune depth was aboutsix inches less in a very rocky area. Whatever he said, the officerwas not convincing. After coming back, he desired tovisit Kurinji andavar temple. We all joined the officer along with him knowingthe irritation. Our colleague asked- Sir, whether any archana has to be performed. Tell your star. The irritating officer replied- Yes. But not for me, but foryou, for your better capability… We got stunned. The telephone Inspectorby my side could not control- He said- Ean sir, vati kudutthu ati vangareenga.Peasamaliringa (Kindly keep quiet. Why do you get blows giving stick)? Aftertemple worship he was somewhat cooled. 4. Chundal… One day during Navarathri Kolu mywife prepared pattani chundal. After siesta while taking coffee in the eveningI asked what was there salty to take with. She said, for Kolu chundal has prepared and Neivedyam isover and I can have it. She took in a bowl hot pattani chundal twothavas. I said tasting very fine. She brought one more thava since Iappreciated. In fact I wanted one more thava,for the hot and tasty chundal. (Medium thava only) One minute I recollected- ladies wouldbe coming some times more in number. Many times elder iyers also followthem. It is for them. I finished coffeecompleting the last pattani…. I knew well if I asked one morethava, she would reply in negative, based on my diabetics as reasoning. I escaped by a timely thinking. I said, sufficient, last onespoon was not needed. PACCHHA KALLAM….. (Untrue statement) My note- Most of the days, next day our lady servant would geta plateful of chundal – A lucky woman. In March 2020 I saw many unwantedirritating responses. After some thinking I marked their mails to SPAM. It wasa mental relief. Now too some responsesalways come from certain members. Marking them to spam, they would not appearto me. I am aged 77. I think I have maturity to my age. So I do not respond toirritating mails and get disturbed by reading them. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/1626267894.828158.1621236504491%40mail.yahoo.com.
