Molams!!!

Mahesh stores - 5

As I had mentioned before, we sold everything in “Mahesh stores”. It was seasonal brilliance and opportunistic business ideas, based on timeless and seamless observations. Those ideas were most likely to have come from my brother, who is currently a big shot Regional Sales Manager in Ranbaxy. He used to sell things and stuck his finger in most of the pies known to human fellow beings, before he landed for good in Ranbaxy in 1987. He had sold TV antennae, furniture, cotton wools for the factories, insurances, Video cassettes, and possibly few others. In fact he owned few other shops those days; definitely a video shop and possibly a furniture shop in Choolai medu area, whose existence was and still a mystery to all in our family, except him!

The seasonal opportunism was very eagerly taken on by my Appa, possibly took it very seriously to his heart, when one fine day evening, in January, just before Pongal, he landed at our gate, in a cycle rickshaw, with a poor soul friend of his, called Dhayaalan, loaded with the most shocking objects for my AMMA, bought to be sold in Mahesh stores!!

We had sold most of the seasonal variations items in our store by that time, but not to the scale, our father expected us to do! Yes, we have sold kites for Deepavali. And fire works too. We had sold “Greeting cards” for Pongal. Playing cards were sold during marriage seasons, as we were not far from a Marriage Hall.

Stickers, Note books and pens were sold during school re- opening times; I would still vividly smell the fresh nice fragrance coming out of cartoon and heroes stickers sold in our shop. Ice cubes during summer time were stored in igloo box and happily crushed and sold. Nannari sorbet was my favourite, tainted with the freshly squeezed lemon was heaven. I must have drunk couple of shots, every day, during those hot summer days of Chennai. And I was getting bigger too from all those extra calories, which I not only sold, but also hogging away happily. Needless to say, I was so popular, haunted and surrounded by kutty pasanga (local kids) from our area, delegated to do lowly chores by Annan, the great brother, i.e. me.

However, there were no limits to the cigarettes and beedies sold in the shop. There was almost none or very minor seasonal variations in terms of quantity, to those items. My favourite ciggy was Gold flake kings .Not for smoking, but just to smell them, fresh from the packs. It stayed as my favourite, when I smoked a few during the college days, over a pea nut ball or kadalai urundai!

The other object I used to adore was the Tamil song books, also popularly called the “Paattu pusthagam”. They were the favorites of the chaps mostly from “Clive battery”, who were into dance and music, and possibly born with them. However, we never sold Alcohol. It was not legal.

Well, what did my Appa arrive with on Bogi’s eve, stuffed in a cycle rickshaw?

There were melams, or molams or drums made from Calves’ or Cow’s skin, of every popular shapes and sizes for the masses. I was so happy and my sister too, however Amma was very furious. For once, Amma was right and Appa was wrong. The Molams were catchy for kids and for me too, however, they were very smelly, straight from the slaughter house!! The Very fact that our house was going to be stuffed with Cow skin molams, virtually untreated and smelly, did not do much to Appa’s local reputation and also to his popularity in our household.

The molams were traditionally drummed, by kiddies and adolescents, who were not to the least spoilt by internets or “You tubes’; un spoilt to the core!! Drumming would happen around a Bonfire, just to beat the then cold of winter months of Chennai, on the early mornings of Bogi day. Needless to say that the Bonfires on Bogi day were banned for various reasons in 90’s and one reason cited being air pollution!

Well, at the end of the day, the molams were sold with a reasonable profit; the display unit was done on a wooden box and the mobile unit was erected opposite to the Mahesh stores, at the request of Amma. She did not want them either to be kept or sold from the shop!

I am not sure yet, about what got on to my Appa’s brain before he latched on to the idea of selling Molams!!

Poor man!