The leaf pickers
The Hyderabad Sisters sing. The Williams Sisters play tennis. My sister and I, as a pair, pick plantain leaves. We are the extended family’s unofficial Leaf Picking Sisters at assorted functions.
Thankfully, we are not employed at the mega functions like weddings and poonals, where the professional mamis take charge of the used vaazhai elais. At the lesser ones, like ayush homams, shashtiabdhapoorthis, seemandhams, etc, as well as at the various death-related ceremonies, it’s invariably my sis and I who can be spotted tucking in the saree pallus and picking up the darned leaves. Relatives who spend thousands of rupees booking caterers never think to spend an extra hundred or two to have someone pick up the used leaves. Instead they opt to invite me and my sister to the function.
Torn leaves with the rasam seeping into the floor, piles of leftover curries, broken appalams, untouched rice, mashed banana pieces, debris of payasam mixed with curd rice – we’ve seen ’em all. We even have a system of job rotation – one of us holds the bucket or huge plastic cover, while the other does the actual leaf picking. Then we jointly clean the table or floor.
When the function happens to be in my house or my sister’s, no guest is expected to do the job. We wouldn’t let them. Not that anybody ever offers.
Thus it went on for years and years. One fine day we noticed that, along with the other guests, the host had also washed her hands and sauntered into another room while my sister and I got busy with the leaf picking routine. The light bulb moment came very late in our life, but when it came it made us feel like worms. We officially gave up leaf-picking.
Last week, at a shubasweekaram, we decided to test our resolution. We ate, got up and sashayed into an adjacent bedroom, studiously ignoring the big black cover that was strategically placed near the pandhi. From a corner of our eyes we noticed the host mami throwing glances in our direction, losing hope, and then asking another ilicha-vaai relative to help her with the leaves.
The sister and I belched.
ha ha ha, super !
Thanks
You too? I have been, for the last how many years, nay, decades, I refuse to divulge, the official leaf picker at our home (I don’t even have a sister to share the honours with, sob). And the official echai peratuufier. Have you echai perattfufied at a Brahmanaartham? Shudder. Once I did the perattufying, the other cousins, who had mysteriously dissappeared would reappear to wipe the perattufied place, and clear their conscience.
These days, I refuse to go to any function for this very reason. I always blame the time of the month.
When I meant “home” I meant the entire clan as described by “Vasudeval Kudumbakam”!
Yes, perattufying with saani – my portfolio has that too. You ought to eat and just disappear from the scene, not miss out on the food
doubling up hysterically. why, oh why don’t you blog more often?
Thanks, Ummon!
argh… doesnt it usually fall on the youngest person. My elder cousins used to do it. By the time it was my turn – my dad had moved and then I flew to USA. So, except for couple of times I never had to do this.
Ofcourse, these days catering fellows take care of everything.
I just do the annoying job of asking every one about the food.( it is annoying when one relative or the other is angry or upset about not being asked first!)
It’s not the eldest or the youngest. It’s the idiot-est
i once tore an ellai and created a mobile yechchal disaster because of indelicate handling .
*some very ugly looks came my way that day*
after that i hv perfected the disappearance act.
we still eat on the floor here in KL. my husband is the peratal-king of non vazhai ellai situations.
according to him, i just move the yechchal around.
*have to bow low to you and sis, you are a vanishing breed*
I too suck at perattifying. I end up massaging the rice grains into the floor. Mustards are the biggest truants, illa? Would stare at you darkly from the floor and refuse to get picked up.
I love the fact that you guys eat on the floor. We were doing it for a long time at Amma’s place but not anymore.
Good one, Inba. Whattey description of the remaining contents of those leaves…eesh!
Oh…picking leaves…done so much of that! Wonder how ppl just vanish when they know its time. I beleive there is a (rather convenient) shaastram that the person who has eaten shouldn’t pick up his own leaf! Coming to think of it, even ilai porukkufying is okay but the wiping of the floor was the hardest part..especially when my paatti was around. She had in place an entire ISO 9000-type process:
1. First sprinkle the place with water and wipe it with our bare hands. As you go wiping all the rice grains would stick to your hands along with all the dust on the floor. (Yuck!) And often the glass bangles of the ladies would make an annoying screech and scratch sound while they are at it. Logic behind wiping with hands: something related to ‘madi’(i’m ‘maddi’ enough not to understand it)
2. Then wipe the place with a cloth
3. Use a broom to sweep away any remaining rebellious dust
Glad we are able to skip step one these days but the others steps do continue!
LOL at your paati’s ISO 9000 norms
Just wait till you reach a ‘certain’ (read: kaaryam karthaa) stage in life. As the ladies above mentioned, you would need to wipe the floor with cowdung then 
Wiping the floor with shaani…is it still done?? Don’t tell me!
Heh…. I couldn’t decide which I hated more – picking up the used elais(ugh, when the leaves split and other people’s leftover food would drip down my hand) or perattufying the floor with chaani, pushing the dropped bits of food ahead of me like a mini tidal wave… and then having to pick it all up. Quite spoilt my appetite!
I hope you thoroughly enjoyed the belch
Long may the sentiment last!
You did the chaani routine? I never had to until the husband & I started doing shrardhams. Tidal wave indeed
We all ought to collaborate and bring out a thesis on this
Ugh! Fellow sufferer here, but I wised up early
Only do it voluntarily in my MIL’s place where we still eat on the floor, as I feel bad for MIL who will otherwise promptly do it. After all the cooking she does, I feel this is the least I can do (yes, very sweet MIL). Btw, we were allowed to use turmeric powder as a shaani stand-in – made the grey mosaic a lovely yellow, but felt less icky!
Inbavalli, I am commenting here for the first time…you write soooo well…I was laughing reading this, but it is so true and relatable
). I was bent over with laughter and had tears streaming down my eyes, when I read your older post – Skyping appa…chance-e-illai 
)
Sigh!! The sis and I must learn from this post.. Infact, in a recent ‘small’ function, the sis came and stood in front of me and kept staring at my forehead.. When I did an irritated “Waat?!”, she said she was jus checking if anything like ‘rag-pickers’ was written on either of her faces! My resolve has surely become stronger now, but secretly, am happy there are other illicha-vaais out there
Hi Inba, wonderful narration.. can relate to this very much as my family had few cousin sisters of your tribe. But you see, we men are never asked to do this. Lucky us!