Meet the Ancestors

Last week, Dr. Jeff Doki wrote on the timely issue of violence in Benue State and presented his thoughts on how orature can help build peace. This week, I am honoured to host Professor Kanchana Ugbabe in this space. Born in India and schooled in Australia, Professor Ugbabe moved to Nigeria with her husband in […]

Last week, Dr. Jeff Doki wrote on the timely issue of violence in Benue State and presented his thoughts on how orature can help build peace. This week, I am honoured to host Professor Kanchana Ugbabe in this space. Born in India and schooled in Australia, Professor Ugbabe moved to Nigeria with her husband in 1975 and has taught in the English Department at University of Jos since 1979. When I first read her short stories, most of them set in Nigeria, I was struck by their delicacy and depth. Her short story collection Soulmates was published by Penguin India in 2011. Over the years, she has also taught and mentored generations of some of Nigeria’s leading literary figures including Helon Habila, Toni Kan, E.E. Sule, Richard Ali, and many others who either passed through her literature classes or borrowed from her extensive library in Jos. This week, she writes a piece honouring her great grandmother and grandmother in India, which she tells me was inspired by my pieces honouring my grandmothers. I hope her piece will inspire still more people to write about their own family histories. -Carmen

Kanchana Ugbabe

When our son discovered this ancient photograph of my great- grand parents in an old trunk, he quickly took a picture of it on his Samsung Galaxy notepad and sent it off to his siblings with the title ‘Meet the Ancestors’. It is indeed a pleasure to meet this couple, Vallinayagam (great grandfather) and Piramu (great grandmother). The couple never posed for the photograph together but in the late nineteenth century they seem to have had a picture taken of each of them separately years apart. This was later photoshopped by an enthusiastic relative where 35 year old Vallinayagam (he died at that age) is seen perched comfortably beside his 45 year old wife, Piramu. They were both gone by the time I arrived in this world but I have constructed in my mind (from stories recounted) a picture of them both that is more vivid than the fuzzy photograph. Very little is known about the grand gentleman except that he was good-natured, and that the couple had three daughters and an only son. That only son was my maternal grandfather. Being rendered fatherless at the age of 13, he, a mere adolescent took on the role of father, protector, and benefactor of the family.
When Vallinayagam died suddenly at the age of 35, Piramu was left with her 13 year-old son and her three younger daughters. It had been an arranged marriage according to tradition. Piramu had no education except training in cooking and housekeeping. She moved from being a housewife to widow, shed the flowers that adorned her hair and the chains and bracelets, wore a white sari and settled down to a life of continued dependence. The only ornament on her was the ‘pambadam’, two chunks of gold that dangled down to her shoulders from her pendulous ears. It was the fashion of the day to ‘grow’ your earlobes, stuff damp cotton wool to make the hole larger and larger until it hangs down to the shoulders. Her heart was heavy with the thought of marrying off three daughters, dark thoughts that kept her awake at nights. The dowry had to be paid, gold jewellery purchased, and brass and silver vessels gathered together for the trousseau that each daughter would take to her husband’s house. Her son grew in stature and influence in the rural community where they lived. He found a niche for himself as a landlord and farmer. He employed people, cultivated the land, sold the rice harvest in all the neighbouring markets and built up his wealth. His orchards produced choice varieties of mangoes and bananas. He had a basic education but improved himself by visiting the library in the town nearby, and subscribing to the National Geographic Magazine and the Illustrated London News. He hobnobbed with the local politicians and other landowners and earned the respect of everyone in the community.
Piramu sold bits and pieces of what belonged to her and saved up for the marriages of her three daughters. When the time came, her son, located men of lower economic status for his sisters and married them off perfunctorily with as little dowry as possible. Piramu divided her own jewelery among the daughters, put together some copper and silver, and hoped that life would be kind to them. The daughters went away to their husbands’ homes. There were long ‘inland’ letters that were written to their mother complaining about money problems, obligations towards in-laws, and their general lack in the environment that they found themselves. Meanwhile, the son prospered – the cows in the stalls increased in number, the granary was filled with bags of rice, and fruit was loaded in trucks and sent off to distant markets. There was a lot of activity going on in Pannayar House (Grand House of the Landlord) and Piramu watched from the inside as servants hurried about carrying out instructions. Every week, her son gave her housekeeping money from which she prudently saved some, hiding the coins on the doorsill. She used this savings to buy baby clothes for a newly- born grandson, and had laddus made and packed in stainless steel containers to be taken to the daughter who was pregnant. Pickles in jars, chutneys, dried rice-crisps, mangoes in baskets, everything was discreetly packed and sent on the bus to the three daughters. The mother’s heart longed to see her dear daughters whose letters never gave her cheer but caused worry and anxiety.
The messenger carrying the goodies to the bus station was waylaid by the son who was returning from a visit to the farms and orchards. Was his mother trying to reduce him to poverty, was she carting off his farm produce to sisters whose husbands had neither the initiative nor the skill to produce their own wealth? There was a row in Pannayar House that evening when the son confronted his mother over her surreptitious dealings.  Piramu was heartbroken. For the first time, the walls of Pannayar House closed around her and she felt dependent, powerless, and mute. How would she make her son understand that his sisters were at his mercy, married off to the men he had chosen for them? That their lives were hedged in by poverty while she and her son lived in a state of abundance?
Everything soured on her from that day on. Her face and her temperament became hard and impenetrable and she stopped talking to her son. The smile returned to her face years later when the son married and the grandchildren arrived. But something deep within her was broken, and she couldn’t tell if it was widowhood or her subservience as a woman, or the wealth her son had acquired that was responsible for that. Her son married the daughter of a Minister in the colonial administration – a young woman who was home- schooled, who had never entered the kitchen but had a retinue of servants to carry out instructions. She was a gentle soul, my maternal grandmother, Sivakami. She was a voracious reader, and writer of the most beautifully hand-crafted letters. Her quiet, peaceful, and generous nature made up for all the rancour and selfishness that had characterized Pannayar House. Piramu loved and respected her daughter-in-law, and Sivakami allowed Piramu be, the boss, as long as she wasn’t expected to go to the kitchen!