Thambi

During my younger days of working with a Non-Formal Education (NFE) project for fishing communities along the now famous East Coast road, we worked in Pudupattinam Kuppam, a small fishing hamlet right near the Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, (IGCAR) in Kalpakkam.

We had a Jesuit Father, a Doctorate in Andragogy as our team leader.  After our field visits, Father would lead us to a small tea stall right outside the IGCAR main gate for our evening chai. He’ll order tea for all of us and crispy masala Vadais. (To call it Vada is a crime)With the steaming glasses of hot chai, we’ll bite into the flaky vadai served hot on bits of torn Tamil Newspapers, and discuss the day’s visits. We practically finished our de-brief for the day at the tea stall. Once, we all had our fill, Father will call out to the Tea master and ask for the bill. The tea master Thambi, will smile but will not reply. Nevertheless, Father will tell him, how many glasses of chai and vadais we each had and give him the cash. Thambi, will again nod his head,  count the change and hand it over to Father.   

Every day we after our work, we’ll gather around the tea stall in the evening. I have seen scientists and engineers from the IGCAR with their ID cards and pale blue uniform also standing and enjoying their chai. On several occasions I have also seen Russians, braving the Madras heat with their Raybans and smoking Kaja Beedi.  They are part of the visiting technical teams—Father used to explain to us. It was interesting to see the blond haired and fair skinned Russians blending in, enjoying the chai and masala vadai as if it were the famous Pelmeni and Vodka from their home country.   

Thambi’s tea stall was a great social leveller with scientists and engineers rubbing shoulders with the fisherfolk and the autorickshaw drivers. It is the signature vadai and chai that bound them all together. All the customers used to pay cash and Thambi always accepted the cash with a smile, never saying a word as he went about his business. 

I have never seen Thambi talk or join the chit-chat with the customers. Early morning when we start our visits on hired bicycles, he’ll be busy setting up the stall and sometimes, he’ll just smile and wave at us. In his tea stall, he had the large copper boiler, and a black wooden framed slate hanging from a thread just above the boiler. A white chalk scrawling announced the ‘menu’ of the day – which invariably is Tea  and Masala Vadai and their respective selling price -it was few paisas in those days, I can't rememebr now.  Every morning, Thambi would clean the slate and write down the same items again. Why bother erasing and writing the same thing every day ? Perhaps he did not want to trouble his customers.

By now, Thambi’s Tea stall had become our daily meeting spot. After numerous cups of chai and vadais, our NFE project finally came to an end and it was time for us to part ways to pursue our different professional paths. Father had said, he’d return to academia and perhaps complete his Post - Doctoral studies. Without any modern communication tools and even the fixed landline telephones being a luxury those days, we could not communicate with each other.    

Years rolled by, when one fine morning, a friend from Trichy sent me a WhatsApp message saying that  a certain Father from a Jesuit college in Trichy had enquired about me and had wanted me to visit the college and deliver a guest lecture to the students of their newly established Social Work dept.    

I immediately agreed and went to the college, eager to meet Father who is now the Principal of the college. The office staff guided me to the Principal’s room. I could see the good Reverend had aged gracefully as he greeted me with his familiar warm smile and firm handshake. Still holding my hand, he raised his left eyebrow quizzically. Instinctively, I  understood, what he meant...

During our days together in the NFE project in Kalpakkam, I was a bachelor. Whenever Father introduced me to his Priest friends and Brothers. He’ll introduce himself as “I’m Father (his name) and this is Prince, who’s going to become a father” and laugh heartily at his own joke! 

Recalling this ‘joke’ I answered him and said, “yes, Father, I have become a father of two lovely children” He patted me on the shoulder, and gestured me to sit down in the couch laid out besides his office table. 

We settled down for a chat –as if on cue, a young boy brought in two cups of steaming chai and some biscuits neatly laid out on a tray. We shared anecdotes and I brought up the topic of Thambi’s Tea stall and the famous Kalpakkam masala vadais. He smiled and then shared this extraordinary story of Thambi

Thambi was from one of the many fishing families living in the Kuppam.  As the only child, his parents showered him with love and ensured he was educated well. They enrolled him in a Govt.school nearby. Though Thambi used to accompany his father to the sea on weekends and holidays, it was school which attracted him. 

He studied well. His parents were hopeful that with a good education, their only son would  make a good living, perhaps even get a job at IGCAR. However, when he was studying in Xth standard, during the final exam time, a terrible accident robbed him his opportunity to study and ended his family’s dreams. He survived the accident, but lost his hearing completely. For many years, he had also struggled to walk because of damage to his knee. In his physical condition, his family did not want him to venture into the sea. Having lost his hearing and with limited mobility, Thambi was not able to continue his studies.  

Father, who was serving in a Church in the village, that time, heard Thambi’s story. He had collected some money from the congregation and with the help of his scientist friends in IGCAR, assisted Thambi to set up the  tea-stall right where we had enjoyed countless cups of Chai and plates of Vadais Thambi’s famous vadais and the steaming cuppa earned him good patronage from the regulars from IGCAR as well as many other passer bys and the tea stall became his steady source of income. 

Now, I understood why Thambi chose to remain silent through all the chatter going around him. Through his silence Thambi had shown his remarkable resilience. My dear Jesuit Friend never once revealed the true story of Thambi during that time – maybe if we had known, our attitude towards Thambi would have been different. Father had maintained his silence all these years just so we could focus on the vadai and Chai. 

We were thankful to Father for never allowing us to look down upon Thambi with sympathy, but treat him with respect as a self-employed entrepreneur that he is.