Tag Archives: Wedding

G.G.Welling: From Wedding to Retirement

 

One studio. Two photographs.

Two photographs that bookend a wedding and a retirement and life that happened in Bangalore from 1955 to 1979.

The most precious picture in our collection is the wedding photograph of the parents , Sheshagiri and Thulasi, who were married on July 20, 1955, in Nellore. A few days later, Sheshagiri brought his new bride to Bangalore, and they went to G.G.Welling Photo Studios , M.G. Road to have their wedding picture taken.

Because everybody went to Welling when they wanted to have their momentous occasions frozen in a frame, when Sheshagiri retired 26 years later,  he ttook Thulasi  to Welling again , for he was required to submit a picture of them together for his pension purposes. Though many momentous occasions happened in these 26 years, including the birth of their three children – aka My Big Brothers Subri and Bunty, and of course me, they were not frozen in frames at Welling’s, for reasons unknown. However, we have a treasure trove of memories between the two pictures- Leaving Mahadev Vilas on Ratna Vilasa Road after Grandfather Ramabrahma died, moving house three times, changing schools and starting college.

How many times have I sat down with Amma and pored over that album with all the photographs. Their wedding pictures, those of my aunts’, uncles and ants and cousins and the maternal grandparents in their Nellore home. But this picture, taken by Welling is the one that the eye lingers longest on. It holds a thousand stories, of nine little girls and their seven brothers , the weddings of the girls all of which took place in the house of their Ramayana writing father Mamidipudi Krishnaiah.

I’ve tried to imagine the colour of Amma’s saree- it was maroon, with a gold bordern, my aunt, Amma’s youngest sister Rohini tells me. The blouse, was pink, and the special lattice-work at the neck is the “jalebi neck” .

It’s five years ago that Amma went, and two years ago, it was their 60th anniversary. 1955 was the year named Manmatha, the God of Love, and Spring, and Colors, and everything beautiful, and in 2015 it had been again Manmatha Samvatsara, the year in which Appa was left with 57 years’ worth of memories.

In 2015, I asked Appa why his parents ( Ramabrahma Tatha and Venkamma Paati) are not to be seen in any of the 10 wedding photographs . “it was taken by Thambi Mama” he explained. That would be Amma’s eldest brother, M Venkatakrishnan, known as Thambi . I remember Thambi Mama, the bachelor uncle, chartered accountant who was well known in the Madras music and dance circle, for encouraging young artistes who needed an introduction into the Sabha circuit , and taking them under his wing.

Appa then said, ” may be you shouldn’t post the reception photo, don’t we look funny sitting far apart, almost hugging our corners of the two-seater”

Too late, I responded, we have already shared all the photos last year, and told the story of your wedding , of which I’m very proud.
July 20, 1955:- the wedding of Thulasi and Sheshagiri was celebrated at the grand residence of Mamidipudi Ramakrishnaiah and Indira, at Nellore. Appa, , told me that on July 18, 1955, when the groom’s family had arrived, the bride’s home was abuzz with wedding-related rituals, and the house was beginning to look like it was in Malgudi instead of Nellore, an elder know-all pointed out that the next day, the wedding eve when the groom is welcomed was going to be a day of Amavasya. No one had thought of this, and there was momentary consternation. But soon enough , someone suggested that the ritual could begin on 18th, and that’s exactly how it was done. Thanks to Amavasya, another day of wedding revelry came to be enjoyed by everyone!
Our mother, The bride of the day 61 years ago, is in Amma Heaven . Her absence has become a presence, and she talks to us in everything we do. Appa and I have pored over these photographs, and he remembers little nuggets about the wedding . His cousin Baba travelled with him from Madras I remember him telling us when Amma died, about what Grandfather Ramabrahma had said of the bride chosen for Sheshagiri- he had got the most beautiful one of the seven daughters of Ramakrishnaiah.
How simple,and yet grand, a wedding could be in those days! It’s just not fair that we never get to be at our parents’ wedding. I notice my mother’s bare feet at the reception, and how the bride and groom are seated as far away from each other as the two-seater permits! No visits to the beauty parlor, no make-up.
I remember playing wedding games , with Amma looking indulgently, and telling me the bride must sit with left leg folded up, and the left arm around it, and that’s what, I thought it took to be a bride!
Amma often told me about how the daughters of Ramakrishnaiah learnt of their impending marriage – suddenly, the house would begin to buzz with activity.  A set of imposing parents  would arrive and go into a huddle with the grandparents. The head of a party of wedding cooks would make several visits, a priest who conducted weddings would  drop in and leave with horoscopes  and return with list of auspicious muhurthams. The oldest un- married daughter would soon realize her turn had come to leave her parental home. The bride and groom would probably get to throw furtive, glances at each other.
Father it turns out, had seen his future wife much before their marriage was decided by the elders. At the wedding of his cousin in Madras, he was a dapper 21-year-old when he first saw her, a seven-year-old, running around in a little pavadai and blouse, with no idea whatsoever that she would wed this man 11 years later. She probably had no idea he was even there at that wedding, nor interested ! Glad to know she did marry him, for if not , this tale would never be written!

The retirement photograph caused much hilarity. Both of them had put on weight. “He couldn’t fit all of Amma in the frame, ” we said, and she had  laughed, as she always did at the fat jokes. We’ll never know if it hurt, or offended, and the laugh was meant to hide her annoyance. She was just Amma, and took it all on the (double) chin.

 

THE G.G. WELLING STORY

The Wellings come from a place called Veling in Goa They have been in the photography business since the 1850. Srinivas Mahadeo set up the Mahadeo and Sons photo store in Belgaum. They manufactured and sold cameras, and other photography equipment . Appa, who spent his childhood in Belgaum, around 1935 , remembers Mahadeo and Co as one of the first photography store in the town, although Katti Studio came up later. Grandfather Ramabrahma,was Headmaster of Sardar’s High School at the time, and Appa remembers that the services of Katti Studios were engaged on a few occasions, since it was the new kid on the block.

The Wellings opened the Bangalore store in 1903. It was then owned by Gajanan Goving Welling, who decided to go back to their roots, and added their native village as the family name. IT must have been the second generation Welling in Bangalore who took the parents’ wedding photograph in 1955. I have taken two or three passport photographs at Welling’s. The last must have been when I was with The Times Of India, just a few doors away from G.G.Welling.

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Down Appa’s Memory Lane

March 12, 2012

Appa turned 89 today . When I woke up , around 5.30 am,  I could hear him pottering about, and went to be the first to wish him Happy Birthday. “The first birthday without Amma,” he  noted, and both of us paused to let the poignant moment pass.  I wondered what it must feel  like to spend 56 birthdays (and 56 wedding anniversaries) with someone, and  wake up one day to find there will never be a 57th  of the same kind.

Amma died on January 24,  two weeks after she marked her 75th birthday. She had become quite forgetful, and barely remembered what presents she had received on her birthday. A pair of bangles ,  some money… having your valaikaappu at this age? I  asked, over the phone from faraway America,  and elicited a chuckle that proved to be the last.  A few days later I was on the plane to Bangalore.

In the weeks that followed,  we  often went into rewind mode.  Sometimes in our conversations, Amma was just away on a  long visit to Nellore.  Or in Amma Heaven, calling Ganesha Store  with her endless wish list of groceries so she could make everyone’s favorite dishes.  Her absence had become a Great Presence as the family grieved,  remembered and  then celebrated her.

I thought longingly of the divine chapatis that only Amma could make,  and Subri said now even a burned chapati made by her would be divine.   When an aval upma proved to be a disaster( because I didn’t let it soak long enough), Appa must have thought just as longingly of the ‘soft ”  aval upma that Amma always made, which translated, to me as “soggy”. Just now , what wouldn’t I do for a  helping of that soggy /soft “owl” upma, rustled up by Amma!

With mixed feelings we thumbed through the wedding album of “Mr and Mrs ’55”   and we were struck by how beautiful a bride Amma made, sans make-up , but  glamorous enough to give Nargis a complex. Appa, the same age as Dev Anand , incidentally, cut a dashing figure in the suit, in the picture (black  & white) taken by G.G.Welling.

“Tatha, when was the first time you met Pati?” Harini asked, and I  realised that the person who had answers to these questions, who always made  the ordinary stories    about all the uncles, aunts, cousins, once, twice-removed,  and totally removed courtesy-relations included  most fascinating,  and taught me to love them by knowing one little thing about each Chittappa, Mama, or  Tatha and Paati, had gone without answering that one!!

And we all looked at Tatha,  now the solitary source of  stories that ought to begin at  “Once Upon a Time”…………. and  go on “Happily Everafter!”

Appa at age 21, went to  Madras for the wedding of Cousin(s) Radha and Sitaram, and  there he first spotted his future wife, Thulasi, all of seven,  doing well, what seven-year-olds normally do at weddings.   Eleven years later, when Thulasi was 18, it was arranged that she should wed Sheshagiri . He went up to Nellore to “see” her,  accompanied by his cousin Baba,  and on his return,  his father ( Our Ramabrahma Tatha) pronounced, “you’ve got the best one of the seven sisters.”

I spent four months with Appa, and Bunty and we talked of many things, watch endless reruns of Ramayan, Shri Krishna and every mythological show that we could catch.  Appa is  89 years rich in history. of our family, of  our times.

He was 12 when Swami & Friends  was published, in 1935, and Malgudi arrived in our collective psyche.  Now  he is in his “anecdotage’. And we are hungry for stories of  his own Malgudi days.  Which makes for serendipity ( a word Appa loves to  insert into the conversation as often as he can, which is why the word is here)

He will be on rewind mode, to the times when there was neither TV nor remote, and pastimes were indulged in at a more leisurely pace, and kids could gaze upon camels and wonder at their purpose in nature’s scheme of things,  shout cheeky comments at departing British contingents, and live to tell the tale……witness the transition from petromax-lit  evenings to  electric nights…….

Appa is now the narrator and I, the scribe…………Heard that one before?

Kalyanam In Baltimore

Karthik and Samantha’s wedding in Baltimore , on September 15, 2011 made me realise how much one takes  weddings for granted, back home in Bangalore.  We pretend to be reluctant guests, and arrive with faces that make no effort to hide the fact that we are only there because we couldn’t find a valid excuse to skip it altogether.

Unless, of course, its’  a wedding in the family. Which means catching up with  cousins from across the globe, country, and city, packing  twenty years’ worth of nostalgia into the time between the muhurtham and the saapad. And letting it spill over into the afternoon, reminiscing and clearing space in the attic of memories for  the anecdotage that’s to come.

When Cousin Balu and his wife Janaki’s invitation to their son Karthik’s wedding  was received, I’d been here in Herndon Virginia two years,  and the last wedding I’d been to was a year ago in Bangalore –  and the yearning to sink my teeth into a spicy masala vadai,  and feasting my eyes on a banana leaf with all the “items” in their place- payasam, paruppu, avial, the kosambaries (two), curries, the thick sambhar and the aromatic rasam, and the sweets- a laddu and invariably , poli or chiroti…………… had me itching to take the next plane out of Dulles back to Bangalore and become a wedding crasher.

Of course, there was no banana leaf  at Karthik & Samantha’s wedding , though most of the “items”  that go on a banana leaf were served making it the most sumptuous meal.  But there were reunions!  And meeting a whole new generation of nieces and nephews with amazing talent and their joie de vivre which was quite infectious. I met Karthik’ sister Aparna for the first time. And since I’d met Karthik only a couple of times, and he didn’t remember, it was quite like the first time.

Meenakshi, Manju and Bhimu Chittappa came down from Minneapolis, Popy and Bernard drove down from Ottawa, and  Kumar put in an appearance too. Meenakshi drove us to Baltimore the previous evening and we stayed at the hotel which Balu had organised for everyone, since the wedding was to start rather early.

The aura of  a lovely Madras wedding had already taken over the Greater Baltimore Temple , where the arrival of the bride and groom was awaited. The oonjal, and the mandapam decked out in floral festoons, there were kolams and vilakkus. And looking glorious in Kanjeevaram and diamonds glittering on her  ears, rather MS-usque was Jana’s mother. Mami, whom I had last met when I was in college or school, at one of the weddings- her other daughter Meena is married to Kumar, Balu’s brother…….. put me to shame with how sharp her memory was-  how’s your mother doing after her surgery, how is Bunty, and where is your husband, why isn’t he here. Are you liking it in America?

Soon all her children and grandchildren began trickling in,  appropriately dressed in finest Kanjeevarams,  and there was so much beauty, joy and laughter . When the bride arrived, and it was time for Kashi Yatra and oonjal,  the young nieces and nephews began singing the beautiful marriage songs ……..maalai maatrinal, sita kalyana vaiboghame…….and all the songs that make one tearful and choked at weddings, especially when one never had this kind of wedding.  Jana’s sister Vidya’s son Anirudh enthralled with his fine rendering of “Enna thavam seithanai…….” and many more throughout the entire ceremony.

It was just as touching to see Samantha’s parents submit to all the rituals while they obviously had no clue what it all meant,  Samantha’s father told us later that he had enjoyed doing it all the same. Samantha herself looked  very comfortable in the madisaar,  and beautiful, enjoying the ceremony.
Meenakshi and I  noted that everyone looked tearful when the thaali was tied, and everyone stole a few moments to compose themselves and pretend that they never cried at weddings.

It was great to meet all the lovely sisters and brothers of Jana. Lakshmi, who had once come to Bangalore with friends, and I had been their “guide” in  Jayanagar 4th block,  I have to bashfully admit, I couldn’t recognise, but when I knew her she had curly hair!  She was the wedding planner, I learnt, and its thanks to her, my  urge to hop into a plane bound for Bangalore and turn wedding-crasher could be put on hold!

This post is long overdue. And  with this, my parting promise to Jana has been redeemed, I hope!