This document provides biographical details about Padmini Ashy, who was a childhood friend of the narrator's father. Some key details include: - Padmini Ashy remained unmarried and lived with her mother and sisters. She offered the narrator advice about saving money for education. - She was artistic and painted portraits. She had unusual eating habits and focused on nutrition. - The narrator's father remained close with Padmini Ashy due to their childhood friendship. The narrator also recalls her as "Sister Cher". - One of Padmini Ashy's sisters married and moved to Canada with her Pakistani husband. The narrator later sees Padmini

1. SISTER CHER
CHRONICLES
CHRONICLE -1
PADMINI ASHY
MADATHIL NARAYANAN RAJKUMAR
1
When I recollect the old town where I spent my childhood years, I see
myself strolling to the ancient streets in the afternoon after passing the
mailing station and the Ayurveda crisis centre where my uncle’s friend
was the medical officer. My uncle was a tracker in his youth, super chiller,
fine in manners and outlook and an admirer of bounty hunters, who
thought that there is sure magic in life. He was just ordinary in others
eyes, but not in his own. That might have made him live up to the life he
aimed at and perhaps to an extent achieve it. His photographs of youth
testify that he was handsome and there are several pictures where he is
seen diving in seawater and smiling shirtless. But towards the end of his

2. life, he took another turn, turning himself into an aficionado of ayurvedic
medicines and vegan styles of living. And in those last years was an
enthusiast of the ayurvedic medications and had a couple of scratchpads
filled in his print–like handwriting how to mix and manage and concoct
flavours and spices and add to the Ayurvedic elixir he made and gulped.
He had a ton of blends made without anyone else from books or
pamphlets he read in his extra time. When went debilitated, he took the
prescriptions and he even made some social occasion plants from our
nursery. Our own was a significant nursery as my mother was in the
agricultural help and she was posted in various spots inside the state and
when she arrived at home she carried with her shoots and stems and
brambles and were planted in our nursery she liked developing In the
underlying stages until she became wiped out. This is the background of
our family set-up where another important character in our day to day
life makes an appearance. And my dad mostly was abroad or in another
state in the country.
2
I used to walk around these streets past the paddy fields for many
periods. The old pool where bullocks took the plunge was filled and a
lodging complex occupied the spot. After a long time, one more Bank
settlement came up on the opposite roadside. The way had trees on the
two sides for a significant length distance however turned out to be
forlorn for the remainder of the length lastly it finished in the public
authority staff quarters, a bunch of 80 odd structures occupied by the
staff of the state government. Here Dr Sosu built her house. There was a
casual gathering of ladies once in a week or once in a fortnight and when
I was a little kid, I went there with my mom. There some of the time, my
mummy and I will meet Padminiashy who was an incredible companion of
Dr Sosu who always wore blue dresses. And the last was my mom’s
companion in eras of trouble. I had heard them speaking in low tones in
our bedroom when my father was away from town, and I could not then
make out what that was. Later mom herself revealed to me after many
years that the topics of private discussion were the family matters of
both of their relatives. And sometimes, there were concerns about the
health of her husband’s health who died in the harness… It was a real
circle of dear companions. In the greater part of their discussions, the
subject will be the weakening of society, scornful activities against
ladies, reference to certain current social issues. There likewise sprung

3. up points, for example, retirement age, present-day more youthful age
etc.Dr Sosu’s house was on the stream of an incline that is encircled by
paddy fields. There is one more course to a similar objective by
intersecting the tamarind rows by the side of the road, yet her practice
was in our small town which was very far away from the town community.
She was an Ayurveda doyen and was my mother’s incidental sidekick.
When I visited her centre, when I had a development on the nape and she
endorsed a couple of meds anyway around then I went to an alternate
port and later that blister was eliminated by a medical procedure, Be
that as it might, Dr Sosa passed in the vigil of drawing in with this illness
for a lengthy compass.
3
Padmini ashy was of my dad’s age. They were childhood friends. I have
gone to the original house of Padmini Ashy where her mother and elder
sisters lived. The family was intimate to my eldest aunt at the time when
she alone had run a restaurant. The tearoom it is said was the first one of
its sort in the town in that environs. This eldest sister was a widow, and
after her my dad became very intimate with this family. That was perhaps
another 30 years before my visit to their home. My dad addressed this
family as if it were his own spread out gamut of brood. Among the sisters
only the youngest was hitched yet she passed on leaving a boy. Her man
was a bartender in Delhi and remarried soon after the death of his wife
leaving the boy in the hands of his grandma and aunts. After that, he
never turned to The kid was raised by the aged mother and the unmarried
sisters.They stayed in one of the unflashy houses in low verecund
settlement.This is Probably in my early boyhood days and in the following
years, I might have visited them once or twice, never more than that.
4
Padmini Ashy remained single. In her hay days, she tossed with several
eligible suitors but her mother was not pleased with any. P. Ashy had
many suitors in her prime youth and she tossed with the idea of whom to
marry and her mother opposed all her choices and finally, she remained
unmarried. Occasionally she would see her ex-fiancé at the municipal
office working with her brother and they would just smile but not talk.
On the election day, at the counter of ballet scrutinizing they both were
posted in a back of beyond village and in those days they had to live in
the same campestral shanty in different rooms. And they traded a few
banters but nothing more. He retired from service but died.

4. The boy’s father was in Delhi working as a bartender. And went for
devious ways. She had the habit of reading a cliffhanger and identifying
with the female personas that are not herself.
It was one of the households where he used to go as a child and the
fraternity started much earlier. In addition, from my eldest aunts times
who had run one of the earliest cafes in the town. though the building
was demolished and the roads widened the place still evokes generations
of memory. i is on an uphill to the heart of the town and ends in a
playground. it was again the vital course from another city roadway
transport and my eldest aunt was overseeing the premier bistro and she
was a widow and she had spearheaded a macro household and a
photograph of that point was in our family. The greasy spoon was there in
the time of my eldest aunt. The old photos were shown to her in her
respected time when she visited my home. My eldest aunt was close to
me. she was happy when I offered her the photographs that were with my
dad.
5
whenever I went to the room of road may she will be sitting on her armed
bench against the narrow beige drywall. Her dead father’s photo is on the
partition. She vocalised only the native language and did not know
English, but she cooked healthy. She applied talcum powder all over her
face and took two baths a day inside the carved shower stall. She bathed
early in the daylight and dusk. She wore a massive men’s wristwatch with
a white dial and silver band, unlike other matrons who wore only ladies
watches. In those years only very few ladies wore watches and in that
assembly came Padmini Ashy.
6
Padmini Ashy made me realize that I should save money in the bank for
my higher education. But my dad was averse to all sorts of saving and
despite his want of a plan or worry for the future, everything spun out
well in his situation. She took extra freedom to criticize my dad for his
lack of solicitude for the future as they were playmates and of the exact
age she blurted out these bits of guidance in the middle of my free
evening circuit through the streets of the old town just in front of the
principal hospital. Padmini Ashy painted pictures, scenery and portraits of
eminent people, sometimes, heroes and heroines in the movies. where
she dwelled we saw numerous gear utilized by proficient painters. Some

5. of her works of art were purchased by individuals who made wall
calendars.
She had bizarre eating habits. When we didn’t know about nutritious food
sources, she ate restoratively endorsed food sources. She ate dark
walnuts that are rich in omega-3 alpha-linolenic acid. There were
numerous materials and painting materials, brushes and canvases in her
room. She stayed alone away from her sister’s grandmother. Her younger
sisters living with them and his father were working in Delhi and after the
death of his significant other, he married once more. The more youthful
sister was the main lady among sisters who got hitched.
7
Also, the son of Padminiashy’s youngest sister became defiant in the need
for a legitimate course. His aunts looked after him in loco parentis.
I recollect that once he visited our house. He was a few years younger
than me and he had tea and snacks. That was one of the few instances
that I met him vis-a-vis however I heard from indirect talks certain tales
of his whereabouts. Padmini Ashy had only one brother who worked in the
Municipal department and would make infrequent visits to our house,
once in a year or once in two years. This gentleman was one of the good
truck drivers in the department and moved away from the family when I
left. Regardless, Padminiashy was tended to by my father by her first
name as they were of the same age and they were playmates. I in like
manner called her Sister Cher, which was more similar to a sobriquet than
an accurate handle.
8
The essential worry about the family and I heard that she married an old
individual who claimed a lot of property, who was by then, catching a
ride and had procured the property of a few educational cost based
schools. My dad advised me in the family inward assembling that it was
marriage for cash. The preparation was starting as an effective business
and it was for quite a while in our town. It was the start of a pattern
from philosophical thinking with characteristics to practical learning with
a business eye, new legends coming up superseding the old holy people
who lived in photographs. In guest rooms of government work settings
and businesses and private visiting rooms. They talked about anyway and
did nothing that they did for the duration of regular day to day existence.
they worshipped these old heroic characters yet didn’t do anything that
they had done… Education was a service instead of a business and we

6. created pieces on it and got prizes, but close by it, another steam was
created where guidance was more like a business than help. Likewise, she
married an accostable elderly gentleman and was two decades older than
her. when she began living with him, possibly she was in her late fifties.
My father in our family got together at supper and told that she married
for cash.
9
One thing I needed to tell you regarding Padminiashy is that she had
another sister. What’s more, this sibling was a nurse in Delhi later moved
to Canada with her Pakistani spouse. In our family conversations, her
name ricochets often however mother didn’t heed for her in some way
though she was large-minded in the overall sense and empathetic to
other people. . Her better half’s name was Sterni and my mom rehashed
Sterni facetiously and chuckled. In my boyhood, I also chortled mirroring
my mom at the point that name was invoked now and then while
banqueting and later when thinking back I didn’t believe that she
accomplished something terrible by picking the line of her heart in her
unique elan and further she might be a wonderful woman. I feel that in
case she is living she may be in her nineties. Also, in my dad’s advanced
age, Padminiashy met my dad near Five Lanterns Memorial raised in
memory of the first native ICS officer who shot himself at 25 years of age
after a reprehensive slur by a British officer peer after a boisterous booze
party at the Malabar hotel club. [Mr P.Rathnavelu Chetti-ICS- Bar at law, a
product of Balliol college, Oxford-Death-September 28, 1881].
Padminiashy met my dad in the above spot close to the Government
Hospital junction and let my dad know that her sister from Canada had
shown up and she needed to meet my dad and my father went to see her
however my mom frowned at such a congregation which she thought was
beneath his decorum. what’s more, that Rencontre gave my father a
gold-covered wristwatch. Also, however my mom didn’t care for this
presentation venture it was in our family and after my folks’ demise, the
property went to the hands of one of my cousins and she kept it with her
and I needed to get it from her w telling that it is my father’s belongings
and I am the central enjoyer. I kept it in a crate among other so historic
stuff furthermore, one day when I was short of money I pledged it with a
dealer in the nikkei and got the cash. I could not reclaim it within the
due season with the sum plus interest and lost it forever.
10

7. During one of my excursions after my father’s passing, I viewed her photo
on the fifth page of the newspaper adjacent to multiple accounts of
obituaries. I was touring by bus passing from one state to another and on
both sides, Sylvan splendours welcomed in a twelve-hour trip in a luxury
bus.Pools,billabongs,rivulets,sphagnum,inlands,waterweed,banksia,creek
s,crocodiles.The seat of the transport could be converted into a bed
during the night time to ease the travellers. The carrier was cosy and the
journey was fabulous due to the stellar precincts on both sides. However,
we did not get much time to watch the outside tableau as most of the
travel was at night and the passengers were sleeping. The city capital
where it was entered had as of late changed with parallel paths and
flyovers to stay away from the busy traffic. Drawing closer to the city, I
thought that it was the rise of a new chapter with so many souls left
behind and new beings fledging up. That was the background of me when
I reached the city, with thoughts of my virtual auntie who offered me
many bits of good direction in my developing years. The city was eagerly
sprouting from last night’s film of snow.
…………………………………….