How Old is Muttajji?

Roopa Pai

Putta and Putti
jumped out of bed.
It was Muttajji's birthday and they had a train to
catch!

Muttajji, who was
the twins' mother's mother's mother, lived in Mysore with Ajji, who
was the twins' mother's mother. No one actually knew when Muttajji's
birthday was; Ajji had always celebrated it on the Makara
Sankranthi holiday.
"Amma, will
there be a cake?" asked Putti. "A big, spongy cake with
pink icing and a rose on top?"
"Naah,"
said Putta. "Old people don't have birthday cakes. And 200
candles won't fit on any cake."
"Muttajji
isn't 200 years old, silly," said Putti. "How old is
Muttajji, Amma?"
Amma smiled. "Why
don't you ask her when we get there?"

The moment they
reached the old green house in Mysore, the twins burst into
Muttajji's room.
"Happy birthday, Muttajji! How old are you
today?"
Muttajji hugged
the twins.
"How old am I? Who knows? How does it matter?"
"But it
does!" cried Putta and Putti together.

Muttajji smiled.
"Well," she said, "I know that around five years
before I was born, our Maharaja went to a grand party for Indian
Maharajas and Maharanis in Delhi. A British king and queen had come
to visit, and our Maharaja got a gold medal."
"Oooh! A
party! There must have been lots of cake!" said Putti. "Who
was this king, Muttajji? If you know, we can find out which year he
visited. if we add five years to that, we will know when YOU were
born!"
Muttajji
shrugged. "I've forgotten, Putta."
Putta's face fell.

"Wait,"
said Muttajji. "Let me see if I can remember something else.
Aaaan! When I was about your age - nine or ten - my uncle from Bombay
visited us and told us about clean trains."
"Clean
trains?"
"Yes!"
Muttajji was excited.
"They had started running in Bombay that
year. You never got dirty travelling in them. No black dust on your
clothes and face, no grime, nothing!"
The twins stared
at her. Why would anyone get dirty travelling by train?

"Some years
later," continued Muttajji, "I got married. The law was
that a girl should be at least 15 before she was married, and my
father would never break the law, so I must have been 16 then. Very
soon after my marriage, your Muttajja got a job in Bombay, and we
left Mysore."
"Did
anything important happen the year you got married, Muttajji?"
asked Putta.
"Yes,"
said Muttajji sadly. "Our Maharaja inaugurated our big dam, and
the beautiful gardens next to it, during the Dasara festival that
year. But I missed it; I was in Bombay. "
"A big dam?"
Putta sat up. "Is it still there?"

Muttajji hooted
with laughter. "Of course! Rock-solid too. It was the dam that
tamed the Kaveri. No more floods in the monsoon, and enough water for
the fields in the summer."
Ajji put her head
around the door. "Are you talking about KRS, Amma?"
"Aaaan,
KRS," Muttajji said, looking fondly at Ajji. "Your Ajji was
my fifth child, the youngest, but always the smartest. Do you know,
twins, my children came like clockwork, one every two monsoons. The
day your Ajji decided to come out, your Muttajja could not be found.
Later, he told us that he had gone to see Gandhiji give a speech at
the Gowalia Tank Maidan. He was so excited. 'Quit India!' he kept
shouting the whole day, silly man, disturbing the baby.'

"Quit
India!" Putti's eyes grew round with excitement. "We
studied it in history, Putta! The movement started in 1942! That
means 1942 was the year that... "
"...Ajji was
born," pouted Putta. "Not Muttajji."
"That's a
start!" said Putti. "Which year were you born, Ajji?"
"I will be
74 this year," said Ajji. "So I was born in?"
Putti
quickly did the calculations. "1942!*" she said. Ajji
nodded.
*( 2016 - 74 =
1942 )

"Now, Ajji
is Muttajji's fifth child and all her kids were two years apart!"
said Putta. "So if Ajji was born in 1942..."
"...Muttajji's
fourth child was born in 1942 - 2 = 1940, the third in 1940 - 2 =
1938, the second in 1938 - 2 = 1936, and the first in 1936 - 2 =
1934."
"So Muttajji
was married in 1932!" cried Putti.
"Not
necessarily," said Putta. "Muttajji didn't say her first
child was born two years after her marriage. She only said a dam was
built in Mysore the year she got married."

"Maybe this
will help, twins," said Ajji, bringing in bowls of vermicelli
payasa, Muttajji's favourite sweet dish. "KRS is the
Krishnarajasagar Dam. The Brindavan Gardens are the gardens attached
to it. We went there last year to see the musical fountains,
remember?"
The twins nodded.
"Mmmm," said Putti. "Your payasa is the BEST, Ajji!"
"When was
KRS built, do you know, Ajji?"
Ajji shook her
head. "I'm not sure. But you can go with Ajja to the central
library after lunch and find out there."

In the library,
Putti found a book on the history of Mysore.
"Here it is!"
she whispered. " Two of Mysore's most visited tourist spots,
the KRS Dam and the adjacent Brindavan Gardens, were opened to the
public in 1932 .'"
The twins grinned - that meant Muttajji
had indeed married in 1932, 84* years ago!
*(2016 - 1932 = 84)

"Muttajji
thinks she was 16 when she got married," said Putti, "but
she could have been 15 or 17 or 18."
"She also
said she was about 9 or 10 when her Bombay uncle told her about the
'clean' train," said Putta. "Ajja may know what that
means."
Ajja was in the
reading room.
"Ajja," whispered Putti, "in the olden
days, did people get dirty travelling by train?"
Ajja nodded.
"There were steam engines then, which ran on coal, not
electricity," he said. "Black coal dust used to fly out of
the chimney and land on everyone and everything. Terrible!"
"That's it,
Putti!" hissed Putta."Electric trains were the 'clean'
trains!"

He pulled out a
book on the Indian Railways. "It says here," he pointed,
"that India's first electric train came to Bombay in 1925!"
"And Muttajji says she was about 9 then," said Putta. "If she is right, then Muttajji was born in 1916*. "
"But she could be wrong, you know," frowned Putti.
"Only one way to make sure," said Putta. "We have to find out if that big party for kings and queens in Delhi, which Muttajji said happened five years before she was born, happened in 1911**."
They ran back to Ajja.
* (1925-9 =
1916 ); **(1916 -5 = 1911)

"Ajja, was
there a grand party for a foreign king who visited India around
1911?"
Ajja frowned.
"1911? Why is that date so familiar? Aaan yes. It was the year
the Gateway of India was built in Bombay. And yes, it was built to
welcome the British Emperor of India, George V! There must have been
several grand parties, not one."
Ajja tapped his forehead,
looking very pleased with himself. "Not bad for an old brain,
eh?"
"Not bad at
all!" cried the twins. "Thanks, Ajja!" They knew
exactly how old Muttajji was!

Five minutes
later, the twins were racing homewards.
"Muttajji, "
they panted, rushing straight to her room, "did the Mysore
Maharaja get his gold medal from King George V?"
"Aaaaaan!"
Muttajji said happily. "That's it! George! What clever children
you are!"
"That means,
Muttajji, that you were born in 1916! You are exactly 100* years old
today!"
*(2016 - 1916 = 100)

"That's
great detective work, twins!" smiled Amma. "I think you -
and Muttajji - deserve a special treat. A big, spongy one, with pink
icing, and a rose on top."
"Hurrayyyyyy!"
cheered the twins.

The Grand
Maharaja-Maharani Party (and other fun stuff from Indian history)
Remember all the
important historical events Muttajji talked about in the story? They
all really happened! Here is a little more information about them.

The Grand
Maharaja-Maharani Party (1911 ) - When the British Emperor George
V and his wife Queen Mary visited India for the first time, they
hosted a grand party for over 400 Indian kings and queens. It was
called the Delhi Durbar. To feed 200,000 guests, bakeries put out
20000 loaves of bread a day, and over 1000 cattle and sheep were
slaughtered for every meal! Many Indian rulers received gold medals
from the Emperor, including the Maharaja of Mysore, Krishnaraja
Wodeyar IV.

The Clean
Trains (1925) - On Feb 3, 1925, India's first electric train left
Bombay's Victoria Terminus for Kurla station. With that, India became
the 3rd country in Asia and only the 24th in the world to introduce
railway electrification.
The Dam That
Tamed The Kaveri (1932) - The Kaveri river runs through southern
Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The river was always a blessing, keeping
Mysore fertile, but, like every other river, it used to flood in the
monsoons and run dry in the summer. All that changed when a dam was
built across the river and the Krishna Raja Sagara (KRS) reservoir
created. The reservoir still provides most of the drinking water for
Bangalore city.

Gandhiji's Big
Speech (1942) - The 'Quit India Speech' was a speech made by
Gandhiji on 8 August 1942, at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Bombay.
Gandhiji asked people to fight against British rule not by using
violence, but by disobeying their laws. Five years later, on August
15, 1947, the non-violent war got the results Gandhiji wanted - the
British left, and India became independent. Today, the Gowalia Tank
Maidan is called the August Kranti Maidan in memory of that peaceful
revolution.