The end of an era

I have been meaning to write about her for a while now. In fact, for the past year, whenever, in brief snatches, I met her during my travel to Mysore, I have wanted to say something, many things. She was born in 1925, and the kids & I had great fun calculating her age every year. For the past several years, she has claimed that she is 86 years old. As if time had stopped there for her. Although my sister, her eldest grandchild, always enjoyed a much closer relationship with her than I ever did, I have such rich memories of her.

My dad used to take me to school on his scooter everyday. It was a source of plenty frustration for me 'cause he was not to be hurried. And I wanted to get to school as early as I could, so I could play with my friends. On the way to school (and his college, which was next door), we would stop off at Paati's place. She would have a small cup of coffee & a bowl of milk cream ready for us. Though why one should stop literally 3 minutes after leaving home, I don't know. But that milk cream with sugar - which I love loved (still do), was amazing.

I wanted a salwar kameez for my birthday when I was 10. My mom would have none of it. I was a pint sized runt and she was convinced it would look terrible. Paati stitched me a pink and white thing. It was pretty awful actually but I enjoyed it nevertheless! She was super duper crafty - her crochet-ed pieces are still all over all our homes, I have jealously guarded it from marauding hands, and transported it through all my various moves. She converted all our old school uniforms into sturdy bags, which were so handy- back when plastic hadn't overtaken our lives, this was. (I have valiantly tried to do this... but my skills - both on the machine and in time management - are poor).

Somehow I remember this slightly dark place they lived in in Bangalore, where they had no fridge. She used to boil milk several times a day to ensure it wouldn't spoil. And she would describe all these recipes - many of them ways and means to stretch out the monthly budget a bit more, feed the hungry mouths somehow. Like her paruppu urundai kuzhambu - which, under her slightly garbled instructions, I made in my mom's house a few years ago, making my mom break out in hives thanks to the mess it created.

Slowly, over time, as her memory started to fade, we got into a routine where she would ask the same set of questions every time she saw me. She would take a nap and come out, having completely forgotten I was there, her eyes would light up in happiness (I don't recall her being too happy with me in the growing up years, but now, she was super duper proud of me and the kid, somehow, don't know  why!).
* When did you get here? (Just now, Paati)
* Are you staying long? (No Paati, have to leave tomorrow/day after/next week)
* What time do you leave for work? (9-ish)
* Do you finish off the cooking before you leave?
* How about the child's dabba?
* Are you home when she gets back from school?
* She is very smart like you, isn't she?
& repeat.
She would get very very worked up if I visited without the kid. Like the last time I saw her, in February. Where is the child, how can you leave her alone there, she kept asking me. I tried telling her that her dad could handle her, but she was never satisfied with that. Finally I cottoned on and said my mother-in-law is home. That made her happy.

Why do you call your daughter that - doesn't she have a proper name, she often asked me. This 'cause of the nickname we use at home for her - we have actually named her after our two grandfathers, one of whom is her husband, but she never recalls that. Sometimes I would explain this to her, hoping I guess, for some approbation. But she just said hmm, must have thought we are totally random, we 'modern' people.

She wasn't the type of grandma that was overly affectionate and coddling. In fact, when we played games with her, all those olden day games with dice and shells and stuff, she cheated quite rampantly :-) But 91 years is a long time, and especially in the past decade, unfortunately even as she was losing her memory rapidly, I had grown so close to her. It's hard to put into words. And it surprises me very much at times, I have always assumed that I preferred my simple & straight forward grandfather over her. But lately, I would find myself appreciating how very smart this lady was - I mean she was seriously intelligent - much more than others in the family.  I miss her very much, and I am deeply sad about the end of the era.

At more or less the exact time of her passing (in Mysore, in a hospital, a few weeks ago), I was eating a delectable basundi at Woodlands here in Chennai, a sweet I loved with all my little heart in my childhood. I haven't eaten it in a very long while. I really enjoyed it that day, almost as much as I used to enjoy the milk cream and sugar that Paati saved every morning for me...

Long Legs

I grew up in a joint family. My paternal grandfather lived till his last day with two of his three sons - my father being one of them. My uncle (father's elder brother), his wife, and us lived together pretty much till they passed on. They had no children however, so the only children in the household were sister and myself. Apart, of course, from the zillions of relatives that passed through our house through the year, and especially in the summer. The relatives were generally people related to my father (mom's relatives routinely went to my other grandparent's place, who lived close).

Not having to analyse it all from the lens of a woman, a feminist, etc., I think I had a very enjoyable childhood. I loved my grandfather and was very very inconsolable when he passed on one fine day in the early 80s - I must have been 9 years old. I loved my uncle, who was a quiet, unassuming railway clerk much dominated by his wife. Both these men lacked any skill in dealing with young children and soon got exasperated with my questions and sent me off to my mum, but I knew they loved and cared for me, so their lack of skill rarely annoyed anyone. I did love my aunt as well - arguably a tough task. She was given to 'moods' and quite full of all sorts of rules and regulations and issues and generally a person who thought highly non-linearly. But presented with a situation, she handled it with remarkable composure, efficiency, and sheer dogged hard work. I got along remarkably well with her, not the least because of her ability to weave magic with the home-made milk-based sweets...

Once the three older ones of our family passed on (all in the 80s), we were left by circumstance, a nuclear family. Again this was not a situation that was deeply analysed I don't think. At any rate thinking back, our 'go to' person was always mom. When we were still small, father used to bathe us. When he has the time, he used to iron our school uniforms for us. Till that special day in VII standard when I got my own red bicycle, I rode on his scooter to my school (my sister, to my memory, although in the same school, always went separately). When my school finished, I would walk over to his office generally. He would acknowledge my presence by extinguishing his cigarette and putting on a guilty look about it (not that it mattered much to me by the time I was in school, but till I was about four, I rarely talked to him because I used to get very scared of his smoking). He took me to his library every year when my exams ended so I could check out books about paper craft or some such to occupy me in the holidays.

He was generally patient with us, though he always deferred to mum's opinions on everything to do with our upbringing. Beyond sort of a peripheral participation, I don't think he did much. At least, he could not be counted upon to take any sort of 'responsibility' of us. And he spent lots and lots of time in his office. Mum worked too, or she was studying. She did her M.Ed when I was four, and then when I was in high school, she signed for her PhD, and worked in between the two. She was always doing something outside the home, but still was all over the home situation, and, us. I got in much fewer arguments and alteractions with my parents than my sister (who is older - perhaps she fought all my battles for me?). Though I still recall one time I wanted to go to this college for an athletics competition, it was a bit far from our home and school so she was not happy with it, though I do think it had more to do with the fact that it was sports (something she did not particularly care back then for). I remember the silent crying, the maid had disappeared that day (the day before the competition), even as I was swabbing the floor, I was crying at the injustice of it all. Anyway finally much cajoling all around later, I did go the next day, but the memory of it is still so green. As is the feeling that my dad washed his hands off the matter in about five seconds, with his standard line- 'ask your mum.'

Mum's great of course, she is a remarkably brave woman (and extremely fit, with her walking and yoga - as mad about them as the daughters are). She has done incredible things with her life, given the circumstances she was operating under. And, when I had my child, she came running to my help, dropping everything. She has remarkable rapport with my cook and driver and everyone else around here, well, hundred other things too. I do love her and she is possibly the person I talk the most philosophy with right now. But what I find is remarkable is, how much I loved my dad. And how much I love even the memory of him. How much I think of him, and his words (generally few, thanks to a combination of factors - innate selfishness, pre-occupation with his research and teaching, health, etc.). I have inherited many of his features though my nature and habits are almost entirely mum.

It gives me hope that, apart from the long legs the monster has got from her dad, and despite the disproportionately larger amount of time I spend with her, she will always have such an equation with her dad. There is so much she can get from him which I have no hope of offering her - simple things such as common sense, practicality, and an ability to always appreciate the efforts of other people - which I do hope she is absorbing from him even when they spend so little time together...

What do you say...

when your 'best friend' from school calls you up, out of the blue, eight years since you last spoke? well, first I told her that I was climbing into a plane and would call her the next day. And then when we chatted, I swallowed my reservations about telephone conversations and really enjoyed the moment. She kept complaining that I sounded older, but me, denial-queen that I am, insisted that we both sounded exactly the same as all those years ago (what was it now, twenty years? even more!) when we used to go round and round in our cycles (mine red, hers a stately maroon) with kilos of oil in our hair reciting hindi poems for the upcoming test in school.

Does your child know about me, have you told her, she asked me. I had a quick turn of guilt. Of course, I had told the monster about her, but the rest of the gang had been swept away to the sidelines. I had not mentioned how we used to laugh at EG for her tuneless singing, how I used to exchange sweaters with Amulya so that we could con someone while playing hide-and-seek, nor that crazy thing Durgamba got us into, you know, stealing cherries and getting chased by the gardener. Fear of spiders that Chandrika had that we never really believed in, sporting girl that she was, she followed us everytime we told her, we have a surprise for you under the stair-case. AAAAH SPIDERS. Nope, have not mentioned these things. Only about cycling and reaching out for gulmohar flowers and sticking that part of it on our nails and going GRRR MONSTER.

We should meet, please visit Mumbai soon, I said. Sure, pop by the next time you are in Gurgaon, she said. I have never been in Gurgaon, would love to! I piped. Han its a bit of a village, she said, dripping disapproval. I like my job though, she said, sounding oodles more confident than back when we would ask questions about the Civics exam to each other. Hey do you remember, I said. Yeah, do you remember, she said.

Of course we remembered everything. What are a few decades in between? Like the time we went on an NCC camp (remarkable how I managed to pull that one off, you know, my mom being mom, she should technically have ignored all pleas and put a blanket ban.). Anyway, it was a camp, and had the usual nasty camp food. Not to mention pits in the ground instead of a loo. We went to bed on night three (or four). The whole camp settled down. Then I HAD to get up and throw up. I would never have managed to reach the tap on the ground floor if not for her. She held my hand. Promised to not tell mom when she visited in the evening (she would have insisted I return home and meet the doctor and what not). And then I felt fine the next day, we fetched our cycles from home, riding victoriously in a big fat truck through the streets. We cycled all the way to Srirangapatna, and carried banners and took an oath WE WILL NOT INDULGE IN DOWRY.

Oh yes, what a glorious time, school. With my best friend by my side, none of the politics mattered. We could always always count on each other. The ten years passed like ten minutes. And the deep regret I felt when she joined another school in the eleventh, I don't think I have gotten over it yet. College and gradschool and marriage and life in general have put a lot of distance between us, but deep in there, I can still picture that girl with the humongous two plaits holding my hand and singing 'Father Abraham' in our first ever stage performance at five years of age...