From the pensieve 8

My parents often worked in other districts when I was a child. My brothers, since they were older, usually moved with one or both of them. Just a few months before we moved to Trivandrum, I was taken from my grandfather's house. At that time, my father was working in Trivandrum, and I stayed in Calicut with my mother and brothers.

I didn't really give a thought about the changes happening in and around. I missed the old house and people, but as the house was still accessible and the people were not far off, I tried to make the best of both worlds. We stayed in a Govt quarters and I played all the time with the kids in the neighbourhood. We would go on expeditions on our own, climb all the trees, have picnics in the ground eating raw mangoes and guavas. We plucked flowers together for Onam and faithfully followed the tradition of 'not touching a book' during puja. During festivals, we would walk up hill as a group, early in the morning to the Durga Temple. It was beautiful up there, the temple, the hilly terrain, the cave...

I had to take a bus to school. I didn't mind, as it gave me some extra time to dream. On the way to the bus stop, there was a small colony of tribal folks. I loved walking past that one row building. Each family, had a small veranda and a room. The children would be playing together in the small yard and the elderly women would be sitting on the pavement weaving baskets out of bamboo strips. Manohariechi, our maid, had told me scary stories about them, so every time I saw a pot and smoke, I looked at it suspiciously. But my inquisitiveness to their life could not easily be put to rest.

They looked happy, a little annoyed, perhaps by the city, but they smiled and laughed revealing their stained teeth. The children seemed to be having a lot of fun all the time huddling together in groups. I would imagine the life in their one room homes. Sometimes I felt strangely guilty, even a little ashamed of my clean clothes. I would remember my life in the old house, when I had the whole outhouse to myself. I would toy with the idea of letting those people  live in the outhouse. The outhouse did not belong to me anymore, but I never really accepted that fact.

A year later, when I came back from Trivandrum on summer vacation, we went by that place. The early 90s were a period when the city went through major architectural and structural changes. I couldn't find the colony there. It was gone, with out a trace. What would have happened to all those lives, all those toothy grins and greasy little faces which huddled together plotting new games?

 Come Monday, it'll be alright.
Come Monday, I free myself from German..

Night fell,
From the unknown morrow,
Leading me on to a distant shadow.
I call out your name
My songs had been about you,
But Perhaps I've lost my songs
Would you still know me by my sobs?



 

Grandmothers and stories

Ever since I read Orhan Pamuk's Silent House, I've been thinking of my paternal grandmother. We were not really close. She was not the kind of grandmother who would pamper children by telling them stories and watching them fall asleep. She was unemotional, efficient and hard. Or perhaps, the real she, was hiding inside a shell.

After her husband passed away, she continued to live in their house in the village with her sister. The two women looked after the land and the fields efficiently. They would work all day and watch TV late into the  night. After we moved to Trivandrum, she came to live with us briefly, as her health, at that time, needed frequent medical consultation.

I was 12 then, lost in my own sorrows and distant dreams, perhaps I did not try to form a bond with the poor old woman. My mother had taken a few months off from work, she did administer the medication and managed the diet as prescribed and advised by the doctor. Grandmother was allowed to watch TV as much as she wanted and the relatives visited her frequently . But as soon as she recovered, she wanted to move back to the village.

At home, all of us except my father perhaps, talked in stark northern accent, and my mother, even with the help of the maid, had not quite mastered the Travancore cuisine. The poor old lady couldn't have waited any longer to move back. I still remember how she used stand there in the veranda, leaning on a pillar, staring blankly at the road.

She passed away when I was 15, after having been hospitalized for a week.

I am intrigued by the way the grandmother character in Silent house dreams of the innocence of her youth. She had had a bitter life with a man who repulsed her, had secluded herself from his believes, non-believes, adultery and madness, had been horrendously cruel to his mistress and her children and had witnessed her son and daughter in-law being taken into grave. She just lives on, cursing her servant and being unpleasant to everybody and everything in the present, but secretly holding on to the memories of her childhood, the time she and her mother made lemonade together, the time she visited her friends in the city, the time they read a novel together...

How do this ordeal called life, transform a young innocent girl of 14 to a bitter old woman?

I wonder what my grandmother was thinking when she was standing there leaning on that pillar?
The perfect silence of a midsummer afternoon in the village? the old glory of the temple? the lush paddy fields? the day she got married? or simply an old movie which gave her quite a thrill?

On a lighter note, I over-heard a trio of old ladies last week at a restaurant. They were talking about Shwagertochter, the daughter in-law.

Here in this country, even women over 70 carefully wear their make up. Since its a rich country, their clothes are expensive, their jewellery rare. Those who are single, still boldly sport a mini-skirt and a sleeveless T in summer. I admire their zest for life.

I am thinking of all grandmothers back home, who go to temple every evening, who chant their prayers even in sleep. I hope their spirituality is not just a way of withdrawal.

What is right? Believing that you still have the power to turn things around and enjoy life, meet someone, even fall in love..(What is love at 70? I wonder) ..Or just giving up on life and waiting for your time?

I don't know actually, I do not want to judge either group.
This is to all grandmothers, those who wear lipstick and those who don't, and their stories, told and untold.








 

From the pensieve 7

The little girl was sitting on the pavement, playing with some stones and sticks. Her hair was dishevelled and her face greasy. She was 7 or 8, probably too young to be all by herself, but I guess the world did not really care about her. And from the self-involved look in her face it was evident that she did not care about the world as well.

My father had parked the car there and had gone to a shop nearby. I was waiting for him.
It was many years ago. I was still in college.

The little girl raised her head and looked at me. I smiled at her. She came close to the window and stood there, staring at me with out even blinking. Then she smiled.

She stood there and smiled at me for some time, then a man came and tried to take her away from there. She just stubbornly freed herself . She said something to the man pointing at me. All I could hear was 'chechi chechi'. She came back and we continued to look and smile at each other.

Then my father came back. She waved at me when we took off.

Why do I never forget the look in her face?

In a second everything could end, doesn't it? With everything we believed in....
Prayers...

 Dead-tired,  dog-tired....

I was reminded of this song for no reason..