My Grandmother

We used to be with her everyday, my brothers, my little sister and me. Everyday was filled with so much fun. Each morning would begin with us waking up and going to the kitchen where a warm cup of milk awaited us. Our grandmother would be there, amidst the kitchen smoke. It was the times when we still relied on firewood to cook our food. The milk tasted smoky and sweet. That smokiness was the real taste in the early morning milk. Then we gazed at the fire a blank expression on our faces, doing nothing, just staring into the fire. It was interesting to examine the fire with its iridescent colors dominated by the reddish hue and the greenish tinges. More capturing was to see it burn so intensely, partly because we weren't allowed to play with fire and partly because it was amazing that a small fire could grow so huge and eventually cook our food. But for grandma it was a regular routine she had been following ever since she could remember. She'd already spent sixty summers on earth and she was still so slim and so energetic. She always had energy to chase us around the house all day and still chat with her friends in the evenings.

Our dog barked an expectant friendly bark from outside. That was our ticket to playtime. Her name was Lucy. She was an alsation and a good one. Right now she knew we were awake and was waiting for us to come out and play. We got up and ran outside, the milk still warm in our cups. Grandma warned us to be careful with the milk and with that sweet childish innocence we smiled at her and ran out, spilling half the milk on the way out. We shared our milk with Lucy, our guard and play mate. We five were the unbeatable. I don't remember what we played but every second of it was filled with fun.

Time passed quickly and ma reminded us of that when she called us to have lunch. She had made each of us round straw mats from maize straw and during lunch each of us would take one mat from the neat pile in the corner and sit on it. Then starting from my little sister she served each of us the much loved dal bhat tarkari, a very generous helping of gaun ko gheeu and a chilli for my daring brothers. Me and my sister could never quite figure out why they wanted to have chilli when they clearly knew that after taking one bite they would be sticking out their tongues panting for cool air. We finished the food with great gusto and it always pleased her to see us eating so heartily. But we weren't that good helping at cleaning the dishes. After having lunch she would do the dishes and all the while we would watch her and give her company.

It would be near noon by now and we would go to outside and, if it was winter, just sit in the sun. My grandma liked to read a lot of stories and after lunch she would come out with a copy of manohar kahania in one hand and a chimta (forceps) on the other. We would have already brought a small bamboo stool and she would to sit on the ground on her own circular straw mat in front of the stool. Meanwhile one of us would sit on the stool and with the chimta. We would play with her hair and pluck out her white hairs with the chimta. For every white hair we picked out she would give us ek suka. By the end of an hour she would be feeling sleepy and we would have earned ourselves a nice sum of money for us children. Then we would eagerly wait for the madhise to come about selling those wonderful cotton candy. With the ring of his bell our activities would cease and we would run onto the nearest and shortest wall and shout for him. Coming back we would have a nice big sweet smile across our faces and share our candy with her.

In the evenings she used to go off to her friends places. We knew that she visited our relatives nearby but we hadn't act actually seen them. We just knew their names and whenever conversation about them cropped out we listened with a mixed feeling of interest and i-know-him/her-but-who-is-he/she..

Bedtime was always fun for us, kids. After all the family members had had dinner she would come to the bedroom. We slept on the floor and every night we took the mattress off the bed and spread them on the floor, all the time playing and wrestling on it. At last the bed was ready and we would wait to hear a story from her. Me and my sister always slept in the middle with her being nearer to grandma. My brother would turn out the lights and grandma would begin her story. Her stories were wonderful fantasy stories, some from memories of her own childhood days and others she had read in a book, some made up stories and some true ghost stories that happened while she was still a child in Darjeeling, some stories of her parents/grandparents adventures and some interesting anecdotes about her life. Sometimes the stories would be very interesting but she would be tired and she would start to sleep in the middle of the story. Eagerly we would keep her awake and listen till she shortened the story or till the story ended.

One night after watching a horror serial, while we were lying in the bed, listening to her stories she stopped in the middle of the story and asked me if I would be afraid of coming near her body after she had died. I thought it was a sort of joke. We'd just watched a horror serial and we were literally jumpy and her asking such a question made my spine tingle a little. But I couldn't picture her leaving us. I replied to her that she would not die, at least not while we still had a long way to go. She had smiled, and I felt she had sensed my fear.
Later on I was put to the test. She was sick, none of us thought it was such an important sign. But her dreams of seeing her ancestral grave must have worried my grandfather. It was a Saturday she left us. It was supposed to be a jovial day, we'd gone to visit our uncle, but when we returned home a phone call gave us the grave news that she had passed away while on the way to the hospital.

She had been right when she had sensed my fear for I was afraid of her when I saw her lifeless. Why did I fear someone whom I'd loved so much? Maybe a child inside me cried that day. But it was a surprise that I didn't shed any tears. I wanted to shed them but I couldn't bring myself to grief. Maybe she'd watched over all of us, her grandchildren, even when she passed away because a day later we were just as playful as ever. That probably made her happy to see that once again we would be happy again, that finally her worries, and pains were over and that she could now lean onto someone more powerful then her.

Thank you, if you can hear me.