It's been a long time since I've tried expressing what I felt about my maternal grandmother, my aaji. My aaji passed away in July last year. I did not have time to grieve. She passed away a day after my mom came out of hospital after a medical emergency. It was a tough time for all of us. But caring for my mom was the first thing on my mind. Hence I tried to put off the grieving for another time. That time hasn't come yet and I am still to come to terms with the loss. I still cannot believe she's no more.
Her name was Indira Ranganath Deshpande. I am sure she had also told me what her maternal 'name' was. But I have now forgotten. In Maharashtra, not only are women's surnames changed after marriage, their names are also changed. It is becoming a rare tradition now but was much practised when aaji got married.
The eldest of several siblings, she was very maternal right from the beginning. She was allowed to go to school till the fourth grade and according to one version she told me, she was tricked into going to live with some relatives on the pretext of sending her to a better school but never saw the face of a school again. She could never forgive her parents for that. All said and done, her parents and grandparents were Zamindars, landlords and were pretty well-to-do. But life was still tough on the plateau she came from because of seasonal droughts.
She was married at the age of 18, information that I got after some coaxing. The match was fixed by the families. She was fair, beautiful, hard-working. He was well-educated and from a good family. My grandfather was a progressive man and did not want to get married to someone he had not even met. Obviously the families would never have agreed to two young people meeting before marriage. So using someone as an intermediary, he asked my grandmom to come to meet him at some place. And they met. They both went back feeling a little more secure about each other. They got married.
The wedding feast was described in great detail by my grandmom. There were 20 bullock carts full of people from my grandpa's side who came to my grandma's house. They stayed for 3 days. All the meals were prepared by the women in the house for three days. She described her wedding saree in detail. It had real silver threads in it and when after years of use, it tore, she burned it and obtained enough silver to make two silver bowls.
My grandfather had not completed his graduation. He went to Banaras to finish it. All those years, my grandmom waited for him to come back. He was the first in the family to have a degree.
Together they had 6 children, 4 boys and two girls, the first died in infancy. It was a hard life. She cooked and took care of a whole family. Since they had moved to the city because of my grandpa's job, there were relatives' children who had joined the clan because there were better schools in the city. She managed to make four meals for an entire family, every day of her life...
Unlike a lot of parents of that era, my grandparents wanted daughters after three sons. They got my mom..She was pampered! My grandfather was very strict about educating his children and saw all of them well-educated. My mother even completed her Masters in Botany and my aunt finished her BCom.The sons were well-educated too.
As a child, I remember my grandmom as an angry woman. I always saw her complaining and in my refined sugar-coated city life, failed to notice her natural rustic love.
When my grandpa passed away in 2001, my parents told my sister and me that aaji would be living with us. I was quite excited as I never had grandparents live with us before.I was the youngest of her grandchildren.
It was not easy. Initially I had two parents and a half (My elder sister being half a parent). Then I had one more. It was tough for a 16 year old. I was becoming quite independent, immersing myself in the life of the Alliance Francaise. I cannot believe it now, but my grandmom and I actually had fights in the first few months. Once I had not spoken to her for two whole days, my way of getting back at her. I had started feeling guilty when a little talk by my mom at dinner one night got me back to reality and I went sobbing in grandma's arms and said sorry.
I felt enormous guilt about behaving in such a way to a woman who had just lost her soulmate of 60 years. There began my geriatric training. Principle 1: Don't try to change old people, it is almost always impossible.
Finally, I also realized that she wasn't so difficult. We got settled in each other's environment within a month of that fight. She had valuable advice to give me regarding my future: marriage, education and all that. She even told me that she wouldn't be upset if my husband was not Indian. She never pushed me towards marriage, but definitely pushed me towards a masters. She would have been incredibly happy to know that I am also doing a thesis. She put me in the habit of not talking about or shutting out all conversation about death, destruction and sorrow after sundown, simply because unpleasant things affect sleep. She loved me a lot. I even remember once when I had twisted my ankle and she was trying to ease the pain and I was so overcome that she had to tend to me at an age where I should be taking care of her.
Her cooking would be like my mom's: with very few spices and a with a bit of unrefined suger (gud) in everything. She would also add groundnut powder to everything since she came from the plateau. People from the coast generally use coconut. I was not the biggest fan of that kind of cooking but enjoyed some of her rarer dishes. Sabudana khichdi was a staple once a week because she would observe a fast. I remembered her in my trip to England when I spent my days cooking (voluntarily) about how she might have cooked for such a big family day after day and she had no choice!
With her, came the first idol of any God in our house, my parent's being atheist. Every evening she would sit in a corner in the kitchen and pray in a low voice and also sing. Her prayer books were kept in a corner of the kitchen, wrapped in a plastic bag. In her suitcase, she had an old black and white photograph of my grandpa. She missed him terribly and tears would roll down her eyes everytime someone mentioned him.
I also remember how her eyelids would automatically close in reverence when I sang devotional songs (abhangs) at the insistence of the family and when the name "Vitthal" or "Pandurang" would resonate at the end in repeated loops. Her hands would be joined in prayer and a "wah" would escape her lips. I would always look at her before I broke into a loud "Vitthal Vitthal.....". The appreciation was not for me. It was for Vitthal. She had given up eating onion and garlic for religious reasons. She said these foods led to short temper. I now now that they are also aphrodisiac. And hence the restriction. I also remember her efforts to integrate into the life of her granddaughter. I once asked her if she wanted to eat Maggi, instant noodles, very popular among young Indians. I was almost sure she's refuse, but she agreed. I gave her some lying that it had no onion or garlic in it. She found it way too spicy and added groundnut powder to it!
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| The last time I met her |
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Then I came to France. She lived with my uncles and aunts then. The last time I met her was before a cousin's wedding in 2009. She looked frail and needed a stick to walk. But I did not expect that it would be our last meeting.
In July 2010, my parents were supposed to visit me in France. They were very skeptical about their visit because grandma was ill. They had told me to plan a trip to meet my grandmom.
But two days before they were to leave, my mom had to be hospitalised for a cardiac issue. I left immediately for India. When my mom was out of the ICU, my grandma spoke to her on the phone and asked her to take care. I spoke to my aunt who was with my grandma and the phone line was cut. I did not bother to call back to speak to my grandma as I was busy taking care of mom. Mom was in the hospital for 5 days and then we took her home. That evening my uncle, who is a doctor, was talking on the phone in the bedroom and for a fleeting second, I thought it was about my grandma. But I quickly forgot about it and went back to caring for my mom. My uncle left to go to my grandma's town but did not tell anyone what had happened.
The dreaded call came the next morning and it was my dad who answered. I broke down when I saw my mom crying. It was all too much for me, the rushed trip to India, my mom's hospitalisation and now this, a permanent loss. My aunt was the brave one, tiding us both over this loss, consoling us and managing all that had to be managed.
Such an exemplary woman, one who helped so many people up on their feet, her own children, her nieces, nephews, her husband, her grandchildren. But history will wipe her memory off like countless other women.
My mom tells me that she was there for my birth. She is the one who massaged my right thumb in place after she fretted over why I was not moving it after birth. I was not there for her death. I was far away.I wasn't even there for the funeral. I was taking care of her daughter. I wasn't there for the 13th day ceremony because the person supposed to take care of my mom that day decided to bunk work.
To finish I just want to say this: Old people have reached a stage in their life when they can't change. It is unfair to expect them to change. But they have a wealth of knowledge and stories to tell you. It's not long before they leave you. We like to believe that they can improve, they can change and that their attitude is at fault. They have reached a stage when a lot of things are not in their hands.We have to let them be. I wish aaji was around to see how I am doing. And I really regret not having spent enough time with her.
