I Remember Ajji

If you saw her, she would look nothing out of the ordinary. Your average south Indian, traditional, religious-minded old lady. Short – barely 5 feet tall, all skin and bone thanks to her constant fasts for the wellbeing of someone or other in the family but with gorgeous bone structure that kept her looking lovely and graceful well into her eighties. Clad in a traditional cotton saree, usually in a faded colour, with the typical diamond nosepin and earrings adding their discreet sheen to her face. Thrifty to the core, someone who’d walk two miles rather than spend the money on bus or auto fare. She looked like your average south Indian grandmother, and for many years, that’s all I thought she was, my loving but somewhat boring, somewhat distant granny.

As a child, I never understood how affectionate she was inside, though one takes for granted that one is loved by the family in general. I used to find it very boring to go to her place, where there were no kids around and not much to do apart from read. There were always cats and kittens around her house, and she used to feed then kitchen scraps – the cream skimmed off the milk, curd rice, bits of bread left over from grandpa’s breakfast…She used to love those old cats and when I was a child, I saw her petting them till they purred with satisfaction but hugs and kisses to me and my sister or our other cousins were rare. Her south Indian upbringing didn’t allow for lavish gestures and hugs and ‘I love you’s, so she showed her love for us by cooking the most incredible dishes – simple and yet deliciously laced with her affection so that they tasted extraordinary.

I didn’t have a lot to speak with her about as I grew to be a teenager – her usual advice at the end of my stay used to be ‘be good and obey your parents’ – not very conducive to the rebel in the family! Her love of fun used to show itself in muted ways – the way her eyes would light up when she saw a nice garden, or her shy laugh when I cracked a joke. She had this old-fashioned thing about laughing or smiling so hard that her teeth showed J so she would part-cover her mouth when she laughed. I still cringe at the memory of my 18^th summer – my mom told her I was a good dancer so ajji wanted to see that. The trouble was that I am good at dancing at parties – you know, completely unstructured, arms flailing, but it looks alright in a dimly lit room with loud music. In the cold harsh light of a Bangalore afternoon, with no music (no music system) except for my discordant humming, no one except a doting grandmom would have appreciated it – and she did!

She came from an extremely traditional, orthodox family – family legend has it she once fainted while passing by a butcher’s shop, and she used to refuse to buy watermelon because it was red like meat. She never ate ‘outside’ food except at family weddings, she never had anything but a lemonade or coffee when she visited anyone because travelling to their place had defiled her ‘madi’ state. Whenever she and grandpa cam and stayed with us, I used to get a little tense because I was never sure about all the rules to be followed, though she’d never have dreamt of telling me anything – it wasn’t her style to complain or try to change other people, she just followed her rules as best she could.

Given that background, it is incredible to what extent she adapted with changing times. When I and A were getting married, after her initial reluctance, she came around and later her biggest regret was that she had not attended the wedding. Despite her aversion to eating out anywhere, especially in a home that cooks eggs and occasionally non-veg, she would come over and eat whatever I had cooked with relish. She’d come out with us to a restaurant and enjoy sipping some juice and being part of the occasion. I remember watching Taare Zameen Par and the colorized Mughal-e-Azam with her – she loved them both. She enjoyed celebrating festivals with us whenever she visited Delhi, and one of my cherished photos of her is one where she is cuddling my two year old son and both of them are watching Deepavali fireworks with identical looks of wonder on their faces. I had written a blog post about her cooking, especially her Uppittu – self-effacing to the core, she felt shy instead of proud and wondered how I had found so much to say about this everyday dish, and managed to even leave a comment on my blog.

She and grandpa came to stay with my parents when my eldest son was born, and she was just incredible. From bathing the baby or helping mom to bathe him to helping whip up all the special food that a new mother has to eat, from giving me the world’s best oil massages to rocking the baby to sleep for hours, she did it all with enthusiasm. Chubbocks was a very cranky baby and would barely sleep. One afternoon, I woke up after a rare nap of almost three hours wondering where the baby was. I found him fast asleep on ajji’s lap – he’d been sleeping there the entire time, and she hadn’t even moved a muscle, intent on letting me get my rest.

It was with my children that I saw her really unwind and have fun, with all the playfulness of her nature. She would hug and kiss them, play games, tell them stories, listen to their prattle with unfeigned enthusiasm, chatter away with them, bathe them and generally revel in being with them. Since she no longer had to be the grandmother, she could be this delightful older playmate for them, and she loved seeing their photos, watching videos of them…It was during these times, after I too had become a mother that I got to know her as a person, not just grandma, and she was truly an amazing woman.

Her sense of fun and enjoyment that became apparent to me only as I grew older and able to look past the image. Through her reminisces about her childhood, I learnt that she had been quite a tomboy in her youth, climbing trees and sneaking off to learn how to cycle. Carrying that streak to her adulthood, adventurous and enterprising, she had gone off on bus trips, crisscrossing the entire south and all the pilgrimage places of the north all by herself in the 1950s, when her kids were still quite young. She had climbed up to Vaishnodevi on foot at the age of 68, gone to Tezpur by herself to visit my uncle when his first child was expected. Though she was extremely religious, she had a sense of humour and didn’t mind me poking fun at her ‘ekadasi’ fasts by calling them bhukadasi. She kept herself well-informed about current events by watching TV and reading the newspaper cover to cover. Watching a cricket match with her was hilarious – you didn’t know whom to watch and whose commentary to listen to – the TV one or hers. She was so extremely ticklish that I could make her scream just by pretending to tickle her from a distance! She never forgot an anniversary or birthday and would always call me up on those days, speaking hurriedly to save money on the long distance call.

Her frail physique and mild manner hid a very independent and self-reliant nature. She and grandpa lived on their own, and even after grandpa passed away, she lived on her own until last year when she developed a back problem, doing her banking, going to the doctor and the temple and market by herself. When grandpa became increasingly difficult to handle with Azheimer’s, she insisted on looking after him till his last day, though she herself was in her 80s. Mom remembers that two years ago, when they were staying in Bangalore, they mentioned to grandma that they were going to come pick her up that evening to come stay with them as there was a music programme she would enjoy in their neighbourhood. Thrifty and independent, she packed her bag and criss-crossed Bangalore in two buses to land up at their place by afternoon by herself, at the age of 86! She really was one of the last few of the old, hardy stock that South Indians used to be from – I don’t know if any of my generation would count among that.

I can’t believe she’s gone forever and that she won’t be around almost like a benediction in my life. I hope she knew that I admired her enormously, though she would self-deprecatingly say “I don’t see why’. I hope she knew how much I loved her and enjoyed having her in my life. I hope she’s at peace wherever she is now – I don’t know anyone who deserves that more.