Grey eyes and grey hair with a bundle of cream clothes is all one can see of her. She sits in one corner of my house, semi-vacant expression on her fully-wrinkled face. You can feel soft warm aura around her. She is full of energy (after all she went to Vaishnodevi shrine at the age of 79!), full of anecdotes about her childhood and her village (she may not remember where she kept her specs the day before, but that’s her!), and full of 79 year old experiences (Yes, she’s soon to be one year younger!). She is the coolest ol’ granny-nani or Ammu (short form for ammamma- maternal grandmother in Malayalam).
I am called her secretary because apparently only I can understand and to quote my mum, ‘deal with her’. Not that she throws tantrums; it is just that my mum lacks the patience to sit and listen to 100 stories before she calls her for dinner. I have the patience, not only to sit and listen but to make her understand that I am here to take her downstairs for dinner. Not that she demands anything in particular (except her 6 pm Bhagavatham on Asianet.); she is the most undemanding, non-tantrum throwing oldie I have ever seen! And I say this NOT because she is my granny.
She came to live with us when I was 10 and since then, my tenure as her ‘secretary’ has continued. Right from what she is to where, what she is to eat, where she is to go, her medicines, her little knick-knacks everything is…decided by her, executed by me. Nobody is allowed to be angry with her even if she falters. It is primarily my domain. She gets easily hurt if anyone else talks against her. I have frequent squabbles with mum over her getting hurt by mum. But getting back to her, I admonish her if it’s her fault. Then she feels good about it. She is always the first to figure out that I have an issue in my heart by merely being around me. And there have been surprising times when I have brought her something that she wanted to call for, at that exact moment. No, don’t take me wrong. I don’t believe in cosmic connections. But there sure is something I cannot name…
She is one Pandora’s Box of anecdotes. You give her one word and she can give you more than five real life stories on it. And stories, they definitely are! I am actually thinking of writing a book on them titled ‘Gradma’s tales- Reloaded. Based on true life incidents.’
I’ll narrate the one that comes to my head right now. Last week, it rained for one whole day and we had lots of creepy crawlies centipede look-alikes in our garden. They petrify the living hell out of me and I told my old woman how I was about to paste one on the garden floor with my foot by mistake. That was when she remembered a thread from her yarn of stories. She used to live in a thatched house of coconut leaves and mud till the age of 10, as her mother was a temple garland-maker. Their family of five (four children and a mother, the father being irresponsible and always out) survived on the left-over prasadam that the temple ‘Goddess’ (read: management) had the mercy to spare. Once when she came back from school, famished as usual, her mother had left her some spoilt beaten-rice from the night before. She nearly fell over it and started gulping down, mouth full. As she was chewing the last mouth full, she felt something moving and scraping the insides of her mouth. Since she did not want to spit the mouth full (She was definitely not full. What do you expect three small bowls of spoilt beaten-rice to do?), she put two fingers inside her mouth and pulled whatever was there, out. And what she said almost choked me on the lemon juice that I was having. It was a live centipede.
Now if you have seen a centipede, you might know that it is not quite a good sight to see. At least not when you almost chewed it like a piece of vegetable in your lunch! Seeing my face go pale and eye bulge out, my super fun-loving oldie went to great extents to describe the centipede’s beautiful features, as if she was describing Ranbir Kapoor! It was six inches long, the width of my middle finger and black, with cream-coloured numerous legs. It had two long stings or whatever zoologists call it, on both ends and hence it was difficult to figure out its head and tail. Now how does that matter, I don’t know. The fact that it was found where it was found, made me have enough of any creepy crawly for a lifetime!
So now you can imagine my weirdly fun-loving and naughty dear ol’ granny. I’ll try chronicle more of her anecdotes here. Watch this space…
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