I Miss you

Pettama (my grandma) is no more. She was the most beautiful person I had ever met in my life; less complicated and more lovable! I wanted her to die in last August because i loved her and still I love her so much. She was healthy then; walking around like a soothing wind. Except for some hearing problem, she was in her usual spirit. She deserved a better death than suffering almost a year, depending on others for everything. She was a changed person then.

I saw her in last December, and then she hardly remembered me. I had waited for a long time searching for a speck of memory revisiting her. I cried hard from the realisation that we lost each other for ever. I loved her so much and still I love her.

She was a person who easily laughed and easily cried on somebody’s sufferings. She had less grey hairs for her age and was thin and elegant. Rajan, my twin brother, teasingly called her Simren, the gorgeous Tamil actress.

She had had a bad childhood, she told us once, nothing much to eat and she had been an agriculture worker before her romantic whirlpool marriage with a middleclass man. She had always maintained that it was a one sided love story; he even tried to break in her house to convince his profound love for her.

Married to a revolutionary was not easy those days, however romantic it was! Activities of the Communist Party of India were banned those days and her husband, my grandpa (whom I have seen only as a framed picture on the wall) was a ‘courier’ with the party then. He participated in a direct action along with the coir workers under the instruction of the party. He died (was killed) soon due to police torture, leaving six years marriage, three children of five, three and a year old and a 25 year old widow.  She took up every odd job to take care of the children. Once pointing at an old building in Trichur Town, she told me, you know Ammu, I carried stones up during the construction of that building. She said it a matter of fact not in a compliant mode. She never does. That is why she was different.

Then on, life was struggle for her; however she never carried it on her face. She had little worries (that’s what we thought) and few wrinkles on her face. She always was lively and we had never felt the so called generation gap between us. That was there between her daughter (my mother) and us. Regular scolding and occasional beatings (it would have been often it not for the interference our great grandfather) reminded us that she was our mother patriarch and we are the wards.

“Did you go to school, Pettama”, once we asked her. She replied smilingly, yes, when it rained in the evenings I and the cattle used to take refuge in the village school compound. But she was an eager listener and learner and used to pick up few English words from us and use it inappropriately. Once she said that “ aa pashuvum ee passuvum tammil vallya distance illa”! What she meant was that there is not much difference between the two cows. We used to laugh at her, she too laughed with us.

I can go on writing about her; fond memories of her. During the study holidays, for days she used to sit with me while I am studying, even in the middle of the nights making me black tea. Like a shadow she was there. And the way she used to talk to a snake, a rare visitor. She would ask the snake to go away, “we have given your share, don’t you remember (she was reminding the snake about the last year’s naga pooja offerings). Now don’t scare the children, go away”! She also used to talk to her cows; you believe it or not cows used to listen to her!

 Now she has left and I know she has to go; she suffered enough for a year. However, she left me the fragrance of her chandriaka soap and a lot of memories.