Family Possesions

The temperature this morning is 19 Degree celcius (67 F) in my room, its much colder outside. Though this is still not the height of Delhi's winter, I'm positive the mercury will still dip further. For a few days I've been busy, not with work but with homely affairs and French. I went to my uncle's place (lets call him M1) yesterday to bring my maternal grandmother who has been asking us on and off to bring her to our place. It's another matter that when we arrived she refused to accept that she had called us. She said she will have trouble climbing the stairs to our apartment. She can hardly walk and have fallen down 2 or 3 times at M1's place. While there was nobody to talk M1 and me sat and talked from things to the first time he arrived (without being seen off properly at home) in the city to find work to how efficient the Japanese are (he worked for a factory which was taken over by Yamaha). While we were talking Mum was busy trying to persuade my grandmother to come with us. She won't budge. She is almost 82 and over a period has grown quite weak. She also has trouble urinating and eating. Mum tells me that in her heydays she was a good looking tall young Punjabi broad. She had 7 children and when the last was born the eldest was young enough to look for a job. She herself hardly did any household work but left it to her daughters to do it. the eldest was married when my Mum was in 6th standard or something. I think about it in our context. Mine to be specific. We are 4 people in the household, each with his or her own physical and mental space. But we still fight whenever we are in the common room. My grandmother brought up 7 children in a 2 or 3 bedroom house and still their relationship with each other is cordial if not the best. They have their occasional fights and misunderstanding but the best part is whenever one is in need the others will not refuse to help or sometimes they even leave their work to offer help. But on the other hand there are even those who don't want to see each other's face. They avoid each other at social functions and don't even greet if they come across. A pity I'd say. The latest juggle was on none other than their mother. My grandmother has stayed in Jamshedpur all her life (since 1951 to be precise). She was married at the age of 13 to my grandfather. That was not the unusual age for marriage in those days. My grandfather, a little older than her, didn't have any stable job in Lahore, he was spiritually inclined though. He used to spend hours meditating at the Gurudwara and also learnt to play the Tabla. He regularly toured with the Kirtan band to other places of religious interest, until someone asked his father to withdraw him back into the "real" world least he becomes a saint. As a result, to keep him away from becoming a sanyasi, they married him off early. During the Indian partition of 1947, there were riots all around when he came to see off his wife and family at the Lahore railway station when somebody told him that the whole town has been set on fire and instead of returning home he better take the train with his wife and family too. Mum recalls that during her conversation with him, he often used to regret that… "I even left the main door open in a hurry" he would often say while recalling that night. All the jewelry and precious belongings were in the house. After partition he could never go back to Pakistan to see anything that was left over. He rather moved to the industrial town of Jamshedpur. The Tata's steel plant was always in a look out for labour. Being a Sikh (they have the reputation of being laborious and hard working and there is a huge Sikh population in the town) he got it easy. The company gave him, house and other perks. He worked there until his retirement in the mid-90’s. He also got his youngest son (lets call him M2) employed at the same company as the sons get easily employed if their fathers had been the company’s employee. He died in 1999 leaving behind his only possession- his wife. When he was alive, they would sit in the veranda for hours talking about things their sons and daughters would mock about. "Look they are still talking about that old stuff" they would say. I rarely sat with either of them, but when I did I was a curious soul asking about the times, the people and most importantly how my mum was I her childhood (so that I could retaliate whenever she points out my mistake and believe me I did get some pointers and I still tease her about them). I realized that in their own mind they had built-in libraries of the by-gone era. They often talked about the customs, the traditions and most importantly the facts, which perhaps no one knew apart from them. I would engage them for hours in a conversation and realized they have sooo much to talk about, you just have to be a good listener. Infact, they don't even need the occasional "hmmm" or superficial question to make them feel you are interested (which you HAVE to do with your girlfriend). Life for them was an incomplete journey, but I never heard them making a noise about it. They accepted it the way it was, no value judgements. Now that her husband is gone she feels lonely. The concept of a soul-mate hardly existed at that time. The woman was satisfied that she has a decent husband who can get her three meals a day. When he was alive they would talk for hours, these days hardly anybody has time or they are least interested to listen to her anarchic talks. But I’ve never heard her talk about Death. She can still eat a slab or two of Cadbury chocolate and is never hesitant to ask for help. She enthusiastically attends all wedding ceremony and social functions of the family, travels frequently by train and even goes out for walks. In an era where people talk about to have perished by the age of 60 (yes I know many) or better still don’t want to be old at all I salute her courage to be Alive, to be a Participant in the workings of the family. Only her two sons (M1 and M2) are engaged in rather bitter egoistic battle to throw her custody (not a legal one) on one another. She is stunned, bewildered but still not ready to give up. Long live my Grandmother and her spirit!

(From 2004)