Passing On....

(Inspired by a wonderful post by my friend Zephyr Nag)

First quarter of the last century...

She had lost her mother at a very young age. Her father, never remarried, in those days of  alarming step-behaviours,  and his being both father and mother to her was actually an education for her.  Her father , had risen to his position, from very humble beginings by virtue of pure hard work and struggle, and helping out folks who needed resources for education was something he religiously did, and she imbibed an attitude that no formal education could have given her.

Attitudes can never be taught. They have to observed, imbibed and learned. And practised. 

Her own children grew up, with a conservative bringing up, in the face of different lifestyles they observed in their often cosmopolitan classmates. There was entire set of unrelated folks who owed their college education to her and her husband, who assisted them with fees and books, and often, even some counseling. And there was never a pervading spirit of highlighting what-chariity-you-did, have-vs-have-nots-publicity etc ,  in all this giving and taking. This was how life was lived. Period. 

By and by her children settled down in their own lives. And she travelled around the world, being the indulgent grandparent who attended the important milestones in the lives of the grandkids.  Be it someone's graduation,  be it someone's important sports meet , or even someone's annual day or felicitation somewhere. Grandpa didnt travel so much, and so she had to be present.

On  a winter's day in November 2000, at 83, she returned, tired  and jet lagged from attending the eldest grandson's graduation in the US. Her own daughter in India had just returned from attending a state sports meet with her own daughter, and travelled back with grandpa to Mumbai to receive her.  It was Divali, an they would all stay together for a while at the daughter's.    

This granddaughter was an adopted child, who then didnt know about her own adoption. But the daughter's family had made it a point everyyear, to visit the orphanage near their house , during Bhaidooj every Divali, when they took sweets for the kids there  and played with them.

That Bhaidooj, she was still coming out from her jetlag and preferred to rest at home.  Grandpa had just returned from his morning walk, and was reading the papers and getting orgainzed when the family set out for the morning visit.

"So are you guys off to visit the temple ? "  he asked , gesturing at his daughter, son-in-law, grandson and granddaughter .

Before they could answer, she looked up from some vegetables she was sorting and cutting.

 Like so many of her ilk, she could never sit idle; the hands were always busy, helping or giving.

"Yes. Something almost like that . Like a temple. "  she said, looking into the distance, as they waved goodbye to the family off on their annual morning trip to the orphanage.


Her daughter never forgot those words.

They were not to know that, that  was her last day with them. She collapsed that evening , was hospitalized and passed away 2 days later.

One of the biggest legacies she left,  was the understanding, that religion , was not how you did rituals, and got intimidated by Gods and  rules.

It was really, how you learned to give , from what little you had.  It was about respect and empathy for those life stories which were not as happy and secure as yours. It was about thinking something deeper than appearances, looks, and a spik-and-span life.  And it was never something you shouted from the rooftops...

 A learning and a set of values , imbibed, hopefully, by her descendants, over all the years.....

Calling 1-800-GRANDMAS

It is possibly a truth universally acknowledged, that the offspring of a youngest child on one side,  and  middle child (only child resident in India)  on the other, would be subject to greatly indulgent and torrential doses of grand parental attention. 

A grandchild in the family after a long break, and he could do no wrong. 


 Birthdays were celebrated with great planning, kindergaarten annual days were attended by grandparents travelling in from other cities,  and there came a time when he graduated from tricycles to bicycles. Living as I do, in something that resembles a park, he soon learnt to ride the bicycle thanks to either parent desperately  running behind him, and other folks on the road making way for him, seeing the expressions on his parent's faces. 

His maternal grandma, the younger of his two grandmas, lived in Pune, climbed the Parvati Hill temple everyday, and took him with her when he visited. She played badminton with him on her  terrace. He treated her like an equal; or maybe she did. I dont know.

 When she visited  him in  Mumbai, he often visited the Devi Temple on campus , with her, and he wanted to ride his bicycle there now. He discovered that grandma had ridden a bike when she was younger, and so he convinced her to ride his mother's bike, and they both went off. At high noon. 

On the way back, he had a brilliant idea. Of exchanging the bikes. The only thing was  his bike was an Easy Rider style fancy thing with high handles.

But grandma agreed. :-)

And so they rode, amidst the trees, and amidst stunned folks who saw a little chap riding ahead , on a bike where his feet didn't reach the pedals, turning back, calling out to someone,  and an old lady in a saree , with great effort, riding a terribly hip bicycle (totally flummoxed with the odd design) and pushing on nonetheless. 

Till her chappal broke. 


They stopped. Things were examined. The road was too hot, and her feet would get burned. So he removed his shoes, took out his socks, and right there on the road, made his grandma wear them. The shoes would be a bit small, but socks were manageable. So he wore the shoes, she wore his socks with the one working chappal.

 A whole bunch of people known to his parents were witness to all this drama, and by and by, they returned, he, a few paces ahead, pedalling , seat less, on his mother's old style bike with a high level seat, and his grandma, wearing his socks, chappals in the basket, desperately trying to manage the low-seat Easy Rider style bike.  Both returned, red in the sun,  and his grandma a bit breathless, because she wasn't used to such fancy bikes. 

He didn't think anything unusual was happening. That's how grandmothers were. And she probably agreed. 


Several years later , his other older grandma who was staying with them  after he lost his grandpa, had an amazing experience tangling with third standard history.

His parents both worked, and came home for lunch. School got over at 1:30 pm , and his mother would check the day's lessons, give him some quizzes for the afternoon, and then leave.

After some rest, and chitchat, he would attend to homework/quizzes et al, with his grandma's help , and one day, he was a bit preoccupied.  The fellow was doing some "filling in the blanks", and he suddenly looked up , caught her arm and said ,"Aji, you are lucky, it is now, and not Raja Ram Mohun Roy's time. ".


She was a bit bewildered. Yes, they were learning about the pre independence days,  but why Raja Ram Mohun Roy suddenly ?


"Aji, if you had lived around then, they would have made you do "sati" when Aba passed away !"  . He looked at her, with large eyes, bewildered at the prospect. His textbook had drastic pictures. I mean dinosaurs, phantom, superman, batman etc were manageable, but this stuff about making people sit on funeral pyres, on the death of a husband,  was just too  serious. 


She  was stunned. Went off to the kitchen, saying it was time to have his cocoa, and she would heat the milk, but really because she didn't want him to see her tears. Came back and explained to him how these were different times, things had changed, and there were laws. And such things didn't happen any more.

Little minds worked in complicated ways, and sometimes, imagination was frightening.

She recounted this story to us when we came home in the evening.


We all possibly studied the same history. But didn't live it. He learned to apply it to his environment and came to conclusions.

Like he did , when Ramayana was a hit on Sunday morning Doordarshan television, the only choice we had then.   Hanuman was a huge favourite because he flew around with entire mountains when he couldn't find a required medicinal tree .  His Pune grandpa had a birthday coming up, and he designed a card with Hanuman in full flow, flying through the clouds, holding aloft a chocolate cake (with lit candles)  with grandpa's name on it. It was framed and stood proudly in their living room, for almost 25 years.


 Albert Einstein , who talked about many things besides science, supposedly said, "You do not really understand something until you can explain it to your grandmother."  


Notice, how grandmothers always understand.  Notice how fathers and mothers kind of fade away into the wings, and are nowhere in the picture.


Today, the grandparents are no more, the little boy is not little any more,  but he observes,  he learns, he studies, analyzes. and when he needs to communicate and seriously explain things, he does something else. 


He blogs.  Here. :-)

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

Good Over Bad : It works !

Winner of the Blogadda "Good over Bad" Contest : Nov 12, 2010




Two score and ten years ago. A cool Shravan evening in Pune, at the foothills of the Parvati temple. Shravan (in August) , the 5th month of the Indian calendar is home to a time of festivities.

There would be a fair like atmosphere on the steps leading to the temple on the hill top. And we always accompanied our folks there, given that there were so many things to enjoy. And sometimes ache for ....Temporary tattoos on arms, paintings on the forehead, colorful bangles, tiklis, dolls, marbles, shell necklaces, roasted channa, ..... There was even a guy selling homemade (from tree branches) slings for boys. Many folks came in from the surrounding areas to do quick business with merchandise, home arts, toys, etc.

That evening , there was a commotion, and we suddenly saw a man bearing down on a child, about to thrash him. The boy had some one's footwear in his hand, and was trying to move away with it. (There is an old temple at the foot of the hill, and one left one's footwear outside while worshipping. ).

Madhu was the little boy. His mother sold flowers on the steps of the hill, a younger child lying in her lap. This fellow played around every day, and had got into bad company, and stealing footwear was the new attraction. There was a commotion as people gathered, and his mother, came tearing in, to face the angry man. She then proceeded to thrash the son herself.

My mother stopped her. A calm hand on the shoulder does wonders for the ebbing of anger, and she returned to her flower stall, which her neighbor chap was minding in the meanwhile.

Turned out that Madhu's father was bedridden and sick. They had moved from their village to Pune looking for work, and the mother had found this flower selling thing to start with. Madhu gallivanted around till it was time to go home.

I could see my mother having a talk with Madhu. First he was wary, then suspicious, and then he took a relieved breath and smiled. She wasn't going to turn him in. But there were conditions. Every evening he was going to sit outside the temple, and look after people's footwear for 1-2 paisa . ( In those days 2 paisa could get you a lot of stuff, such as a half serving of delicious bhel , a popular snack). But he was to turn over his daily earnings to his mother. While he sat, he would wipe the pairs with a some cloths that my mother would give him every week. My mother was a regular hill temple goer for almost 4o years, and he would see her everyday, in those days. Occasionally, my mother would stop by at his mother's flower stall. For those of us who had relatively safe , secure, uneventful childhoods, this was a Life Lesson.

At first his friends made fun of him. But he had a very enlightened mother. who could see why this was a good thing. By and by , the festival season got over, crowds reduced, but Madhu became a fixture at the foothill temple. A few years later, my parents helped him go to school, and paid for his books and fees, provided , of course, that he showed them his report card. Things were so different then, education was not an "industry" (unlike now), schools and teachers were simple , sincere, and strict. If the child was straying, they came home to discuss it with the parents. Somewhere in between , his father passed away, and Madhu grew up and became the man of the house overnight.

Today, he works in a printing press, where he joined as an apprentice soon after school. He learned to save as a child, and never forgot that. He and his family and his mother still live at the foothills, where they now have a small pucca 2 room place, thanks to the real estate development in their area using their small piece of land.

Long after we all grew up and went our ways, he and his mother would occasionally drop in to see my mother, in her seventies. The flower shop was no longer there, but his mother prepared tiffins on order now. Something she could do from home. But she would always bring wonderful flowers for my mother, which my mother would offer to the family Gods.

Today, my parents and Madhu's are no more. Geographical distances do not allow us frequent trips. Madhu himself is in his fifties now.

But this story remains etched in my mind. Of how something bad, needs to be addressed, looked at in empathy, and an innovative mind applied to it. No one is bad, but circumstances make them so. Shakespeare had a fancy way of saying that.

I like to think, that many times, something bad has to happen for something good to emerge from it.

And we need to get involved, whenever possible. Not because the festival says so, not because we are celebrating a special week, and not because it looks nice on your CV. Sorry to sound cynical , but that has happened.

We often think the world is binary.

Its all about being 0=bad and 1=good.

But what's real, is the difficult but dedicated trudge along those dicey fractions that convert a zero to a one.



Submitted for the Good Over Bad Contest at BlogAdda.com

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For a brave lady........

Resplendent in her prime,
Green in anticipation,
Swaying the silk in her leaves,
The breeze turns her head,
Branches twist in agony,
Painful dangerous bends that
leave some memory on the soil

Time and again she tries
to feel full and green,
The storm subsides
leaving the hurt;
Rainswept fertile minds
and grasses,
under the weird gaze of the cloud

The cloud she thought her own,
in its blackness
Darkens an already fearful mind,
Diseased spots of doubt.
What if the leaves just fall,
And leave a rigid trunk,
A dry leafless life,
Stems withering in the sun
Tremors of Agony...

The rain comes blowing in,
clearing the cobwebs of her mind,
Washing the leaves clear,
As tears drip down the trunk....
To embed below;

The cloud smirks, it has lost
the trust and love of the greens;
Slapped by an angry wind,
it rushes beyond the hills,
Leaving a tired but hopeful tree,
tickled by the nudging blades of grass,
growing up,
holding out a hand,
to say, we'll face it together.....

Patterns of Departure

We all come into this world the same way.

Looking for a way out through a labrynth of contracting muscle tissue, seeking that liitle ray of light at the end of the tunnel, as we navigate through, still connected to our mothers by the umbilical bond. A gasp of fresh air, a feeling of being held upside down. Come to think of it, we dont really know what upside down is, we havent really lived in co-ordinates , for sometime now, suspended as we are in amniotic fluid. But someone says we are held upside down, so we will go along. Just in time for that little whack from the white coated big people with gloves and masks. And for the first time we burst forth crying out our pleasure and / or displeasure at arriving like this, in what purports to be , our life.

Then it's years and years of babydom, indulgent childhood, precocious teenage, dangerous and carefree adolescence, the confident twenties. Marriage,children, their tears and laughter, welcoming new members into the family, losing old ones, the cycle goes on.

One was priviledged to be the member of the particular family, and one learnt to appreciate the special qualities of people as they endeavoured to bring you the best life had to offer.

And then it was time for them to go.

Tired limbs, thinning hair, receding hairlines, and verterbral columns perenially physically displaying a question mark There was so often a tussle between taking in the oxygen, and your heart demanding more. Having to refuse that extra helping of cake at the granddaughter's birthday, because of a tired digestive system; falling asleep in the rocking chair, with the mouth open, while watching the 35th rerun of the famous 1945 movie, the lead actors of which were no more. Having to take more than a couple of starts while trying to elevate oneself out of a chair. Trying hard to listen to someone say something, thinking it's about you, and realising that its not that they speak softly; its more like you can't hear well these days. And its so difficult to read the paper now; whats there to read these days anyway ? War, money, waste, disasters, lying; sometimes some good, like a great lecture by a great leader of men, a discourse by a holy man, and jokes by a child, and the peals of silent laughter keep resonating in your brain.

And unlike the way you came into this world, there are different ways of saying goodbye, different patterns of departure.....

She was always the principled, godfearing, strong minded one. No effort was ever enough where her children and grandchildren were concerned. Exercise was a BIG thing in her life, long before the American Heart Association started their 10,000 steps a day program. Her theory was that only a body exertion earned you the right to eat. So daily exervise was a given. She was following the food pyramid, when it was dismantled and lying around waiting for someone , from say, Stanford, to rebuild it. Her prayer to God, before dinner, was a daily occurence, and she fasted every Monday.

Having just returned from a trans-pacific flight of 24 hous duration, she was tired. Physically, beacuse of the flight. Mentally because she was returning to a dormant, tired life after a vibrant visit attending a grandchild 's graduation, where she got to meet all his professors, who were delighted to note that she came all the way at this advanced age. She wouldnt have had it any other way. Life was about facing up to various situations to the best of ones ability. Life was about sticking with the true and tested, honest, occasionally considered oldfashioned, but very solid standards by which life was to be lived. Of course , most of the grandchildren could do no wrong. When one of her grandchildren at 7, challenged her to accompany him on her own bike (actually her daughters) to the park beyond the lake, she sportingly agreed. On the way back, the exultant grandson suggested exchanging bicycles, and being a grandma, she agreed. Except the childs bicycle was the easyrider style. But a promise was a promise, and she came back, riding back with him, a great combination of Gatsby meets Jon Voight, to the unabashed delight of several folks on the road.

She had been shopping after a lunch at a mall, and although a bit tired, she decided to indulge the children. Returned home, spending a great funfilled afternoon with family. Lay down for a while. Stared feeling uneasy. Wished away obvious thoughts from her head. Tried some easing postures. No effect. She was taken to the hospital where she collapsed . That would have been the end. But it wasnt. That was not the pattern of her life. It wouldnt be the pattern of her death.

Tubes,beepers, electrodes, needles; anything that could be attached was attached to her persona. In the Intensive care unit, began the last fight of her life. She had been through so many tough times, this was just one more. Her child abroad was informed, and he began his long 22 hour journey back. She lived and improved on just raw willpowr. The doctors had never seen anything like this. Thirty six hours later, Tuesday at dawn, as her sons plane landed, she was getting rid of the last of her several tubes, and for a while , it was all systems go, albeit, tired systems. (And she was pleased because she had automatically "fasted" on her Monday !! ).

She lived another day, to see her youngest come to her. She fussed about whether he had eaten, who was with the grandkids, fired him for wasting his time like this in hospital. That night as her children sat by her bedside, she turned away from them when she realised the footfall of Death. She had held on for 24 hours and it had exhausted her. It was time to cut loose, all bonds that would cause a lingering of the spirit.

There was one sharp breath intake. She never exhaled. A pattern so heartrending in its peaks and troughs, a tough lady waging a tougher battle, showing how its done.

And he was the total opposite.

A writer, a dreamer, he was very comfortable with utopia. Nitty gritty house and children situations were not his style. Problems got solved, solutions appeared . A great one for organic basic nutrition and old systems of medicine, his greatest joy was challenging modern doctors. Like her, he sometimes worked on sheer will power.

At one point in his 70's he was unable to sit due to a herniated disk. He loved to order the household around. NSAID's were a 4 letter word in a 5 letter world. He listened to the doctor, then refused MRI's amd Xrays. They prescribed some meds which reduced his pain temporarily. Whereupon, he undertook learning of some great yoga exercises, all religiously followd , and 6 months later, he was accompanying his granddaughter on a climbing trip across the neighbouring hill. He read voraciously, wrote prodigiously, and campaigned with great passion for his pet projects in vegetarianism, eye donations, forestation, rural deveopement, , and subjects as diverse as education of the girl child, and rehabilitation of women following the oldest profession of the world.

Everytime he felt age catching up, he walked more, to prove a point, mostly to himself, but sometimes to others too. The one day he fell down, and hurt himself. The doctors found an aneurysm, and asked him to take some meds, and avoid certain exercises. He reacted to this in a typical way. Gave up taking meds after a month, and simply continued doing the specific exercises they told him to avoid. He'd even call up the doctor , and tell him all this, and tell him how great he was doing WITHOUT all HIS medicines. He wrote health articles where he professed to know the secret of longevity. And peple flocked to see him, learn exercises from him and take his nutrition advice.

Like I said there are patterns and patterns. Of Departure.

The graph which was coasting along, on a plateau now started a slight slide. Movement reduced. Energy reduced. Over a year, his favourire exercise of walking almost stopped. He was slowly confined to bed. Every now and then one of the physiological body systems would get into a tangle, and need straightening out by a doctor. There was a feigned indifference to the prescribed meds. When the body couldnt do much else with the physical systems, given his strong heart and lungs, it started messing around with the brain. The reading and writing got tiring. So did people. So he stopped remembering them. The he stopped remembering places and events. Finally he was completely confused in time.

There was a dream type quality to his last few months. He had delusions of great grandeur. He would blithely wish away his physical afflictions, and get into a rage on finding it still there. Heard voices somewhere. He was always a great eater of traditional food, and that continued . His children and their children came by and stayed with him. He knew and they knew what lay ahead. But he continued to say to all who enquired that he was in excellent health and there was nothing wrong with him. He would say that he walked 2 miles everyday. It was the ultimate manifestation of translating what you will and you want-to-happen , into something verbal, just enough to cheat youself. Complicated, but true.

He became so weak that swallowing tired him. So he would tell those who fed him, that he was full.

Full, not tired.

He did that on the last night. His daughter was feeding him. He motioned to her to stop, whispering that he was full. Everybody took a small break at this point, it was a routine thing. Fifteen minutes later, when she went back with the soup, it was all over. Just like that. It was as if the slow slide of the graph from a plateau had finally started along the asymptote. It was a game of hide and seek amongst us. He tricked us into believing it was just another break, and the graph quietly , asymptotically went to zero, as if cocking a snook at all those around. He had managed to convince everyone so well, with his great powers of recovery from so many afflictions, that no one thought death was so imminent.

Both patterns of departure. So different in style. But very equal in magnitude. And the high intensity drama over 24 hours, and the gentle slide over a few months, both have something to tell about the persona and the style of living of the person.