Dear Daadi,
This letter
would have made you happy I think. You did like being the star of the room
after all.
I am trying
to collect my memories of you; to decide how to adorn your shrine in my brain.
It is not easy. My relationship with you has been a complex one. In fact, it
has been one of the most defining ones for me. Yet now when I think of you, all
I remember is your laugh, your hair dye, your loose blouse. And when I try to
think of home without you, I picture your empty bed, the TV without Sony playing
on full volume, karela without achaar. It is not easy. Now that I have been
away, I can perhaps live under the pretence that you are still there back home,
in the house you built, sitting on the porch next to your beloved flowers, just
as you did for every single day for over half a century. Just as you did for
every single day of my life for 27 years.
But I must
compel myself to reflect on my memories of you and pen them down, for memories
have a way of slipping away such that the lines between fact and fiction get
blurred with time, till you reach the age when the days of your youth appear
closer to you than the rest of the decades that followed. That never happened
to you though. You seldom reminisced. You continued to remain present,
decidedly relevant.
Let me put
order to this letter, for I am sure any sort of inefficiency would irk you to
the core. My first clearest memory of you is from when I was probably in
nursery, probably 3 years of age. You were sick. Stones. A surgery had gone
wrong and you were in and out of hospital a lot. I remember visiting you with
Babaji after he picked me up from school on his scooter. I don’t think you and
I were close back then. Or for years to come after that. My last memory of you
is you sitting in the dining room, hair half grey, early signs of cancer
already appearing on your face. I came to say goodbye to you before leaving for
the airport and to my shock, you were crying. You were crying for me to stay.
You told me you would be left alone if I did not take care of you and Babaji. I
was sorry to leave you like that. I still am and perhaps forever will be.
For what
lay in the years in between, there remain a few flashes. They aren’t
necessarily highlights or significant moments. Just a few random instances that
I can try to arrange in a chronological order, a mosaic pathway to who I am
today. I don’t suppose you were very fond of me as a kid. Bhai was your favourite
without a doubt. You’d feed us both dinner with your hands, sitting on the sofa in the
drawing room while we watched his favourite cartoon and you’d make me run to
the kitchen after every 10 minutes to fetch the next paratha. I can hear your voice
scolding Bhai to concentrate on chewing. Come to think of it, I can hear your voice talking on the phone for hours, discussing the latest gossip. “Haan mai
Nirmal bol rahi Punchkuyian Road se.” Besides these, the only other memories I
have of you include you telling us not to invite the kids from the neighbourhood
inside the house, scolding us for digging holes in the garden and haggling with
the kabadiwala.
I think things started to change between us after Bhai left for college. Mom was busy with her business and dad was always away in Dehradun. It was perhaps the loneliest of times for me. Teenage with hyperthyroid induced depression isn’t easy after all. The feeling that you hated me, couldn’t bear the sight or touch of me did not really help. I remember the many breakdowns I had in those days. During one of these I complained to dad that I was alone and neglected and you did not care for me while they were gone. “Did you try talking to her? What efforts have you made to make her like you?” he asked. A therapist could call this flawed parenting founded on conditional love. But honestly, it was the perspective shift that helped me forge my way closer to you. I’d like to believe I actively started following you around, offering to help when I could, feigning curiosity in everything you did. And you reciprocated. You offered me snacks, asked me about my life, enquired after my friends – more than what the parents did at that point. I remember you walked in on me while I was sad for mom had given me questionable food after I came back from school. And you threw away the spoilt rice on my plate and made me fresh chapattis, compromising on your afternoon nap. You looked happy to help. It was not all rosy of course. I have had my struggles with you, days when you pulled me out of my room by the ear for reasons I cannot now remember. But what I remember the most is the winter noons spent together in the sun. You sitting, sometimes chopping vegetables, me reading. You’d ask me about my future plans, tell me I should have become a teacher instead, and once again offer me fruits.
Despite the strained things between you and the parents, despite the ugliness that brewed in the family for years, despite our faulty start for the first 13-14 years of my life, we managed to get along eventually. God knows I found you to be a flawed, materialistic, controlling, abusive and bully of a woman. But I learnt to see how much there was to learn from you. An administrative genius in family affairs, disciplined, efficient and almost frustratingly independent with a strong sense of dignity till the last moment where your body had strength. Yet, I’d like to believe you let me be your exception. You not only made masala idlis simply because I was the only one in the family who liked them, even though you were suffering, you let me truly speak to you. You listened to me when you refused to listen to anyone else. Where once upon a time you had not liked my presence in the room, you grew to accept me above all and let me assist you. I have seen you be brutal to humans and animals. I have seen you be generous in your giving and spoiling the pets. You’ve hated on some and then pained when you saw them hungry. You have defended the ones who have offended you. Paradoxical. Irrational. But to me, you will always be like an overgrown baby, just waiting to be understood, hoping someone sees through that cold exterior to realise all you wanted was to be liked and be popular. It wasn’t really your fault that when they changed the eligibility criteria for that, they forgot to give you the memo.
Back when I
was in nursery, I remember praying to God that he would heal you so you could
come home. Last week, I wished upon a star that your suffering ends soon. I
suppose I am grateful to have been heard on both the occasions. I am grateful
to have had you. And I want you to know that for all the times I felt wronged
by you, I forgive you. And I hope, you can forgive me too.
On every
festival, on every sunny winter morning, before every flower, I shall think of
you.
I love you.
Chhutki
