Grandma
There is not enough pencil to draw a clear picture of grandma in your mind. Still, I will try to give you an outline of her. Her face shows many emotions, a cocktail of emotions, a mix of emotions. I’m sure that if she were in the film industry, she would have won an Oscar. It’s good fun to listen to her old stories. Not fairytale stories which I don’t think she knows even one. I am talking about her own stories, about her life as well as others. It’s much more interesting than any fairytale. And the way she narrates makes it more exciting. These snaps I clicked once when she was telling me one of those stories. She remembers (or makes up on the spot, who knows) dialogue by dialogue from her childhood. Even though she is in her 80s now, she remains 18 by heart. She still likes to use hair extensions and black bead necklaces. Even though she likes all bright colors, green is her favourite. Usually, you can see her in ‘set mundu’ (a white saree with a golden broad border) and a green blouse. And a thick golden chain with a pendant which has the image of a goddess carved in gold with a red stone. Like Marilyn Monroe, she has a black mole on her cheek which has helped her to look apart from her twin sister.

It has not been long since we got electricity in our village, Bethurpara. I think it came by the old ‘Sukriya bus’. Since we had only two buses till a few years back, no choice. And poor electricity, it somehow managed to make it through our tricky, hilly, muddy road. Hats off, buddy! And a warm welcome. Actually, we had a grand celebration by upgrading our old 14 inches solar black-and-white TV to a shiny new colour one. And tube lights and bulbs everywhere. All the fireflies got envious. To show their protest, the firefly union decided not to blink like an LED decoration on the huge jackfruit tree in front of our house.

Anyway, let’s come back to the point. So before the village transformed into a transformer, we used to depend on kerosene lamps. And our heroine (my grandma) also had her own. No one could touch it. After six in the evening, the lamp would be lit and would visit each and every corner of our house in Grandma’s hand. And hundred and eighteen times up and down through the wooden staircase. I think this exercise is the secret behind her health at this age also. Her room is upstairs. It has wooden walls. And there is a sandalwood bed inside. There is what looks like a supermarket under that bed. Gold ornaments to chicken feed or anything you can think of under the sun, you will find there, scattered all around. And there are different-sized wooden trunks and boxes. And ‘n’ number of locks to these treasure chests. Surprisingly, if you open them, you will find only a few eggs and empty Horlicks bottles. She locks all these and then misplaces the keys. Every other day, she plays hide ‘n’ seek with her keys. In five minutes, she calls out to at least five hundred gods to help her. And offers them ‘Nalana paisa’ (25 paise) each. From her childhood days she has been offering 25 paise. She still continues this habit. Poor God doesn’t seem to know the current money value. If someone helps her for this ‘Operation Gurvayurappan’, they also get some reward. In my school days, I used to make a lot of pocket money like this.