cowboy films and ice cream

I write things that can mirror my state of mind. On most occassions I write with very detailed perspective. But today the memories are a bit hazy, so pardon me if I sound slightly loony or incoherent. It is in my most private moments, almost sacred moments, when I remember a lady who raised me from the age of 2 to the age of 21. She played with me, scolded me, shared icecreams with me and even went to the common community library with me. You can say, that it was a relationship unlike any other because we had many interests in common. Butterscotch flavoured ice-cream for one. She was much higher up in rank in generation. My mother's mother my Naani. I don't discuss her, I don't share her, I don't want to even acknowledge in public that she had a presence in my life. Why? Not because I didn't like her, it is because I loved her immensely and I choke when I talk about her. I feel the loss all over again. But today its different, I want to write a little about this woman I loved so much. 

She was raised in an educated family. Her father was a lawyer. She was married at a tender age of 13 to a morally upright handsome doctor who had also fought a leg of the British rule with Subhash Chandra Bose in Burma. Her family was from Bangladesh, at that time a part of undivided India.  She had 6 kids, 5 girls and 1 boy. She raised them well and was considered a strict disciplinarian. They all lived together in a tiny house in Kalkaji.

 

I have hazy memories of that house. I remember the time when my grandfather came and gifted me my first barbie doll. I was sitting on the charpoy playing with the neighbourhood boys. All I can remember is that my grandfather came and kept that doll on my lap. It was a perfect plastic blonde doll wearing a  white dress. That's all I can recall at this age when none of those props or familial surroundings exist. I remember the time when I stayed with my grandmother. We both sneaked away in the evening to the Vadilal ice-cream shop on the corner in CR. Park and bought our favorite flavoured icecream. Two butterscotch ice-creams with chocolate topping. Vadilal was the only company that made that flavour and we never missed a chance to buy two of those sticks and have them on our way back home. I also remember the times I walked with her to the local library. She browsed for hours through her bangla section, while I searched for some Daphne Du Maurier classics.  On the way back almost everyday she would crib about how vegetables had become  expensive and that the local groceror charged 50 paisa more for a bunch of parsley leaves. She wasn't happy that people were careless regarding  the value of money and that they never counted paisas. I would inevitably ignore her complaints because I thought of them as petty. Yet I would pretend to hear her so that she didn't feel bad. I wish I undid that attitude today. She knew I was from a different generation and that I didn't bother about counting paisas or the groceror charging 50 p more. Yet she always told me how it was upsetting. It is with her collective savings of so many paisas that she gifted me a gold ring. I always wear that on my left hand thumb. Odd finger to wear it right? But there's a reason. I fiddle with rings so much that I wear this one on my thumb as it almost is never easy to slip it out. It remains there - a ring made out of god knows how many paisas reminding me how painfully she saved money to give  gleaming gold rings to all her grandchildren. 5 daughters 1 son,  all at least having two kids. 

The other thing I distinctly remember are the serials she avidly watched.  Apart from a string of bangla serials she watched Zee TV's Antakshri, a soap opera called Paraya Dhan, Gudiyaa etc. 

She had successfully  bribed grandad into buying her another television just for her private viewing. Grandad almost always watched old cowboy films and squealed in great pleasure when the bad man would be bumped off. His usual routine would be to attend to his patients till 5 in the evening and them promptly shut his chamber.  He would then watch  television till 7pm and have his dinner by sharp 8pm. Finally he would go to sleep warning us not to have too many icecreams at night. He was also great pals with Vajpayee who came to his chamber for his rickety knee.  Grandad had a impressionable female following as he was still very handsome at the age of 70. Tall, fair, white shining hair infectious smile and a firm grip when he shook hands. 

Naani kept to herself to her puja, cooking, tele serials, cribbing about grocerors and library rounds. I was her regular company taking her to shops and getting her ice creams in the evenings. She would even listen to me patiently about my school or college. 

There are so many things I still remember as if I can see them living in front of my eyes. Then one day I went to Calcutta for a visit with my family. I didn't speak to my grandparents for those 10 days that I was away. I returned by the Rajdhani train that reached around 9pm to Delhi. Deciding it was too late to disturb my grandparents I decided to go to my parent's house and spend the night there and then in the morning go back to CR Park. I was excited to meet Naani because I had bought some new magazines for her in Bangla and some odd books. The morning I woke up Naani had passed away in her sleep that previous night. A part of me died that very day and I just can't seem to get it out of my system that I was never ever able to say goodbye to her. I still search for her sometimes. I stopped eating icecreams after that. It's been a while since I  have eaten an  icecream let alone have a delicious Vadilal butterscotch one. I can't look at cowboy films. I hate them infact. 

My grandad became frail after she passed away. I was in LSR that time in my final year. I used to visit  rarely because the house reminded me of our time there so much that it suffocated me. I would come stare blankly at my grandma's room and leave. Grandad looked lost. And I would kiss and hug him anyway to tell him we are all there for him. But he too just patiently awaited his death. I sometimes want to rewind and go back to that age when I had them in my life. I want to know why I was never able to say goodbye to a person who I loved perhaps more than anyone. I still remember her, remember him and wish if they were watching me today - what would they say to me?