A Lady Extraordinary!

Son! Come on open your eyes, lets come out and have fresh air! I have lots of work to do. I have to clean the worship room and pick the flowers before the sunrise.Won't you help me pick the flowers for the offerings at puja? The mosquito net is already filled with mosquitoes that wouldn't let you sleep more.So, come on now! don't be so lazy!

Every morning she would make me get up early from bed, as early as 4 AM. And I never complained which I otherwise would have every time done if anyone else would have made me to rise up so early. In fact I loved being with her. I was 8 year old kid and she was eighty five year old lady then.

I remember those mornings when our parents would take us, me and my sister, to our village during those one and half months of summer vacation at school. I never used to sleep in the night before the day we used to leave for the village. I never could. It was such a lovely day. Village was such a wonderful place to be. Beautiful lush green farms, mango trees, jamun berries, and lots of innocent friends who would place us in the cleanest corner of their hearts And all the more, she was there! My grandmother. A lady I can never forget!

Since the time I remember her, I have seen her in a while sari, as white as a cloth can be. She never walked upright. I have never seen her walk that way. People say the ticks of time had weakened her backbones but her hopes were still high. Thus she walked with both her hands on her knees, ready to throw years of hardship anytime with her shoulder and stand upright. But perhaps she wanted her long family beside her to hold her so she pretended to walk that way.

She was happiest when she had all her children around her. My father with his five brothers and three sisters, when used to sit beside her, that was her moment! I could see her eyes filled with sparkles and her heart beating slowly at every words my father and uncles spoke. They would see her as banyan tree and themselves as the branches of that tree. She used to be most relaxed those moments. Everyone would compare her with movie icon mother India but she wouldn't speak anything. She would just smile. She never knew mother India. She was an alien to the outer world just as the outer world was an alien to her. Her world were her kids and their kids and their kids! She had seen generations grow and prosper in front of her. So she wouldn't participate much in the discussions. She would only listen and smile.

I loved spending time with her alone though. She had that erratic way of narrating stories, when she used to keep mum for minutes and then again re-narrate the story in quite different way as if she wanted to end some things differently. She used to miss grandfather a lot since he left for heaven few years back. But she was not sad now. She used to say this to me in her stories that grandfather is happy that she is here to take care of us.

Her stories of deities and village fantasies used to woe my young mind. I never wanted to leave her shade of pure love. All she had was to offer. When we used to leave from the village, she would tie us her gifts. Anything she would find worth giving she would pack. She wanted us to remember her from her gifts. She wanted us to remember our roots, our real home. But everything in this world has to come to an end. she knew this long before we did. So, She never stopped us. She would say come on! go on! live your life! I could feel her heart beat accelerate, when I used to hug her goodbye every-time, we visited her. And then I felt the beats accelerate faster next time we bid her goodbye. Until, the last time it accelerated!

The village now is a lonely place to be. I can feel she still wants us to come here in every vacation. She would not stop us from leaving. She never had. She is just sad that her banyan tree is falling apart!