Grandfather's Holi

Appu’s mother’s face turned ashen. She hurriedly slammed the black receiver of the phone to its position. Plonking herself on a chair by the mahogany table that held a box of stale Holi sweets from the day before, she grabbed a second to digest the news about her most loyal ally in the family. Her sharp eyes framed by her sparse brows darted from side to side; a habit she had while she thought hard. Her vermillion bindi was smudged around its periphery from the heat of the kitchen, where she had been making roti for lunch. She gestured with her firm, decisive fingers toward Appu.

“Beta, run to Ashu Bhaiya’s home and get some cash from his mom. Dadu is ill, we need to go to the village.”

Appu’s sparky eyes widened beneath his unkempt hair and his thin lips quivered for a second. There was no time to waste. The sides of his face were still stained with the stubborn pink paint he and his friends played Holi with.

“Yes Mummy,” he gushed and ran towards Ashu Bhaiya’s home, glad that he had earned the right to run errands for his family two months ago, on his eleventh birthday. Two hundred and twenty-one steps to Ashu Bhaiya’s home, Appu counted compulsively. That was more than the number of steps Dadu counted to go to the post office in the market, once a month.

Dadu was visiting their ancestral village of Bhibar for Holi, much to the resistance of the family.

In a couple of hours, the family was on a rickety bus to Bhibar. No rental cars were available on the day after Holi. Appu huddled together with his nine-year-old sister on a single seat near the door of the crowded bus. Father and mother were cooped up at the rear end of the vehicle. Appu stole glances at his parents from time to time. Mummy held the end of her saree to her nose and sniffled, her eyes downcast. Papa had put his arm around the edge of the backrest of her seat; the closest he was allowed to be near her in public.

His father Naresh, who Appu had hardly seen in the past year was gazing somewhere far away through the bus window. His thick, square glasses sat firmly on his sweaty face. Appu wondered if he was still thinking of the labor strikes, friction, and ruckus of his workplace. Six months ago, one afternoon when Appu and Rekha were tormenting each other more than usual, with their squabbles over colored marbles, Papa had come in and given Appu a good smacking with a short bamboo pole that the AC repair guys had left behind, much to the dismay of the household. What resulted after that was Dadu giving a good tongue-lashing as Papa stood there with his head hung low and the full stop to any real conversations between Appu and his father.

Appu’s heart pounded as his mind rambled through the last few days. A week ago the grandfather-grandson duo was lazing on the terrace of their house, soaking in the last rays of the winter sun. The hay-colored charpoy supported the wiry thin frame of the old man with ease. Grandpa sat erect like a lamp post, his legs twisted in the perfect lotus pose. The weathered brown folds around his eyes glistened in the afternoon sun.

Appu had just arrived from school. They were immersed in a close game of chess. Appu was sure he was going to beat his opponent this time. He could not believe lately, how Grandpa beat him so easily when Appu had taught him to play chess only six months ago.

“Appu, what’s your favorite festival?” Grandpa asked as he moved the knight up the board.

“Holi,” Appu mumbled, his eyes glued to the chessboard. In four more moves, he could defeat Grandpa.

“Mine too. I miss the ones from my childhood.”

“Why Dadu, don’t you enjoy the one here with us?”

“Of course, I do. But it was different with my friends, in the village. There used to be a special puja, procession, and celebration outside the Radha-Krishna temple.”

“The temple on the south end, next to our farms?”

“Yes dear, that’s the one.” Dadu’s eye drifted to something far away.

“And the homemade sweets of the village, from the thick, fresh cow’s milk. You don’t get milk like that in the city, you know?” Appu sensed his grandpa salivate.

“But you are diabetic, Dadu! Doctor uncle says your sugar level is way too high. You wouldn’t be able to eat those sweets anyway now.” Appu reasoned.

“I’m thinking of staying at the ashram in the village for Holi this year.”

“But Holi won’t be the same without you! You know all my friends are here. I don’t want to go to the village.”

“You couldn’t save your queen,” Grandpa chimed, slashing Appu’s queen stealthily with his bishop.

Appu drew his breath and twisted his mouth like a jalebi as he pushed the board aside. He was about to storm away to the other corner of the terrace. He dashed out of the charpoy but Grandpa seized him by the shoulder. His piercing brown eyes and aquiline nose gave him the air of a professor.

“Take this,” he conjured a book as if out of thin air and thumped it onto Appu’s hands. It read “Best strategies of Chess in 1995”.

“What’s this?”

“After you taught me how to play, I got it from Vidya bookstore at the Gandhi market. I wanted to try out a few things to be sure it works. You can use this for the regional chess competition you are prepping for.”

Appu was shocked that grandpa would go to such lengths. “Thanks” Appu muttered.

“When exactly is the competition?

“March 26th, thirteen days after Holi.”

“Good, you have some time. What will you do with the prize money if you win?”

“I’ll buy a good cricket kit. A good willow bat, like the one Sachin has, with MRF sticker on it.”

Dadu chuckled. “Why don’t you ask your father to get you one?”

“No Dadu. Papa has a lot going on. Duggu uncle’s college exam fee is coming up next month.”

Grandpa sighed. He traced Appu’s angular cheekbones and pointed chin with his hardened fingers.

“I’ll ask your grandmother to make your favorite Gazar ka halwa today,” Dadu said in a soothing voice.

The warm air of spring blasting against Appu’s disheveled hair through the window of the bus brought him back to his reality. The jagged steel window frame left deep marks on his forearm. Appu wished Dadu had not gone to Bhabar. We wondered how ill he was. In his mind, Appu negotiated with the gods who Dadu worshipped if Dadu could be with him at the chess competition in thirteen days.

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Appu walked inside the ashram by the Ganga with his stomach in a knot. It was at the north end of the village. The hot heaviness in the air made him feel sick. The powder-white sand of the river bank where Dadu and the family camped during Ganga snan every winter did not bring any joy. His father ran towards the veranda, blocking Appu’s way for a little while with his broad frame. Shrieks came out of his mouth.

They lay Dadu on the red, cemented veranda of the ashram. An off-white cloth covered his body. His face looked frozen. The stillness of his body shook Appu to the core. Their grandmother, Amma, and their youngest uncle, Duggu sat by his head. A group of women, all with the shroud-like pallu of their light-colored sarees over their heads sat by Amma, their heads hung low. Some were crying. The men assembled on the other end of the veranda, with dejected looks on their faces.

Amma’s eyes welled up as soon as she saw them. She looked older than usual in her white saree, her forehead unadorned with her customary bindi. Wisps of her salt and pepper hair escaped from under her pallu. Appu and his sister dropped to the cold floor on Dadu’s sides and held his hands.

“They are so cold, Amma!” Appu exclaimed, jarred. He turned towards his grandmother.

“Appu, he is no more,” Amma’s words came out muddled between her sobs.

Appu and Rekha sat there like the little stubborn moles on Dadu’s chest. They didn’t cry.

An apricot-colored sun slanted over the ashram, its orange rays peeking through the peepal leaves, almost breathing some signs of animation in Dadu’s placid face. They said that in the morning Dadu asked for his emergency medicine from Amma as he wasn't feeling well. Amma gave it to him but he was gone before he could swallow it.

Appu’s eldest uncle from Lucknow and youngest aunt from Bareilly reached the ashram by sundown. The only missing was his eldest aunt Rakhi who lived in Jabalpur. Her daughter was sick with Typhoid and the doctor forbade them to travel till she recovered. Dadu wrote to Rakhi every month, covering all the pages of the blue inland letters.

They couldn’t wait. The heat was starting to take its toll. They cremated him by the Ganga.

“Children and women don’t go there,” Amma chided when he wanted to go to the cremation ghat.

The friends and neighbors paid their visits to the ashram. Pieces of broken conversations floated into Appu’s ears.

“What a good man he was! He came to meet us for Holi yesterday. He still loves to eat gujiya…”

“I knew he was coming this year. I made his favorite laddu,” Dadu’s eighty-five-year-old aunt wept.

“We had so much fun at the procession outside the Radha-Krishna temple. Like old times, we had Dahi jalebi with tea at the same stall that we used to..”

Appu counted. Dadu went to at least thirty houses for Holi and people were musing about his best-loved kind of sweets. How could he do this? His high blood sugar and cholesterol had already put him on the watch list of doctors, Amma and Mummy. Did he not care about Appu?

The following day, the family returned to their house in the city with the uncles and aunt. Appu paused at the gate of the house. It felt different. The house looked forlorn, its bricks and cement barely holding the structure together. The little garden, the hand pipe at the entrance, and the long veranda with the cemented floor where Dadu used to tell them stories all looked like shadows of themselves.

Terwi, the last rites after death for Dadu was to happen on March 22nd, the day of the chess competition. The chess board sitting on the terrace with its perfectly arranged pawns seemed to be mocking Appu. He grabbed the board in his armpit and shoved the pawns in a little packet. He was going to dump these in the rabbit hole of the store room at the far end of the house.

While walking past the drawing room, he heard the voices of his uncles and aunt. The door was closed. They were arguing. He furtively scanned his surroundings and hid behind the curtain of the door with his left ear pasted to the wood.

“How did you not know about Baba’s deteriorating health? How did you let him go to the village in this condition?” Appu’s eldest uncle’s voice boomed.

“Do you mean I anticipated this? You guys don’t live here, we do. And we have always done our best to take care of Amma and Baba,” his father defended.

“Then how come Baba is no more? He wasn’t that old. Only sixty-five! I asked Amma, his last check-up was three months ago. Why?” his uncle's voice was cracking.

“Arey! Baba never said he was feeling unwell. So, we continued with his usual medicines.”

“Did you ever find the time for him? Mr. Busy-with-work-and-unions?” his uncle mocked. “You know what? You have no right to stay in this house. You just want to reap the benefits of Baba’s house in the city without taking responsibility,” his uncle continued. His youngest aunt joined forces with his eldest uncle.

Anarchy of words followed after that with Amma, Mummy, and Papa all trying to refute at the same time. Appu broke himself free from the door. His cheeks were on fire. His heart sank. Papa was busy but he loved Dadu. Appu felt like hurling the chessboard with all his might at his eldest uncle’s head.

Instead, Appu went to the room where he was told the midwife had helped his mom deliver him. The bricks of this room smelled like Appu’s skin. He lay down on the chowki. The damp coolness of the room sponged his hot cheeks. Before he knew it, he drifted off to the land of slumber.

When he awoke, Appu saw Mummy and their family physician sitting in front of him, both donning serious looks on their faces. The doctor asked him to take rest and advised his mother to apply a cool compress on his forehead to reduce his fever.

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The days leading up to Terwi were fraught with angst and arguments. Appu’s fever ebbed and flowed with the mood of the house. His father and uncles shaved their heads on the tenth day. Sometimes, with their shiny heads and grumpy faces, they resembled fierce warriors of olden times.

On the morning of the twelfth day, Rakhi, the eldest daughter of the house came in. Appu saw her short, plump frame in a light blue cotton saree get out of the rickshaw with her husband and children, in front of the house. Her thick mane was tied in an oversized bun at the nape of her neck. Her big, bright eyes looked sad and pensive. She had the same aquiline nose as Dadu.

Amma ran to the gate of the house to receive her. Under the canopy of Malti flowers framing the gate, she clung to her like a child and cried her heart out. After the initial burst of emotions, everyone settled down to sit on a hay-colored mat spread out on the veranda facing the lone hand pipe in the courtyard. Appu sat close to his beloved aunt. Her presence felt like light rain in the middle of a scorching summer.

“I want to share Baba’s last letter with you all,” Rakhi said decisively. “I received it a few days after he passed away.”

Curious eyes fell on her hands that clutched the letter. The paper had become thin from multiple readings and tears. Rakhi started reading in a shaky voice.

“My dear Rakhi,

Blessings and love to you, Rajeev, Gudiya, and Babu. Hope you all are doing well. How is cricket coaching going on for Babu? Did Gudiya start school? I hope your lectureship at the college is going well.

Your mother and I had a lovely time with you all in Jabalpur last month and we hope to see you guys soon during your and the children’s summer vacation.

Your mother is doing better now, her gout has improved with the oil you sent from Jabalpur. At home, Naresh worries me. I can’t remember the last time Naresh and I spoke for five minutes peacefully. I see him coming and going and running around, always a bit agitated. I don’t know what’s going on at his workplace.

That apart, life is good. All my children are well-settled and happy. I have been fortunate enough to play with all my adorable grandkids. My duties are done. Life has granted me everything I wished for. My childhood friend Gopu wrote to me last month from Lucknow. He would be visiting the village for Holi. This Holi, I have decided to reconnect with everyone I knew as a child. I want to spend my remaining days without worry. 

Appu likes to play cricket and I think he might have some talent for it. He is practicing chess with me to win the chess competition at the boys’ club so that he can use the prize money to buy a willow bat. The boy needs to improve a lot in chess before he can dream of winning. Could you please get him a good bat from Jabalpur? They don’t have such shops in Shajahanpur. I’ll pay.

I hope to receive your letter soon.

Blessings and Love,

Baba”

By the end of the letter, silence engulfed the veranda. Rakhi flipped her bag open, pulled out a willow bat, and handed it over to Appu. For a second, Appu caressed it with his thin, wiry fingers. Then he gently put the bat aside and buried his head in Rakhi’s lap. Silent sobs escaped his mouth as the floodgates of tears were left open, drenching Rakhi’s saree.