Grandma Tales: Five

THE STORY OF THE STARS

I love my grandmother. She must be very old because she has very little black hair on her head. In fact, she has very little hair on her head because I can run my fingers through them and feel her bald head most of the time. She is quite tall, but not as tall as my father. Grandma is taller than my mother.

My father told me that Grandma did not go to school, ever. But I think he is lying because my Grandma knows so many things that even I do not know. I think Grandma cannot read or write because she is blind. One thing I can tell you; my blind grandmother never fails to answer any of my questions. Whatever I ask she has a story for it. That is the game we play with her. Me and my sister; we love sleeping with her, and I do know she loves it too. Sometimes my mother insists we sleep with her, and this makes Grandma sad; though she would never admit. We love mom, but she is so boring. She cannot tell a story as Grandma does, and she sleeps before finishing any story. When we wake her up to complete the story she would have forgotten the story and begin all over again. I guess the work at her office makes mom tired.

My Grandma loves watching movies. Do you think I am lying? No Sir. She comes to the movies with us and enjoys them just like we do. She cannot see, but she can hear! And my sister and I would keep telling her how the hero, heroine and the villain look. We fill her up with details she needs to understand what is going on.

I say that my Grandma is the best storyteller in the whole world. I will tell you one of her stories, about falling stars.

“Grandma, look at all those stars in the sky! I have never seen so many of them and they look beautiful.” We were on our terrace and the clear dark sky was filled with a million stars. Lying on the cot with my sister and Grandma, I wondered why these stars never fell off. And why on some nights we see very few stars?

“Oh, those stars; they are so exciting! I must tell you the story of the lost star, have I told you that before?” We knew Grandma had a new story to explain stars, and both of us shouted out that we have not heard the story before.

“Well then, let me think. I think it happened when I was just your age Aneesh, let me see, and are you five years old now? I told you we lived in that big house with twenty rooms in our village. One night, I was up on the terrace all by myself. My dad, your great grandfather, had given me a good dressing down for something I did. And I was mad with him and crying. I could see the clear dark sky above me littered with millions of bright shining stars, just like it is today. It was magical, the night, and something was bound to happen, I felt it.

I must have been staring at the stars for a long time. The big ones were there of course, but I was trying to figure out the small ones. Do you know why some stars are big and some small?”

“Of course Grandma”, my sister shouted. “The old stars are big and the new stars are small. Just as you are big and we are small!”

“Could be; I never thought that way. The stars that seem big are closer to you than the ones which seem small! Small stars live far away in the sky. Anyway, I kept looking for small stars and they would appear and disappear like magic. I could see them sometimes, and then suddenly I could not see them. I kept staring at the sky and that made me dizzy. Sort of fuzzy, you understand? If you keep looking at something intently, you tend to get lost in it, your vision gets blurred.”

“You mean to say, grandma, you were lost in the stars?” I whispered. I looked up at the sky and tried to focus on the stars to see whether I too could get lost in the stars.”

“Smart boy; You know, that is exactly what happened. I was lost and soon found myself all mixed up with the sky. The stars were shining so bright that I had trouble seeing them. Maybe that is when I lost my eyesight and went blind.”

“Liar; Liar; you told us that you lost your eyes in an accident when you were much older.” We shouted together, Pratima and me. I must tell you here that one had to be very careful with Grandma. She lies a lot, changing facts and events the way she likes. She thinks we don’t listen to her carefully, but we catch her at her lies every time.

“Oh. Did I? I am getting old and cannot remember everything so clearly. Yes, the accident, I remember. But the stars were equally blinding, and soon I could not see anything. All around me was this milky ocean and I was totally covered by it. I wondered where all this light came from. Do you know how stars get their light?”

“Yes, I do.” This time, I beat Pratima to it. “It's just like the tube light in our house. Stars light up because of electricity.”

“Stupid. What electricity? Tube lights get power from the wires they are connected to, but stars are not wired, at least I have never seen a wired star.” I thought awhile at what my sister just said and I had to agree that stars have no wires. My Grandma meanwhile was having a good laugh at both of us.

“Even I thought that way, you know? Till my husband told me how stars got their light. You know, your grandfather was a doctor and he was very intelligent. He had read a lot and science was his favourite subject. I had always wanted to know how stars shine and was too shy to ask anyone about it. I am illiterate and people would laugh at me for not knowing simple things about life. But my husband, your grandfather, was different. I could ask him anything and everything and he would answer me without laughing. He was my teacher and Guru…

Now, I seem to be losing myself in your grandfather’s memories. You see, think of things intently and you get lost. Anyway, it was he who told me about starlight. He said stars did not have any light of their own and they got it from the Sun. It is the Sun that lights up the stars just like it lights up the earth and the moon!”

“Grandma, what happened when you got lost in the stars?”

“You see, the light was all around me and in me. It was as if I too was lighted up like some star. But this lasted a few seconds only, for soon I was back on the terrace looking at the stars. It was then that something strange and frightening happened.”

We held our breath. The real story was beginning to unfold. As always, whenever Grandma said something like this and paused, I felt the bristling of my hair and the strange sensation of excitement filling me up.

“I saw this big shining star beginning to take off from the sky and hurtling towards me. I did not know how it happened and why? I was terrified. All my senses urged me to run and hide somewhere, but my legs would not move. The falling star was looking at me with angry eyes and I could not take my eyes off it. I stood there, like a statue, completely paralyzed by the falling star.”

Pratima and I looked up at the sky. I never imagined that such a thing can happen, that a big star can fall on us even as we sat on the terrace listening to my Grandma. But it was a possibility. My sister told me that her teacher had told them about shooting stars and how people who saw such stars could make their wishes come true. But a star falling on people was terrible.

Grandma was looking at us. “It's frightening, isn’t it?” There was a twinkle in her eyes. She could not see the expression on our faces, but it seemed she knew what we were looking like. It was like this always, she always knew what we were thinking or doing.

“The star was getting bigger and bigger. It was now burning and I could see it on fire, sparks flying madly all around it. It was going to hit me and kill me, I thought. But even as it came nearer to me, I could not make myself to run away. In fact, I could not think of anything at that moment. Do you know when your mind is gripped with fear and full of it, you can’t think of anything else? 

As it came nearer and nearer, I could see its face. The star had a terrified look. It appeared to be scared of what was going to happen to it when it falls on me. I thought it was crying out for help to save it, but there was nothing and no one that could save it from falling.

As I looked into the face of the falling star, I noticed something strange happening to it. It was getting smaller and smaller as it came nearer to me. It was still a great distance away from me. You know, you just cannot say how far or near these stars are. Do you know how we calculate distances of stars?”

My Grandma was a great one at questions at the most inappropriate time. Here we were holding our breath, waiting for the star to fall on Grandma; and there she was with her question. I knew for sure that stars must be far far away. My sister told me that man had stepped foot on Moon, but no one has reached the star or sun. This meant that stars live much far away than the moon. How much far, I did not know.

“Your grandfather, the great scientist, told me once that the distance between us and the stars was calculated in light-years. This, he told me, means the time it takes for light to travel from one place to another. A light-year is not like our calendar year of 365 days. He told me light travels very fast and a light-year means the distance light would be able to travel in one year. If my memory serves me right, he told me that light can travel some 9.46 trillion kilometres in a year. You should check it out at your school with your teachers. I cannot imagine how fast that could be; my mind refuses to accept figures in millions and trillions. But one thing is clear. It takes a lot of light-years for the light of a star to reach us, so they must be really far away.”

My Grandma always stumped us. Here was a blind old lady, totally illiterate, who could tell us about stars and light-years. Maybe she is bluffing, but if my grandpa told her that, it must be right. We reminded her that this was not the time for quizzing us on things we did not yet learn in schools. We urged her to go on with the star which was falling upon her. 

“Well, let me tell you one thing before I resume the story. You don’t learn everything at school. A lot of learning comes by simply being curious about things around you. However, it is the story you want, so let me get on with it.

“As I said, the star was becoming smaller and smaller by the second. And then it happened. I could see the star was no more on fire and it had become almost like a pebble. I lost the fear that it could harm me. When it hit me, I was ready for it. I simply put my hand out and caught it. Like Tendulkar hitting the ball for a six, only to be caught by the fielder standing on the boundary line. There it was, the big burning star, right there in my hand. A shrivelled black piece of stone; its small face, more like a smiley, was crying out at me. It was asking me to help it go back, and I did not know what to do! Oh, how much I wanted to put the star back in the sky! I hate to see anything die. And the poor star was dying in my hands. After a few minutes, all signs of life in the star were gone and it was a dead star now.”

We were disappointed. How could Grandma let the star die? She could have done something to save the star, but what?

“What did you do with the dead star?” I asked her, curious to know how dead stars are laid to rest.

“What do you mean? I kept it with me. It was safe with me until your father was born. One day, he took it from my drawer to play and lost it, I believe. Ask your father, maybe he still has it with him.”

We could hear Grandma laughing away as we ran to catch Dad and ask him where the dead star was.