Sweet Ajji

Vrushali’s grandmother was not like any other traditional old lady. Vrushali can say this because she was always ahead of her time. She was a gutsy, modern and progressively educated lady who worked till the age of 82 and did everything that most traditional grandmother’s in a conventional, middle-class, Marathi Brahmin family wouldn’t. Ajji (grandmother) was a gambler, a businesswoman, a housewife, and an extraordinary matchmaker. She got married at the age of 25 when the norm in that era was to get married at 18. Moreover, hers was a love marriage. She dated her husband for seven years before tying the knot. Here is an amazing story of Vrushali’s amazing grandmother, who was often called ‘James Bond’ within her family and social circle.

When Vrushali’s grandparents got married, they used to live in a joint family. Her Ajji’s mother-in-law was an old fashioned strict lady who wore the traditional 9-yard ‘Nauvaari’ saree. One day her Ajji came out of the shower and left her hair open to dry. Her mother-in-law taunted, “Hasn’t your mother taught you to do your hair and not roam around like this in the house?” Her furious Ajji went out the same evening with her sister and cut her hair as short as a man, the then bob-cut which in that era was considered a big no-no for married women.

Soon after, Vrushali’s grandparents decided to move out and buy a 2bhk house of their own, giving up all their rights on their ancestral bungalow in the posh locality of Deccan Gymkhana in Pune. They worked hard to pay off the loan through EMIs and after much effort, over a period of 15 years, that house became their home forever.

Ajji worked as a freelance marketing consultant and her grandfather was in the Central Government. Vrushali grew up with her grandparents, as both her parents were working on the expansion of their printing business. They were true lovebirds. They would fight, argue, apologize, throw tantrums, but at the end of the drama, everything just went back to as normal as ever.

Vrushali’s grandparents used to celebrate every little thing in their relationship; for example, Vrushali and her kin used to be taken out for dinner on the date when grandpa proposed to Ajji, or when Ajji told her brother about her love affair with grandpa. Vrushali used to wonder how they remembered all those dates.

Ajji was full of energy and therefore also an extremely dominating lady. She always made her point and would never shy away from confronting people. Her grandpa was very disciplined, as he had served in the Indian army for quite a bit of his time during the ‘60s. Ajji loved playing cards and tambola, but had to leave the game to come home and have dinner with her grandfather. But she would often lose track of time and be late. Her grandfather would get very furious at this.

As Vrushali’s grandfather aged, he started ailing and at 85 he passed away leaving her Ajji behind to cope with old age. She struggled for the first few months. It was the loss of her soul mate with whom she had spent more than six decades. Within a month’s time after her husband passed away, she decided to take on a few more projects for work. At the age of 80, companies did not want to work with her, but she insisted and took all the help she could from me for computers, WhatsApp, etc.

Ajji started maintaining a dairy, in which she wrote all that she could remember about her husband. One night Vrushali asked her, “Ajji, what do you keep writing?” She replied, “I speak to your grandfather through this diary.” Vrushali could not resist so she asked her if she could read it. She instantly said yes and they would sit together in the evenings and write about their memories and all the things that they wanted to tell him but could not.

Ajji kept herself busy. She would go to play rummy(cards) in a club nearby and perpetually came back in the red. Every Saturday, she would go to play tambola and on her grandfather’s birthday and their marriage anniversary she would invite all his friends and throw a party.

After 5-years living without her soul-mate, she got a stroke and within weeks she started deteriorating. Finally, she went where her heart always wished to be, with her husband.