Skip to main content

'Aama' (grandma)

One strong belief that I had as I was growing up, was that I would never lose my dear ones. I had seen deaths, but somehow a child's heart was unwilling to accept the fact that this could happen with her loved ones too.

I, first got a major jolt when I lost my 'aama' (grandma) . I had come home for my semester break and that made me devote each second of that one month for her. I would constantly be in her side, helping her to have medicines. I could clearly see her dying bit by bit each passing day. But, I told myself that it is not going to happen. My grandpa would sit beside her and chant slokas which seemed to pacify her. She would close her eyes and try to absorb the rhythm of the slokas. Little did I know, my grandpa was already freeing her from the torments of her ailing body. He finally had made his mind to let her go.
I could see her unwillingness to have medicines, she would twitch her face in disdain whenever the doctor came to visit her. She had lost her speech in her death bed but her eyes spoke her heart . She would constantly stroke my hand whenever she regained consciousness and tears would brim out of her eyes. I understood she wanted me to know she was leaving, she wanted me to bid her farewell.

I have grown listening to stories which my grandpa told me. Now, I found myself retelling those stories. This time I found, each story held a message. Finally around the last story that I got to tell her, I knew I was strong enough to let her go. I no longer could see her suffer.
The day before my grandma left us for good, I saw flies cover her bed. My grandpa told me, this was a clear indication and summoned everyone to her bed. Instead of making a fuss, we chose to tell her how special she has been for us. The night gave away to light and amidst dropping pulse rate and feeble breaths, my grandma finally found her liberation.
It's been years but I still can't help but miss her. One special memory has been when I got to help her for diwali celebrations. This diwali like many other diwalis, I am going to do whatever she taught me to. This is how her presence lingers by. 'Aama', you are still alive in memories.





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Reading between the lines

"Read between the lines",  I heard our professor say. We were in midst of a Victorian text. I looked at her point blank. She had spoken about something which I had no clue about. "Ma'am,  would you please elaborate? ",  I tried framing this sentence in my mind but my introverted  self overpowered my inquisitive soul like everytime. I hopelessly waited for an explanation. Ma'am started explaining about how beyond the surface meaning of any written text, there lay a wide plethora of meaning which wasn't explicitly stated. She talked about finding a void between the written words and our imagination, that void which shapes our interpretation. That explanation opened doors to my perception of reading a text. It wasn't that I had never considered about the possibilities of meanings that lay coated in words until then, but, what perhaps I lacked was to look for that void where I questioned the layers of meaning, where I put myself in those layers of wo...

What do you want to be?

While I was in my 10th standard, almost everyone I met wanted to know what I wanted to be. This question always perplexed me. From the lens of a fifteen year kid who was not yet sure of the changes which awaited in the near future, this question gave me nightmares. I would constantly sit by the mirror and ask myself, what actually would be my answer. My friends always had fancy answers at their disposal. They would confidently chirp whenever any one asked about it. What amused me most was, my friend who had no inkling to study Biology wanted to be a doctor and another friend who detested the idea of even cooking noodles, wanted to be a chef! But whenever they spoke about their wishes, they would always sound confident. And there I was, fumbling for words which refused to escape my lips. It was not until I entered Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya to do my plus two, I found my voice. The teachers there have a different way of viewing life. For the first time, I no longer felt the classroom...

"My love is enough for both of us"

"My love is enough for both of us", she often felt those words ring in her heart. She finally had understood that life wouldn't always follow her designs. That people are meant to leave but their memories won't. She often had wondered how someone could love her to such an extent when that person had always known that she wouldn't reciprocate those feelings. How could a person stand by her when she always acted as a fleeting shadow. She never had given hope for she knew the pain of dejection but he kept hoping like a hopeless vagabond. How she wished that he would some day hate her enough to let go. She devised ways to free him from this web, she acted cold, turned indifferent, did everything he detested and she finally saw some changes. It was a relief, he finally seemed to take hold of his life. She could see him grow responsible. He finally it seemed was learning to love himself. Phone calls died, meetings subsided, they become known strangers. All this while ...