Karthiedathy.. and my grand parents

Karthiedathy (in Black) with my mom.

Different phases of your life feature different characters. Some would have developed a sticky bond which though clings to you with brutal severity, loses its clinginess…time wipes away the glue with surprising ease and they don the garb of mere acquaintances or even strangers. Sometimes you would have been so dependent on them and they  would have eased a lot of creases on the tapestry that is life....BUT  you can’t obstruct the sweet gift of forgetfulness that time and circumstances  bestows on you. This is Karthiedathy..edathy is a term used in Kannur, for an elder sister. I met her when my father died. She had come to offer condolences. Had never met her before, she introduced herself to us, and said that fifty eight  years back, she was a daily visitor here..

She was beautiful.. tall and lean, her face wrinkled and crinkled when she smiled, her eyes bore that twinkle, but saw that it was camouflaging a deep sadness. She had come here after fifty seven years, when she was just a school going girl of sixteen. She had heard from somebody of the demise, and though now she was living far away, she wanted to come and see us. When my grand parents moved in to this house, she was staying just a few yards away, and had offered to carry water from a well in the compound below, morning and evening to water my grand father’s plants. She remembered how risky a journey it was.. an aluminium vessel on her head and one on her hips, the terrain was slippery with large loose gravel, and if her feet  looses grip, she would roll down  and down, and that would have been the end of her sprightly teens.   My grandparents had just moved in to this part of Kannur, after retiring from his job in Persia.  The well, attached  to the house had dried up and the water was just barely sufficient for their home needs.

my grand parents with their nieces and my dad

I had never met my grand father, and it was like a bed time story for me..she told me about what an awesome presence he had , and  a kind and benevolent nature, while my grand ma was v reserved and would not interact much. She used to come bringing her uniform along, as after the morning trip of water, was brought, she would put her uniform and run off to school after having the porridge he gave. She told me that she used to peep into my mother’s window to catch a glimpse of my mom, a new bride , waiting for her passport and visa to join my dad,as she was very pretty and docile. She remembered telling her school friends about how pretty my  mom was and how she wanted to talk to her and see what she wore, and so on..She reminisced that my grand mother would never let her  inside the house and speak to my mom. 

an old pic of my grand father.

Now, after fifty seven years, here she was chatting with my mom, without fearing the wrath of my grand mom. After school, she would again drop in and get another round of twenty buckets and help him shower the new fragrant rose bushes and other flowering plants and a veg garden in the backyard. Then he would offer her some snack like poha with coconut and sweetened jaggery, or plantains and buns. She told me that when she arrives in the morning, he would be  he would be going around with a cane basket, plucking the veggies to be cooked that day. After watering the plants, she would go home and after her bath and evening chores at home, she would go to the small shop, just next to our house,  named Kunjunde peediya (Kunju’s Shop in Kannur slang), she would drop in and enquire whether my grandma needed anything..by the time my grand father  would be dressed in a cotton kurta, reading the Bhagavatham. Grandma would give her the book in which the purchases are entered, and she would get them whatever needed. One day, as was the norm, she did not see his tall figure pottering near the rose bushes…she thought he must have gone out, and so watered the plants alone..then when she was about to leave..she saw him near the window, clinging on to the wooden bars..he shoed her away.. to go home, after a few hours.. she heard the tragic news that he is no more..she believes that it must have been him clinging to the window bars in pain..she wished she had gone in and informed my grandma ..and so he would have got help..but it was not to be. After his death, my grandma never used to tend to the plants, so it became a mechanical chore.

 It has been fifty eight  long years..thank you Karthiedathy, for dropping in, for sharing your memories of a grand father who would have been so happy to see me, his first grand child. I miss sitting on his lap, riding on his back, taking a puff on the pipe he smoked,gurgling sweet nothings, and going around the garden with him... I remember my grand mom  telling me that he was so eager to see his grand child. Death, I see him, Yama, on the ferocious buffalo..with his deadly mace and waving his noose...  crushes hopes, squanders dreams, turns life topsy turvy, I must also add..sometimes, comes as a blessing and relieves man of pain and misery..but yet so elusive ..a deathly attitude which never budges whatever the situation..turns a deaf ear who begs him to come and carry them off..but instead ropes in the least expected in a half blink’s time…accept it..he seems to mock at us..