Of all the short stories I have read as a child, my favourite has been The Portrait of a Lady by Khushwant Singh where the author describes his grandmother, her daily routine and his evolving bond with her as he grew up from being a little boy to the man that he became. While the short story ends on an emotional note like many others that describe the pure bond between grandparents and grandchildren, for most of us our busy lives often gets in the way of making the most of the limited time we have with our grandparents paving the path for a bunch of regrets to introspect on, once they are no more.
Not all of us are blessed to grow up with grandparents – some of us arrived in this world way after their departure and for others it is the distance, be it geographical or emotional, that plays its part. I was fortunate to not fall in either of these two categories and grew up in a home with my parents and grandparents and after my grandfather’s demise I was very mindful to make the most of my remaining time with my grandmother.
My grandma, Dadi as my husband, myself and all my friends lovingly call her, is a woman who beautifully epitomizes Loreal’s tagline – Because you’re worth it. She lives life on her own terms, has a to do list in place for every single day, feels she does not have enough hours in the day to accomplish everything on her list, does not attend calls in the evenings as she does not wish to be disturbed during her TV time, connects with people from varying socio-economic backgrounds and age groups daily and loves all the attention that she gets as a 93 year old.
As a child, I would sit by the window for lunch with my grandma where she lent wings to my imagination by telling me stories of lands where people, animals and birds co-existed and I listened to her tales with great curiosity, chomping off my rotis. She has hardly traveled in her life but she made up lands with magical landscapes and shared them with me without having felt any FOMO from not having the opportunity to travel back in the day up until now when she is restricted to her room and moves around only on a wheelchair. When I see her enjoying travelogs on YouTube and making a list of countries that she has visited virtually, I think living in a bubble of your own is probably not such a bad thing after all.
Every morning my grandmother sits at the dressing table and spends about twenty minutes slathering good old Vicco turmeric on her face, getting her center parting right and combing her hair with a fine toothed comb to ensure that there are no flyaways. When she would look at herself in the mirror – you can see her eyes beaming with grace as she covers her oversized ears with her hair. She may have undergone a double mastectomy surgery and lost most of her hair to her blood pressure tablets and may have only two remaining teeth in her mouth – but when she looks at her beautifully wrinkled face in the mirror she sees something else.
She sees a woman who was married off at 15, had a still born as her first born, had to battle familial issues and move out of her family home with her husband and daughter, navigated her way through financial adversities without fretting, taking care of her husband through various ailments till she lost him when she was 75, overcoming a paralytic stroke herself and being a breast cancer survivor. While she faced life with great gumption, she did not let these incidents get to her and did not let them change the person that she is.
For grandma, age is indeed a number as she keeps an eye out for any gray hair as even at 93 a single strand of gray gets her to call for some Bhringraj tailum to help prevent her naturally black hair (whatever is left of it) from losing their pigment. While most people her age make their old age their identity, my grandma has taken it in her stride to connect with me and my friends and learn all the new age rituals that she thinks may add value to her life at this point – like learning how to use the mobile phone, understanding different time zones to be able to call family members at a good time while they are traveling abroad and knowing more about global cuisines by asking me what I ate each time I dine out.
The Burberry Weekend is my favourite fragrance and so is hers and she asked for it as a birthday gift to spritz on herself on special occasions. I love getting my pictures clicked and she too does not shy away from being in front of the camera, pouting her way to glory like a teenager (only with some wrinkles and soft sagging skin) and she will immediately ask you to show her the pictures to ensure that she has been photographed correctly.
Grandma’s birthday is a blockbuster event in our home, exclusive invites are sent out to only people under the age of 35 (majorly my friends) and all those who may even slightly judge her for not acting her age are kept at bay. The cake is always pink in colour and there is a mandatory photo session with a “Birthday Girl” sash and a plethora of tiaras. All my friends love my grandma and she is like a star with everyone waiting for their turn to get a selfie with her.
I sometimes wonder how she pulls this off – she has studied in a Gujarati medium school and dropped out after grade 5, she does not speak English, she has never worked or had a career in her life. How does she still manage to be so relevant? All she has is a pleasing smile and a handful of toffees to give you, each time you visit her. What she does right is to try to connect with you for who you are and unlike a lot of senior citizens in India who demand respect just because they are elderly, she tries to unlearn her old ways to embrace a newer way of being by putting us (the next generation) on a pedestal. And well, who wouldn’t like that?
While grandma is trying to get up to speed with Millennials, she does not lose sight of what has worked for her all these years. The best marriage advice she gave me before I was about to tie the knot was – “Pick your battles, and your priorities, don’t try to do everything for everyone all the time. As women we tend to take on the onus of being at everyone else’s service and in the end do a disservice to our own selves. Let others around you also have a purpose in life, so share your responsibilities to have a happy home. This does not mean that people around you will not get in your way and not judge you, but why have you been given two ears – one to listen with and absorb what serves you and the other to tune out the noise that is only pushing someone else’s agenda on you.”
If someone like her with limited exposure, an incomplete education and coming from a patriarchal society can manage to preserve her sense of self then I think we as a generation have better access to tools and support to help restore and reinstate our feeling of self worth.
As a woman of today, I juggle multiple roles in my life – that of a wife, a daughter, a daughter-in-law, a manager and a content creator. However, my favorite role is that of a granddaughter. There is immense serenity in being in the presence of another woman who is at peace with herself, respects herself, accepts praises and compliments from others with joy without shying away from them and is also looking to share a part of her contentment with you.
How I wish that growing old with my grandma was a possibility in the real world, it surely is in my most glorious reveries whose seeds have been sowed by her. For now I choose to cherish her company and make the most of my interactions with her to let her legacy live on, within me and a handful of us, whose lives she has touched.