Stories to tell: Part 1

ME, a very long time back!!!

Growing up, at any age, is difficult. But we keep trying, sub-consciously though. That’s why, by the time we have adjusted to the people around, and think to ourselves that we’re now grown up, someone comes and tells you, “Grow UP!” So, we go back to square One. So we never grow up. We play. We hurt. We love. We care. We aspire. We hope. We hate. We laugh. We kiss. We fear. We fall. We forget. We feel. We understand. We give up. We nurture. We relish.  We remember. We regret. We learn. We find.

Everything happens for the first time. But, some things, we wait to see them repeated. Like love. Like kids. Like people. Like smile. So what the hell even if we never grow up!

Nani & Nana, back in their days...

 When we are young, still in school, we love hearing stories. The ones that are mostly told by grandparents, (somehow, parents are never free, until bedtime). Most of us are lucky to grow up around all four of our elderly. Nana-Nani, Dada-Dadi.

I dreamt yesterday, about them they’ve been playing on my mind since. No ghosts!! Thank God for that! Just got reminded of my summer vacations at my nana’s place in Bhagalpur. Small district in the centre of Bihar, very popular for any kind of Silk fabrics, dirt-cheap!

My nana was of a humorous character. He was the son of a Jailor & also happened to be a Zamindar, and hailed from the most reputed family from their area. Everyone was scared of them, the Jailor effect i guess. The house was called Sahay-Villa, and if you get to enter the premises, it meant either you worked there as a servant or you were almost a family. No one else was allowed in.

Nana's parents, way back...

By the time i grew up, my nana’s place was an escape from school as well as the city life of Patna, my birthplace.  The villa was in the middle of huge areas of land, well divided and maintained. One part had wheat growing, the other had rice. Another part would be corn/maize crop. There was a separate section for only vegetables. You name it and the vegetable would be there. On the borders of these, would be coconut trees, khajoor trees, Big Lime tree, Mango & Guava trees, Bamboo trees were there always. 

We would also always find numerous flowers purely because of nana’s love for gardening, and would get up every morning to pluck them for puja. We’d carry huge baskets so there were enough flowers for everyone’s pujas every morning.  Vacations were the time to get together with all cousins and our devotion towards gods were specifically in plucking flowers and then arranging them on the photos & idols of Gods & Goddesses. The house was huge, so we never had to run outside to play. We could play anything from cricket to badminton because the ceilings were too high and wall, wide apart. In fact, there was an area, a corridor, which was called gali, simply because it was so long to walk through. It was somehow, just easier to run freely. 

Nana & Nani, 1956

My typical morning used to be at 4.30/5am (nowhere close to my current lifestyle!{Sigh........}) It always used to be better when Dad wouldn’t accompany us on our holiday. He wouldn’t allow us to run outside the house mostly. And as kids, we all, my siblings & I, somehow loved running in the fields without being afraid of insects, ants or even snakes sometimes. A Sagittarian that i was, you could never find me inside the house, till date. Nevertheless, waking up early in the mornings, quickly brushing and combing hair had become a routine at nana’s house. My hair has always been very curly and being a girl, I’ve always liked to keep it long. But both the reasons, together, contributed towards the fact that it was always messy and very difficult to keep it tidy. So, i would just comb it up from the top and make plaits so the messiness wasn’t visible. Into my slippers and straight to the aangan. Only nana would wake up so early, to feed the cows. He would be chopping the poo-aal, the dried wheat plant, with long leaves with a modern day – fancy term, butcher knife, in those days, was called  simply xxxxxxxxxx.  There was a maali, who’d cut grass and bring it to him, everyday, to cut them fine for the cows. They were not the cattle who’d be ploughing the fields, but were there only for the purpose of supplying milk to the big, huge family every day.  How i wish I’d woken up ten minutes before nana, and i could have held the xxxxxxxxxx in my own hands, and chopped it all myself. There was something very naive about myself when I think of the days. It’s almost an Indian version of a typical American country girl like we read in the novels. Raw, yet beautiful: strong, yet so gentle: silent, yet so happy: young, yet so wise: mystic, yet so fragile. It was an era worth living in. I just wish I could live there for longer.

It was fascinating to watch him chop so fine & so fast, and yet never chop off his hand. I was scared watching his speed, that he’d chop himself, but all of his hits were so alertly calculated that the XXXXXXX fell exactly 0.5cm apart every time he lifted it up. And you could never pick out two pieces that weren’t identical in size. Mine, of course, was never identical, but were at least edible for the cows. Somehow, when you are small, nothing is impossible for you to do it. And better still, you are just so damn confidant about yourself, that you can do it: and fortunately for me, I’ve always had my gut feeling see me through. So here I am, with all my fingers still intact, just missing the days.   

After chopping, I’d collect the fodder and put them in a huge tokari, and loved carrying it on the head like the macchi-wali. Sprinting with it, up the slope-y, rocky path, always muddy in the rains, was a joy that’ll never be forgotten but only missed.  Emptying the tokari into the huge vessel, and running away in the fear that cows will run you over, was just a mysterious piece of life. Now, something to remember and laugh over.   

The almost Country-Girl, in her days...