My no-nonsense mom was a rebellious child? My grandmother spills the beans, finally!
Every time I want to skim through an ocean full of memories replete with nostalgia and wisdom both, I call my grandmother who, thanks to Graham Bell, is only a phone call away. Recently, when I called my granny to wish her for the New Year and get her blessings, what was meant to be a short call turned into hours of conversation which captured everything, ranging from the innocence of my mother’s childhood to the ordeal of the attack of 26/11.
But happy memories first! I was amused and astonished both when my grandmother narrated stories about my mom running around the whole neighbourhood with her girl gang till the wee hours. And this is the same lady who scolds me for spending more than two hours with my friends! Yes, my mom has indeed changed, but for the better I guess as she now endorses all the time the importance of being kind and humble to everyone. So, wouldn’t it have come as a shock to me to know that she was considered a bully in school?
My grandmother shared another interesting incident from my mum’s childhood. It was when my mom was about seven that they had all gone to attend a wedding. As the rituals were expected to go well past midnight, the kids were made to sleep in a room. When one of the elders checked in after a while, she realised my mother was not in the room. Everyone panicked and a frantic search ensued. And then, they saw her enter the house, looking bewildered but not scared. Apparently, she had sleepwalked into the lane parallel to the venue and when she came to her senses, she found herself in the middle of the road all alone. However, she kept her wits about her and knocked on a neighbour’s door who finally helped her find her way back safely. This incident gave me the chills, though I appreciated my mom for her alertness and quick action. In all honesty, if I were in her shoes, I would’ve freaked out and started crying then and there.
“Although you and your mother are poles apart, the one thing you both have in common is your competitive spirit and resilience,” my grandmother says with full conviction, and I couldn’t agree more. Growing up, my mom’s generation read comics like ‘Amar Chitra Katha’, which had mythological characters like Shiva, Vishnu, Krishna, etc. Granny reminisced about the time when mum, along with granny and her two older sisters, stayed up the whole night to prepare for a quiz based on the ‘Amar Chitra Katha’ series. And by the end of the night, my mother had mugged up the stories by heart, so much so that she won the first prize, and granny was super proud.
Grandma has always been an ardent serial watcher. So naturally, I told her about the latest web series I had binged with Mumma, ‘The Mumbai Diaries’, which is based on the horrifying 26/11 terror attack. This prompted her to share how she had witnessed this heart-breaking incident in real-time. I could sense the shiver in her voice when she spoke of it. She narrated the story as if it was just yesterday, with each detail etched into her mind. “For those of us who lived through it, it was an unforgettable and excruciatingly long experience of terror and uncertainty of what the day had in store for us.” She told me that the day had started as an ordinary one for the household, but everything changed in the evening. What was reportedly a “gang-war” turned out to be a series of terror attacks destroying thousands of human lives all over the city. To say that my granny was terrified would be an understatement. My uncle was stuck at the bank he worked in, and my grandpa was at a railway station. “I thank God for whatever it was that made him miss his train to CST station that day. That night I didn’t sleep for a second. Thankfully, the trauma ended when they returned home safely. We realised how fragile life is and how important every moment is with your loved ones.”
Perhaps, this is the reason she encourages me to live life to the fullest. “You’re 15 now, Charu. You’ll see a lot of people leave and you won’t always get a goodbye. So, make every moment, every conversation, and every meeting count.” And thus, I entered 2022 a little wiser, a little light-hearted and full of hope and determination to make the best of what’s yet to come.
Charu Anuraj is currently in Class 10 at Amity International School, Sector 6, Vasundhara, India. She is a voracious reader and prolific writer whose imagination traverses a spectrum of genres. She is also a keen observer of her surroundings, and this had helped her in developing a sense of humanity and empathy. Her myriad interests include dancing, MUN-ing, writing poems and travelling.
