War or peace, every memory defines who my grandma is
Time travel is a fascinating subject. It has formed the backbone of many science-fiction books and cinema. The good thing is, when it comes to real life, one doesn’t need fancy machines and larger-than life characters to give you the same experience of seamlessly moving back and forth in time. This is what I felt, when I sat down with my grandmother one fine day, to listen to her relive all the memories and moments that had shaped her as a person. It seemed to me that I was present as well in each of these defining moments.
While my grandmother has largely had a comfortable childhood, one stark memory of seeing the darker side of history is from the year 1962. This was when the Sino-Indian War took place, and my grandmother was in the 8th grade.
Her voice quivered as she related the experience of dealing with regular blackouts, when everyone had to turn off their lights, and put-up black paper on their windows, so as not to let overhead enemy planes know there were people living there. Another protocol they had to adhere was to hide in bunkers whenever they heard a siren.
She remembered a food shortage as well, and how people would not get enough grains to eat. This was also the time when red rice and grains were being imported from Australia, but it turned out that these were not suitable for consumption.
Her family, in fact, had to give up eating grains for one mealtime every day, replacing it with some vegetable, such as sweet potatoes. Even though there was an atmosphere of stress and fear all around, she recalled how families and neighborhoods all rallied around each other and, they too were always willing to help anyone in need of food or shelter.
This inherent sense of compassion and nationalism in my grandmother’s family was not a chance occurrence. She came from an educated and close-knit family, and she grew up with six sisters and a brother. Even though she was a shy kid, she was always confident when it came to making life choices. She studied at Municipal Corporation Girls’ High School, Lodhi Road, Delhi, obtained her BA from Kalindi College, Delhi University, and then went on to become a senior officer at Vijaya Bank till she retired in 2010.
The years my grandmother recalls most fondly are those when her family lived in a kothi (private house) in the same residential complex as that of India’s Presidential House, the Rashtrapati Bhavan. This had happened because her father was the Deputy Secretary to several Indian Presidents, from Dr. Radhakrishnan to Giani Zail Singh.
I felt an equal sense of honour when she talked with pride about her father and his deep sense of duty towards his work and nation. And understandably so, as my grandmother described the kothi as one would castles of the old, with gardens bigger than my school’s playground, and a living room as huge as my entire home.
As a lover of nature, I could truly visualize them in my mind, for they contained everything from vegetables and flowers to domestic hens and rabbits. I think I’d quite like to spend an afternoon there, soaking in the peace and tranquility of the place.
As we dove deeper into her memories, she talked about how she played badminton, pakdam-pakdai and pitthu with her siblings, how they all gathered in the kitchen and sat down on mats to eat as a family, and how one of her elder sisters was the biggest shirker of chores in the world. She told me about how, on holidays, they’d go down to the nearby Lodhi Road Park and how her father would take them on nightly strolls to buy sweets and peanuts. She was equally attached to her doting mother, and she recalled fondly how her mother used to put aside a cup of milk just for her because she would not be able to sleep at night without it.
When my grandmother became a mother to two children herself, she passed on the same loving attention to them. The best stories, however, about this phase of her life were the ones about my mother. It was great fun listening to how my mother was a ‘sweet baby with chubby cheeks’, how she threw a fit upon the arrival of a baby brother, but then turned out to be the over-protective sibling!
At the end of it all, we were misty-eyed and lost in the memories of a time long gone, yet as equally dear and vivid, as they were on the day they were made. Learning so much about someone I love was exhilarating and wonderfully peaceful, for now I knew and understood her much better than I had done before. I’m not sure about a lot of things in my life, but I know that I will forever keep this experience close to my heart.
Anika Bansal is a student of Class 10 at Amity International School, Vasundhara Sector-6, India. She is a member of the School Editorial Board, proficient in writing well-researched and articulate stories. She has contributed a variety of articles, ranging from imaginative poems to eye-catching lead stories.
