I'd got up at 4 and after the morning chores, my maman and me had left for Thiruvallam. We're under the impression that we're very early but found that we'd missed out on the first round of the ceremony. Consequently, we'd to wait for another hour and a half and it gave me an opportunity to dwell upon my ammachi and the kindness that she'd showered upon me.
* * *
Had she been alive, she'd have been all of 97 years. Would she have been healthy and independent, free of old age inadequacies? She wasn't bedridden even for a single day when death had snatched her away from us. Perhaps, the single way of getting over her absence is to be happy that she didn't suffer at all when the end had come about.
* * *
I would like to believe that she was fond of having me around her. I can never forget the manner in which she had cried when I was being taken away to the Sainik School for admission. As she'd told me in one of our conversations, she fancied me to be a good doctor when I grew up. Probably, by not choosing that profession I'd forsaken an opportunity to look after her medical problems!......... Her tears were back when I'd boarded my first train for the National Defence Academy. I think she never wanted me to go away from her watchful eyes. Her words at my wedding was apocryphal to say the least and I quote, "I can now go after having witnessed your marriage and I was waiting for it all this while".
A little over a month later, she'd passed into the mist of time!
* * *
Quite earlier on, she used to make sweets and other 'Malayali delicacies when I came home from school during Onam. She'd told me that she was stopping that practice when I'd joined the Academy because I could not be at home during that particular period. And that was that! No one else in the house ever dared to complain about that decision.
Tailpiece.
(a) My grandmother nay, Ammachi bestest!
(b) It's been twenty three years since she'd passed into the mist of time. But I can feel her near me even now!
(c) As my mom and her sisters had quipped, "Today, amma must be very happy. Her yearly ceremony was attended by the two whom she liked most!"
PS.
Ammachi, will I get another chance to be your grandson all over again?
* * *
Had she been alive, she'd have been all of 97 years. Would she have been healthy and independent, free of old age inadequacies? She wasn't bedridden even for a single day when death had snatched her away from us. Perhaps, the single way of getting over her absence is to be happy that she didn't suffer at all when the end had come about.
* * *
I would like to believe that she was fond of having me around her. I can never forget the manner in which she had cried when I was being taken away to the Sainik School for admission. As she'd told me in one of our conversations, she fancied me to be a good doctor when I grew up. Probably, by not choosing that profession I'd forsaken an opportunity to look after her medical problems!......... Her tears were back when I'd boarded my first train for the National Defence Academy. I think she never wanted me to go away from her watchful eyes. Her words at my wedding was apocryphal to say the least and I quote, "I can now go after having witnessed your marriage and I was waiting for it all this while".
A little over a month later, she'd passed into the mist of time!
* * *
Quite earlier on, she used to make sweets and other 'Malayali delicacies when I came home from school during Onam. She'd told me that she was stopping that practice when I'd joined the Academy because I could not be at home during that particular period. And that was that! No one else in the house ever dared to complain about that decision.
Tailpiece.
(a) My grandmother nay, Ammachi bestest!
(b) It's been twenty three years since she'd passed into the mist of time. But I can feel her near me even now!
(c) As my mom and her sisters had quipped, "Today, amma must be very happy. Her yearly ceremony was attended by the two whom she liked most!"
PS.
Ammachi, will I get another chance to be your grandson all over again?
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