Granny Potter!!!!
Chronicles of Naani-maaa :)
Intro: Like most Indian families, when the schools shut or we were too young, we used to go to our maternal grandparents house in Jamshedpur every year for vacations. My mother being the second sibling, the eldest sister lived then in MP and younger brother in Jamshedpur itself. The rule laid down by my Granpa then was simple but loud and clear. Since the house was not too big, the visits of both sisters in Jamshedpur had to be one by one. First one sister and family would come and just when they are about to leave, the last week the second sister would come and join the family. This way the entire cousin lot interacted for one week in total. Great idea but in this fast paced society, this is one such tradition that is dying fast….
The cousin lot….
Delhi Kids (US): Me and 3 years elder sister Sangeeta
The MP Bros: Ramesh 4 months elder and 5+ years older bro Rajesh
Jampot Bachha: 4 months younger than me Kartik and (decade little kid sister Kritika not our generation anyways.)
FYI
Paati: Here Naani maternal side
Tata: Tata as in Tata Nagar, Jamshedpur and also Granpa in Tamil
Naiyee: White butter boiled and made to a southy ghee.
The Chronicles of Naani-maaa, well I am told they were mainly mine…read on…if you may! I can’t say…please though!
Paati: And then you put your foot into our Kadma (Tata Nagar) house latrine and your foot got badly struck…With super irritated shrilled pitch of your howls, and an absolute wrecked elder sister of yours, in all of 3 years or more your record of waking up the entire locality of Jamshedpur that morning should still be pretty much intact…
Me: The shrillness is still there, but in giggles now…But Paati I am on my father Na… the genes of loudspeaker voice comes from His Highness you see…Pat comes the reply, but then I also had adamancy and stubbornness mixed with the above mentioned shrill voice. A trait that I quite carefully exhibited and only when I was in need of something…How clever!
Paati: Do you constipate now? (Excuse me paati?) I mean, you constipated quite bad when you were little…that year when you came for vacations to Jamshedpur in 1983 or 84…You were some 5 years old…we had to use a famous soap then called'OK'…The screechy howls were back again and yet you just wouldn’t do it…It hurt you alright … and though you would start happily, suddenly you would stop…Tch! what a pain? You would keep it in an in-between stage and refuse to pop it out and insist you have to getup too as your legs hurt sitting in the latrine…To get you to do it was a daunting excersize… The entire family in the house would stop and watch the show asking “kiya? Vanduda? We never thanked god that much after each day…
Me: Oh My God Paati you are really Gross…what about the fact that Tata beat me because I plucked just a rose from his most exquisite garden…I was so young, how would I know? :(
Paati: Arey, don’t you say a word about him…he never could beat you…Everyone was so scared of your howls that they thought it was better to bear the brunt rather…Though you used this weapon quite effortlessly and do I say regularly...For poor Tata, his garden was everything just like Ashok Kumar in the film Khoobsoorat …and to pluck a flower was difficult yes but not impossible…but know what you would do? You would quietly go in the afternoons and mess up with the roses. Some mad girl had taught you how to scrape rose-petals and apply them on your nails as nail polish…Since we had most color of roses, you wanted a different shade everyday…and so child it was never one single rose…it was one single rose everyday…
Me: Ooops, paati sorry about that…Yes I did that but look at the irony of it…I hardly ever apply nail paints these days…But paati Ramesh used to cheat me on Gold Spot and Campa caps…why the heck, what would that do to him anyways…those were mine…just because he was older by silly 4 months…
(Paati swaying her head from left to right in slow motion reminded me of the girl in Ek chidiya anek chidiya…haha…)
Paati: Woh tum sab ajeeb thay (You all were weird) Rajesh loved to pick on road sides to collect matches (box), Sangeeta (my sis) loved pens, Kartik loved to simply sharpen pencils and loved to see the flowering of the wood above the sharpener and get slaps from his father…and Ramesh and you were mad about caps of Campa and Gold Spot and other drinks…apparently there was something behind the cap of these cold-drinks.. Mickey, Minnie Mouse…and you guys smelled the rubber to identify if it was a cola or an orange juice…and play some silly game…
Me: Okay, but tell me something, have I ever embarrassed that bad?
Paati: Of course you always embarrassed everyone; you would do the unexpected…we would hide Nayee/ghee somewhere and in order to eat it you would drop flour, coffee powder all over you…when you were very young, you caught hold of a cockroach, and that almost would have become your meal, had your mother not picked you in time…all this…again while you were sitting to…you know…hahahaha…
Me: Eeeeks, Paati if there is any one thing on earth I am scared off, that would have to be the one and only – Stupid Cockroach…Also, surely I think I was at my best behavior during ..Yes I know it! HeHe. But paati, don’t tell me everything was just me…We were five, Rajesh the eldest, Sangeeta after that…Ramesh, I and then Karthik… How is it that you have only me as a culprit… surely you would have stories of them too right….
Paati: What is a child that is not naughty, but this naughty, baba re… while all children were naughty, you stood out…you have bothered us so much in the past when you were all of 5 years and before…that even now when it comes to stories, it is only yours that comes to my mind the most… Things like aunty can I have a toffee, despite some 100 times told by your mother to not ask in public…you would ask for a toffee and to that your mother would lightly pinch and you would embarrass her by crying like a thunder saying she beat you…in front of everyone…
Me: Ha-ha Paati after all, I made the stay memorable, didn’t I?…Being naughty is nice paati, kids should be a bunch of trouble…But I am amazed, you have so much in your memory even after 83 years…how come paati…You are so cool…
Paati: These are not mere memories kanna; these are moments etched on my skin…. I am happy the way I am and as long I live, I just hope I am never a burden or bed ridden…God give me strength else take me…That’s all…and Sujju kutti…by the way, I still love plain non-masala Maggie…you used to make ages ago…in Sahibabad…
Me & Paati: What???? "School se aate dhoom machaate, ek hee baat hamesha dohraate, la la la la bhookh lagee hai.... Maagie Maagie Maagie" (Ha Ha Ha Chorus)
Me:…How am I glad that this visit happened and I could get her to my home and keep her here for a week and give her rest and maggie;) I agree the chronicles don’t really say anything much nice about me, but know what, I thoroughly enjoyed…There are still so many stories I need to re-hear and write…
O’ Paati, you don’t even want to know what you mean to me……I need a century from you now…Best wishes and TOUCH WOOD!
