Of all the people I know, I was the one who spent the most time with my grandmother. Sometimes she was sweet and sometimes she was not. She was not so kind to my mother and that did tick me off but still, she was my grandmother, the person who taught me how to play cards, the person who taught me how to cook, the person who got me interested in watching shows and movies and the person who got me interested in reading. You see, she studied in school only till class 6 but taught herself a whole new language and diligently solved the crossword in the newspaper every day till she died.
She stitched clothes for me on her hand-operated sewing machine. She taught me the basics of embroidery. She also gossiped about my mom with my aunts and this one time I screamed at her for doing so.
I was 15 when she died.
Till then, I had seen her trunk lying in her bedroom every single day. The truck full of trinkets, sarees, things she used, things she cherished.
We as a family were grieving her loss. There was also so much to do, so much to manage, so many people were to stay at our place. It was chaos.
Even before her ashes cooled down, her daughters and their daughters opened all her stuff and took away things that belonged to her.
Me and mom, who spent most time with her, who were there with her in her final days were left with almost nothing.
All I could get was a scarf. A scarf to remember my grandmother.
It broke my heart. Not because I got just a cotton scarf but because they couldn’t wait to open her belongings and take those things away.
One of my aunt when so far as to say that we visited because our mother was here. Now that she isn’t we won’t. Like me, my dad, my brother, my mom meant nothing. These words were spoken to me, a very impressionable 15yo and I could not get over it for a long time.
Nobody really talks about her anymore though. Maybe they do it amongst themselves.
I carried the scarf with me to every city I moved and have it tucked in my closet even today. Every time I look at it I think of her saying her favourite line, “Le ri, aapan to khelaan.” (Come, let’s play (cards)).
Her name was Kanta, she gave herself that name when she had to take admission at school because her parents didn’t even care to name their last three daughters (total 7). She was smart, always well-dressed and super stylish.
