by Shreya Ramachandran
This personal story is one that I have been trying to tell since 2006. Eight years since Thatha, my grandfather, died. I have told bits and pieces of the story before, of course. I have described to people how my grandfather died, chosen select portions to tell friends and relatives if they asked about my grandparents or those who asked me whether anyone close to me had died. I even attempted writing about him for a non-fiction class during a writing workshop. But I have never properly and cohesively put down all my thoughts about him in one place and created something formal and structured. This is my attempt at finally telling his story.
My family and I lived in Madras until I was 14, and Thatha was living with us then. He had his own room in our house. Six of his siblings lived in a family house on Sarangapani Street in T. Nagar, and he would often visit them in the evenings, at least four times a week. Every morning and evening, he would go for a walk, unfailingly. When I was starting to learn how to cycle, I would see him on the roads, in his white full-sleeve shirt and white veshti andblack chappals. He drank coffee in the evenings. He walked all the way to Suriya Sweets sometimes on his evening walks, and came back with packets of cornflakes mixture and kai murukku, and occasionally ghee poli for himself, though he was diabetic. He always put sugar in his coffee too, sometimes one or two extra spoons. Sometimes, he brought home theratti paal from Aavin Milk, and Britannia orange cream biscuits. In the nights, he would eat curd rice in a steel bowl, with a bright coloured pool of lime pickle or vethhakozhumbu from the afternoon.
Both my parents used to work, and my sister and I would be home alone after school. Thatha was there usually, and he used to help my sister with her homework. He’d let her take long breaks during her work, with a progressively longer break between “each homework”, as my sister would say, and then after she finished, “the longest break of all”. She would slide on the silver foot-scooter through the house while I unpacked my bag and came to terms with Maths, the History test, the English questions I had left over from classwork. He would take afternoon naps lying on the floor of his room, and for a pillow he would use his red towel. He always wore the red towel on his shoulder, along with his banian and faded veshti with maroon and green borders. He used to wake up at the smallest sound; he was a very light sleeper, and sometimes if I just shuffled past his room with slightly louder footsteps than normal, or said something near his door, he would wake up. In the evenings, I’d be watching TV and he would come into the room to say hello before he left for his walk.
He wrote Shri Rama Jayam, the prayer, on one full page every day in his diary. He taught me how to write it, in Tamil. In the early mornings, he would meditate, sitting on his chair and closing his eyes. He had books to fill an entire shelf in his cupboard, and enjoyed reading a book or sometimes a Tamil magazine.
He knew every single mythological tale and story about Gods. He would tell me and my sister these stories sometimes, when we would be sitting in his room, and sometimes these stories would blend into stories of my father and uncle growing up, and then come back to Rama and Vali and Sugreeva. He’d listen to the radio – Carnatic music and conversations too fast for me to understand – and sometimes the TV in his room would be on, though mostly it was only on in the background while he was sleeping or reading.
He fell ill when I was 13; he was on an evening walk when he slipped and fell down, and broke his hip. After his hip replacement surgery, he needed physiotherapy and medications for other complications and he continued to be ill, for the rest of his life.
When Thatha was ill, he used to find it difficult to walk, and his body would hurt after physiotherapy. His room always smelled of harsh medicine and chemicals, and he needed a nurse to take care of him. He always felt pain, and his body was weak and his mind was exhausted. He was ill in a permanent and lingering way,one that could not be fixed by time or medicine or anything. He changed. He never wore his gold spectacles, his reading glasses, anymore. They were folded and lay on the bedside table behind his bed, along with a stack of books and sheaves of paper.
A few weeks before he died, Thatha was sitting up in bed one early morning and looking out of the window. He was finally wearing his spectacles again. I walked to his room, and when he saw me, he smiled and asked me to come in.
He told me, when I asked him how he was, that he was feeling fine, and that he was fine with dying. He said everyone’s life goes up, and up, and then has to come down. He was fine with his life coming down.
My mother was in the kitchen, and she said, “I’m cutting apples, ask Thatha if he also wants.”
I went into Thatha’s room, feeling like I was talking to the old version of him before he was sick, when this could have been any day, any morning. “Thatha, do you want apple?”
“Is it available?” he asked.
“Yes, Amma is cutting.”
“Then yes, please. Will you also take?”
I thought of that conversation many times later. Each time, it was as if Thatha was telling that to me all over again. It was like a consolation, like him reaching out through all that distance just to say it. I never felt bad about his death, because he didn’t feel bad himself. I just missed him, the way you miss storybook characters after the book ends. You know you’ll always have them, but you want more, you want them to be able to eat lunch the way you are eating lunch, and feel the rain the way you feel the rain.
One day, when my sister and I were at home alone and Thatha was sitting in our room with us; he told us a story about Krishna and Balarama, and then in the middle of all our questions about the story, he said, “How much I love you both, you know?” His question rang through the years after he died, eight whole years, and I never have had any answers. I tried and tried to write about him but never could. I tried to describe how much he meant to me, how much I liked him, how without him in the house, everything felt different.
I don’t know why my Spark article, which originated as a piece on my mother, eventually became about my grandfather, or why I had to write this now. But this story is my attempt at an answer.
Shreya Ramachandran is a 20-year-old writer and student from Madras, attempting to write honestly about herself and her world.
Pic by https://www.flickr.com/photos/durotriges/
