Deepavali

brings some memories from not too long ago flooding into my head. To put things mildly, there have been Deepavalis when the perfect festival was but a dream, a faraway one it seemed at that time. But now, those days seem like yesterday. Time is a strange thing. The passage of time, even more so. 

There was one Deepavali when, for the first time, mom could finally get me the crackers that we wished I could buy. And I went crazy bursting a small bucketful of those. I later gave up bursting them due to a campaign in school. 

Paatti had a way of wrapping some money in a paper->rubberband->plastic cover-> rubberband-> purse-yellow bag-> which would be knotted to the handlebar of my cycle. I would cycle back home with it. 

I sometimes wonder what it would have been like for thatha who, I am told, lead a pretty luxurious life until he lost his lands, to seeing his daughter/s go through pretty tough times. One lost her husband to cancer. The other to divorce. He was most worried about my mom coz she didn't have a job, that gave her a salary each month; or one that he understood.. They were supportive. 

Today, I wish I could bring my grandparents back together, for one day. Take them out on a drive. Maybe take them abroad. My thatha wouldn't really fall in the category of being a good looking man at all. But he had such 'gethu' in my opinion. Suave, had a splendid way of speaking English and a tremendous bearing. My grandma was the exact opposite. '3aam claas padicha Alamu' as she used to call herself. Knew zero English. And had not much clue about things like finesse and the like also didn't bother learning about them :)

But she was my mom when my own was absent working to put food on the plate. 

When I met my grandma a couple of years before she died, she told me that rarely, on our way to my school in Bombay she'd often wonder what it'd be like to fall in the wayside well and end the misery that was her life, but would be reminded of my hand holding on to hers and that she could do no such thing. Plus the usual 'Perumaal othukka maattaar' etc etc. Must have been very tough for her. They never really see me or mom do well, at least according to their definition. 

And today, I wish they could see us. Wish I could take them out. Wish I could get her, her favourite aaranji mittai. Wish I could take thatha on a lovely walk, in London perhaps. He walked at a pace and gait that would put a 20 year old to shame, even well into his late 80-s. Until one day he fell down the stairs and it rendered him immobile. His insistence on not letting anyone watch anything on the TV until his news was over. Something we all cribbed about. He'd have a field day today with all the news channels screaming for attention, this would have been his 'kid in the candy store' moment. Would have loved to hear his account of his involvement in the freedom struggle and how he produced a movie that never released and who the actors were. 

Someday, on the other side, I hope I ll get to know that they were watching us.. From somewhere. 

Miss them terribly.