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For as long as I can remember, my grandmum has always been old, almost timeless. Time is perhaps the most active change agent. It makes even actors and actresses, with millions to spare for matters, cosmetic, look like second hand imitations of their older selves – but what can it take of those like my Avayya?
In many ways, I always assumed she had conquered time. Even looking at her lying motionless, now, in the midst of a crowd, it only seemed as if she was going to awake from her nap and sip her cup of black coffee, and then some time later, brandy with hot water.
She lived a simple life that belay the many tribulations, women – especially those widowed at an early age – overcame for the prosperity of their family. At 101, she had passed. Quietly.
As the mournful masses milled around her body to pay their final respects, I couldn’t keep a steady mind. I was sad but also confused.
She was a reservoir of knowledge, the lone connecting thread between five generations of a family that stretched across many geographies far from her native town.
My own personal memories of her were fond.
When we were children, we visited Coorg in the summers a couple of times. Avayya – probably in her 70s then – still managed a home and an estate by herself. I found old houses eerie – a fact manifoldly exacerbated by Avayya’s telling us of our long deceased Granddad’s proclivities for pinching people’s bottoms in the night. I huddled under the blankets in the night, my tiny bottom firmly planted on the ground, waiting to fall asleep. It worried me greatly that the others seemed unperturbed by Granddad’s post life nocturnal harassment. Some even attested, amusingly, that they had been subject to said antics.
Sometimes, while making supper in the kitchen, she’d venture out in the abject darkness to fetch firewood or water. While we sat beside her and ate rotis and bamboo shoot curry, she’d narrate anecdotes of people and events that, for us city rats, seemed from North of Jupiter. Somehow, she seemed to know it all. Mostly, her stories were about our Uncle Jimmy and his drunken misadventures. She had a wry smile; her eyes closed momentarily in a wink. And if you saw her then, with the many wrinkles even, her face betrayed a childlike impish charm.
The week after she passed, we had a traditional ceremony. The family gathered to partake in the rituals – that included sharing her virtues, praying to the gods to look upon her kindly, offering her favourite things: food and drink.
While we took turns keeping aside a morsel of rice and meat, each, for her on a plantain leaf, somebody remarked to refill the brandy. Apparently, the level of brandy in the glass from the night before had depressed. While some of us looked at Bopu, who maintained it had evaporated, I couldn’t help but smile.
It just could have been Avayya and her imaginary friends.
(Roshan Cariappa is a Bangalore-based tech entrepreneur, occasional writer, and musician. He finds inspiration in Bharat, dharma, economics, music, and startups. He tweets at @carygottheblues.)
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