My Mother's Mother.

Two Things, first.

a) I lost my brother, and both my grandparents in a span of two years. It was tough in many ways, on both my mum and me, in separate ways.
b) My Mother and I normally communicate a lot. And frequently. We call each other, email , on the worst days, about 20 times a day.... share angst and songs and books and memories,too. But we mostly fight. And Argue. And pretend we are lawyers in the Supreme Court. We dont just have to fight, we have to do it right.

I miss my grandmother.I miss how kind she was to animals, and I miss how gentle she would be in her gentler moments. And I miss how much a lady she would be. Even on her illest and sickest days, she would spend a certain few minutes checking the lampshade, fussing that the tea had spilt onto the saucer, and that her red "teep"was not quite right. These things made an impression, as I knew I would never even try...and that my mother with her cabbage-cut hair style, wouldn't ever bother either. About   lampshades, curtains or saucepans.
My grandmother would wake up everyday, at four am, to wash every fruit and vegetable in the fridge. Even if it was washed the day before. At five am, she would call my mum. And the two women would talk. About College, classes, when to meet at Saturday Club, that the Cat was throwing a tantrum, that the Dog was being destructive, that the men in their lives were worthless, that Suchitra Sen/Mitra was singing somewhere and that Nelson Mandela was going through a bad time. Similar conversation would happen sometime in the evening, when Ma wasnt supervising homework or doing corrections, and Dida wasn't supervising Dinner,cats and Grandfather, or doing corrections.
Everyday, the five am conversation. Unless one of the mothers were abroad, in which case there was a time difference to be reckoned with. Delhi ( my mother) and Dhaka (my grandmother) was not considered travelling, and fell well within the Calcutta timezone.

And because I missed my Dida, I tried doing things that I wouldn't ever tell anyone about. I would, on the sly... read a little bit of the literature she would read. I would listen to songs that she would listen to, and sing.  I started thinking back on the stuff she would cook, and I searched my memory and palate for smells and spices...And I realized I had no name for "black stones", "brown seeds", "green powder...." and what not.
I wore Batik one day. I went to Ceylon...because of all her stories, the Ceylon stories were the best.I knew which places to go to,too! I spoke to a goat one day, like my grandmother would speak to animals. And the goat responded. I really thought a lot of my Grandmother. And as much as I dont show it, I miss that way she spoke to animals. Elephants in Africa and monkeys in Japan have been calmed and soothed by her.

I could never share with my mother all of this.Somehow, I was aware that my mother missed her. And though I felt for my Mum, and wanted to hear her, and share her pain...what I wanted to really scream was that I miss my Dida,too! And I would get so MAD that I couldn't share this. Yet, in the same breath I wanted to tell my mother that I will be there, always. I would wonder what I needed to do, and how. I wanted to badly for us to talk about my Dida, and I wanted to know how Ma remembered her.

Today, I had a bad-ish dream. And I wanted to call my mum soon as I woke up (I didn't. I didn't want a Moot Court Session while I was still in my blanket). I was horrified for a while.
I realized that my mother had lost her mother. Do you know what that meant, I asked myself.
And that grief was just too much for me.I felt ashamed that I still wasnt ready to share that grief. That I was still....well... not man enough.I hate it when I cant be man enough. Do you know what that means, I asked myself.
Then I  missed home, cats, books and daal-bhaat... in the worst possible way.