Remembering Mamma - my grandmother

(Note to reader: This piece was written on 3rd June 2009, when I was vacationing in Ooty. I am uploading it in this blog today. Hence the term "today" in the post henceforth would mean 3rd June 2009 and not the day of posting)

It is exactly five years ago that Mamma left all of us. Today, as I sit amidst the Nilgiri slopes under a deep blue sky writing this piece, I reflect on the significance of the Ooty connection. Five years back R and I had planned an Ooty vacation that had to be cancelled because of on an urgent business trip to US that couldn't be avoided. It was during my flight to Chicago that Mamma breathed her last. She had been suffering for a while and she had died in her sleep. She was my last surviving grandparent - others having passed away when I was a child.

My earliest memories of Mamma is of when we - my parents, sister and I - used to visit my grandparents in Kolkata. My grandfather - Dadu - was still alive then and I must have been less than five. Dadu was old and he used to suffer from a persistent cough - a legacy of multiple bouts of pneumonia that had afflicted him. Mamma being much younger than Dadu was stronger then. Though she suffered from acute arthritic pain at times, she was quite active in those days. She ruled the kitchen - she was a a fairly good cook. However she was finicky about cleanliness and hygiene - which to our exasperation she used to take to extremes. Puja and cooking took most of her time and energy - and she was either cooking, cleaning or at Puja. She was quite particular about what could be left to servants and what had to be done by her personally. Those days there was no dining table used in the kitchen and we used to sit on wooden seats called Piris laid on the floor and were served food on heavy brass utensils. Mamma made sure we didn't spill food on the Piri and that we held our glass of water with our right hands. These were rules necessitated by her laws of cleanliness.

Mamma had no teeth - having lost all of them to extractions at the dentist. That made her look quite different from her photographs taken at a younger age. In fact I had never seen Mamma with any teeth. I wonder how she used to have her meals - typically rice in the afternoons and milk and rotis at night. One thing she indulged in was Paan. She used to have one after each meal. The Paan had to be pounded into a smooth paste in a mortal-pestle and she would scoop the paste and put it in her toothless mouth with great relish. I used to look forward to do the grinding of the Paan and whenever I was around, she would allow me to make the paste for her. Mamma never went anywhere without her Paan box and the mortar-pestle.

During our visits to Kolkata - sleeping arrangement had to be made for all - and it used to be such that I had to sleep in her bed. As mentioned earlier, Mamma suffered from arthritic pain in her joints, and she used to love when I massaged her fingers and arms. Mamma used to have a hot water bag with her in bed - which gave her comfort. Mamma was an early riser and after waking us she used to start singing devotional songs which used to wake me up as well.

After Dadu died, she came to stay with us in Bokaro and spent about six months with us. During that time she still used to cook - though purely vegetarian stuff - now that she was a widow. Mamma used to love watching movies and she would always accompany us to the Bokaro Club on movie days. She would wear starched white saris and applied a lot of powder on her face. She had a mole on her back - that would peep from above her blouse , I used to love just twiddling and twirling it with my fingers. She was quite indulgent about this.

Mamma eventually went back to Kolkata . My uncle rebuilt the house and Mamma retired from the kitchen and spent almost all her time in her room in the new house. My aunt used to take care of most of her needs and she spent her days in Puja and cleaning Puja related artifacts. The floor in her room was always wet from her constant cleaning and mopping. She would start her Puja in mid morning and it used to go on till late afternoon - post which she used to have her afternoon meal - really really late.

After retirement, my father built a house on the rear side of the plot in Kolkata and Mamma moved in with my parents. Her arthritis had worsened and eysight was bad. She was also quite bent now - from the constant bending posture she had from her Pujas and cleaning. She had stopped reading because of failing eyesight and she would listen to her radio a lot. She had also developed a habit of collecting odd things, rags and various food stuff that she kept in her room. My mother managed her quite well, though my father did get very angry with her at times. Mamma became totally dependant on my mother for all her needs and my mother took very good care of her. As she grew older, she was more and more confined in her room. Later when R & I visited my parents, she would welcome us with huge toothless smile. On my birthdays she would give me a princely amount of Rs 10 or so as a birthday present.

Mamma used to call me Visha Kavi - or world poet - since I was born on Tagore's Birth Anniversary day. I suppose she was much more of a poet than I can ever be. In her younger days, she had written a complete Shayama Sangeet in the middle of night after waking up from a nightmare. She had dreamt that my father was being kidnapped by dacoits and then in her dream she sang this song in praise of Kali. She remembered that song and she wrote it down in lantern light.
That's what Mamma was....