Memories of a Man

Exactly one year ago, after my dinner at night, my mom had called me to say that my grandfather is probably no more. She used probably to lessen the shock it would have on me, because last time I had seen him, he showed no signs of the plans he had in his mind. Plans to leave us, me, unexpectedly, for a place from where painful memories stream into you for as long as you live. He was perfectly fit, an athletic that he was, walked upright and enquired about me, from my job to bringing home his grand grand kid. How would he have loved to see the four generations of us sitting in the lap of one another smiling smiles from different ages! From different worlds separated by times of a lifetime.

I remember the days when I used to walk holding his hand. He was the tallest at home and hence, I loved most to climb onto his shoulders, as it afforded me the maximun view of the world around me. And also the thrill of maximum height from ground. When about to fall, I held on to his hair, not realizing then how it must have hurt him. He would smile and say, "Don't make me like your father". He hadn't lost his hair till he lost his life. Before his aftennoon siestas I used to sit hear him with a grain of paddy to pick and pull his grey hairs. And massage his enormous body to sleep.

He was my greatest saviour. I hid behind him to save myself from my parent's fury when I messed up with my homework or hit my younger sister. Or ventured into the kitchen and ate something I shouldn't have eaten. No one dared pull me from his clutches. It was a place where I got supreme protection from the vagaries of the world. In the loving cocoon of his arms I saw myself grow into an unfaithful someone who hardly now remembers him, unless he is called up and made to remember his grandfather's death anniversary.

There have been innumerable wintry nights when I had escaped from my bed and slipped under his blanket into the warm comforting feeling of his chest. I would put my legs on top of him and dig my face into his neck. He would curl his hands around me and I would sleep stiller than death. He slept only after I did and when I ran a temperature and couldn't sleep, he would pat me and run his fingers through my hair. I would love the coolness of his body then. He would caress his hot and ill grandson till the the smaller of the two fell asleep.

I wouldn't let him go when he left me for a couple of days for work. I would hold onto his fingers, legs, shirt hem, hair - anything I could lay my hands on - to plead my mom not to separate me from him so ruthlessly. I would scream and roll to the floor crying, tears making of mud of the floor-dust. He was my life, then. And I was his life, all through his life.

I called him all kinds of names. Some male, some female. He had come to accept all the naming I did for him and answered when I called him with his weird names. I watched with rapturous attention when he shaved or - even more interestingly - took out his test tube to check his blood sugar. I have ran several times trying to fetch like mad his medicines when he felt pain in his chest. His heart was so heavy with all the love he had for me that it faltered. But, then, I too had loved him as much as one can love someone. I had learnt from him lessons to last a lifetime. Under starry nights, sitting in his lap amind wafting fragrance of mogra flower, I have been lifted off to different worlds, from magic cities in the sky to unknown depth of the ocean. His stories have spun my imagination. They have given wings to my thoughts.

We all go through the grinds of our days. Running, competing, travelling, worrying, trying to keep pace with a world that mostly seem to run faster than us. To hold our head above the rising waters of competition. I do, too. And in all these, we sometimes tend to forget or at least forget to acknowledge adequately people (such as our parents) who shaped our lives and made it what it is today. It was their sweat, their pains, their unslept nights that had kept fueling our lives. At the risk of sounding silly, I wonder, why so beautiful loving human beings ever have have to leave us.

I don't know if my kids would love their grandparents as much. They wouldn't grow up with my parents. They will only get to see their grandparents in summer vacations. They are the children of a nuclear world. They would miss the love from many who could love them probably more than I ever could. Like my grandfather did to me. More than my parents.

When I think deeply in solitude, I can feel a hole inside me. A hole from the realization that I would never be able to see my grandfather again. I will never have his comforting hug. As I write this with welling eyes, I see my grandfather sitting in his usual place - on the verandah in the morning sun - holding the newspaper, tea cup sitting beside him. I turn into a little kid, run to him, lift the flaps of the newspaper, part his legs a little and escape from the world. Into his lap. My face dug into his wrinkled stomach.