I was standing in the kitchen in silence, my hands on my grandmother's shoulders as she was preparing dinner for my grandfather with same patience as I have seen her for years while serving meals. She asked me to clean the plate from the bottom and bowls from the rim as he dislikes all this. Yes, he disliked serving in wet plate and soiled bowl rims but now he doesn't realize all this.
Years passed, seasons changed and even the period of each season has changed. But all these years I am unable to remember any instance when my grandmother cursed anyone's behavior or anybody's dependence on her. She is the same person and she looks as beautiful as always. With age some people loose patience,some people adapt an alarming threshold of patience and some people keep radiating aplomb all through their lives. My grandmother belongs to third kind amongst these three kinds.
My grandfather doesn't even know what he is eating, why he is eating and even who is the person who is taking care of him all the time. But she serves him the same way as ever. Anyone can sense his uneasiness when she is not around for a longer time. I say, this is what my grandmother has earned - "respect and honor" from everyone.
I was sitting and talking to her while my grandfather was having dinner and she was so carefully helping him. In between she was asking me about my friends, my uncles, aunts, their children and I was answering all her questions completely lost. My physical presence was defeated by the thoughts I was engrossed in. So many emotions were struggling inside me and all of them pushed me to a quick journey that I am yet to travel. Many questions were arising in my mind and all were making me feel even smaller. When would I be so patient, so calm, so responsible, so serene and so beautiful? I was loosing my self with a strange feeling. I remembered the times when I become loud when my mother asks me same thing thrice or the time when I feel tired with my aunts' same questions or when my brother becomes over caring or when I am neck deep into work in office. I felt that when would I be so committed to everything I do. Suddenly, the word "commitment" seemed so heavy to me that was enough to pull all the joys and happiness to an unknown darkness. I felt it so hard to be so good.
The thoughts were dense enough to blank my eyes and mind when suddenly my grandmother waved her hands near my face and smiled and asked me with same sweetness, "beta kahan kho gayi? khaana abhi khaayegi ya baad mein?"
Now, we were sitting in front of TV watching some serial and having dinner. I don't know what magical spices mothers put in the food that is always 101 on 100 on the scale of looks and deliciousness. The color of each curry just enough to make hunger wake up of the slumbers. I praised her culinary skills at length and she kept smiling mildly in her own way, draped in her favorite floral print, pastel shade saree. All my cousins call those sarees, if ever seen in the market as Naani's TM.
After finishing the magical meal, we finished all the "end of the day kitchen tasks"
and sat back to talk. After a long pause she told me that she is happy to see me grown up and now working but she doesn't like my working 12 hours and on a holiday too. On this, I did not say anything which is very unlikely. But when she speaks I only listen. She told me that she feels bad how our generation lives a mechanical life and how we earn so much and even then we are not happy with ourselves. I told her that this is need of hour and we cannot help it.
She took a deep sigh and started talking, "We were so young when we got married. We did not have so many things but we were happy." She took a pause and then continued, "I am happy with everything today also". I looked at her blankly and asked her," how do you absorb everything that is going around you"? She looked at me and said, "When you do something for your people you feel happy, when you help them and take care of them you feel happier and when you do even more you feel the best". With this she stood up, switched off the light, turned on the mosquito repellent and left.
I kept looking at the dim light on the ceiling coming from the ventilator. Chowkidaar's bamboo stick was echoing in the colony and my mind was coming back to the sane world outside my mind. I felt the word "commitment" so heavy when I had measured my comforts but loveliest when I realized the happiness that blankets your heart because of the happiness of the people you do care........
