HER MEMORIES-MY WISHES



My grand-mother started talking to me, yea, she always talks to me about things like food, neatness and so on, but today she told me about herself, her birth, childhood,

about her father, mother, the village, different people there and so on it went on.
Ammamma was born on__/__/____?? i don't know, apparently she deosn't know too. Her parents got married at the age of 10 and 25. yeah, her mum was 10yrs. old

when she was married to him. After a long wait, lots of prayers and pujas, they had a girl child who lived for 5 years and broke their hearts, her parents, her father
especially went deeper into spirituality and muths, mother into religion and prayers. Then they had another child, who lived. At the age of 2months, the parents took the child along, on their travel to Kasi, from Eluru, when she was three months old, they met a sadhu on a boat in Kasi, who took the child, dipped her thrice in water, cleaned her forehead, streched her arms and legs and named her, Kasi Annapurna Devi. The name couldn't have been more apt, because my grandmother never sent away a man hungry maybe completely stuffed and unbearably full but never hungry, she cooks and has been cooking since she was seven. She's Seventy exact now, and she still wakes up earlier than anyone in the house, bathes and cooks, watches the ayurveda programme, notes down every important point he says in clear, legible telugu, with dexterity better than i could ever manage. Now, the bond between ammamma and me is a long and strong thing which is pretty difficult to sum up. But going on with today, her father, whose name, i forgot to ask, and mother whose name i also forgot to ask returned home in three months, i.e. she's five months old. Within a year they went on another yatra, when she almost got lost, but well, they came home once again. She had 4 siblings, all 5 are dual named.

She had to write her 10th exams at a place a little farther from home so she stayed at her aunt's and took the exams. They had Seematummakai trees lined up along their yard. The trees were long and strong and bore plenty of fruits, since it was summer, it was practically weighed down with them, kids and teenages used to pick the using thick long sticks and eat them, by the time her exams were over my grandmother had been able to collect almost a bundle of its seeds. She went home and gave it to her father, who, at the begining of the rainy season that year, called her to the farm, ploughed the land all along the horizon of acres of fields and made her plant the seeds in them, a landless labourer followed her up by covering them. By the end of that summer they grew into strong plants and in a few years, they grew up into trees strong and independent. Ammamma reecollected the joy she had felt as a child while watching them grow and attain life. She says nothing produced naturally is ever a waste, if we are throwing away something, it only means we are incapable of using it not that the thing is incapable of being used. I don't know how far and deep the moral went, but i loved the imagination of ammamma as a child, bending over the borders of green and brown fields planting seeds in the earth, guided by her father.

I wish, i had moments like that, well, dad is there, a loving dad too, but not nature, not fields or trees or sweet smelling breeze. It feels pretty pathetic to know i stay in a blocked apartment in a crowded city where every breath adds just a little more poison to my system. This way, i'll live, i know, and life-expectancy rates of Indian women has increased to 64 years from 61yrs, previously recorded, i know, but its not about survival, it's about life. Life like my grandmother's father or like her likes or atleast like the weeds they removed, where another breath of life doesnt end up costing me two times the measure. Where the sun-rises over horizons instead of buildings, where i can roam over naked earth in naked feet and a singing heart to the rhythm of the wind freely floating by and when having had enough of it, retire home to warmth and windows to gaze out at dark, jet black skies, sprinkled with endless numbers of stars and a thoughtful book and warm bed. Isn't it like, like, life ? I want to live you know, and live to be 116.__ years old, and live, with life as life and not as survival. Strong, long, healthy, and die in a deep sleep, undisturbed.

Hahha. Where was i ?? yes,

Now, my grandmother's father's a real real impressive person. Real Impressive not just as my grandmother's father but also as a responsible, strong and kind human.

Now i bear evidence for every word - responsible, strong and kind. And the evidence might take a long time to present, so ill do that next time and end this here,

incomplete, as usual.

With any hope, i might follow this up.

Yushka.