Money matters

An acquaintance's daughter recently bought her own plane ticket for a holiday trip by paying 2/3rd of the plane fare from her own savings. She is 9 years old!

I felt so proud of her when I learnt this. As a child, although I was never asked to, I would save up all the 10 and 20 rupees I got as birthday gifts from relatives (this was the eighties, so 10 and 20 rupees mattered a lot). Once in a while, you'd see a 6-year old me squatting on the floor and fervently counting my money. Then, my maternal grandpa would visit us, top off my savings and round it off, and buy me savings certificates from the bank and the post office that would double or treble my money after a certain number of years.

Actually let me back up a little bit. I knew my money even before I had learnt my numbers. I was very little when my grandma once left a green 5 rupee note/bill in my hand as she was leaving. I was asleep, and in my sleepy state, I knew that there was money in my hand. Later, my mom took away that money, lest I lose it. When I woke up and asked for it, my mom, unmindful, tucked a red two rupee note in my hand. I threw a tantrum, saying, "I don't want red money, I want green money." This was even before I was number literate. 

When I started tutoring students in my late-teens, it became even easier to save money. My habit of buying savings certificates continued, and so did my habit of counting money. I did not need grandpa's help anymore. Once I was counting the notes when a storm appeared all of a sudden and blew away two 500 rupee notes from the top floor balcony. That was the closest I have come to having a heart attack (I ran downstairs in lightning speed and retrieved them in time though).

The excitement of counting money is gone now, simply because there is no money to see, smell, touch, and count. It is all invisible money that gets deposited in a bank. Even then, paydays are my favorite days, and I excitedly log in to my bank account to see my bank balance increase. As kids, we were never encouraged to save or earn money. Doing odd jobs for money was seen as time wasted, time that could be spent studying and improving grades. As a result, I can afford a dozen trips to Utah now, but will never know the excitement of saving and buying my own travel tickets as a nine year old. 

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Grand(father) memories

Dadu, my paternal grandfather, has been gone for more than 23 years now. What I have is mostly fragmented memories of him being annoyed with me most of the time and complaining to my ma, since I used to be naughty. As I write this, some random memories surface.

Dadu was a Hindustani classical singer. Every evening, he would religiously do riyaaz at home. He would practice using his harmonium, and dad would play the tabla whenever he was around. I would be expected to sit with him and do riyaaz as well which used to bore me to death. Often, to annoy him, I would mimic him singing aa-aa-aa-aaa-aa in a funny way. Once, I even told him, “Dadu, stop teaching me boring songs. Teach me some Bollywood songs.”

I once threw away his dentures on the garage roof. Just like that. He could not eat solids for days after that. 

8:40 pm news on Doordarshan, and he used to be glued to the TV. Which meant I had to start dancing right in front of the TV to annoy him.

He used to tell me stories. Action stories about ghosts and rajputro (prince). No romantic prince meets princess mush. There were many kinds of ghosts. Rakhhosh. Khokkosh. Petni. Shankchunni. Konnokaata bhoot. Bemmodityo bhoot. Once the story was over, I would always ask for the lyaj (tail). This meant that a few extra minutes had to be added to the story, since I was not done yet. So the ghost would be revived, and killed once again. Every afternoon I returned from school, I would cartwheel on the bed and wake him up from his afternoon nap for my story time. And his stories never put me to sleep. They were like action movies. If anything, I would be wide awake and listening.

He used to wear a blue and white vertical striped shirt that is so firmly etched in my memory that once I was dining out with a guy friend and I said, “Goodness, you are wearing a grandfather shirt.”

So that I am not scared of ghosts, he had taught me the mantra “Bhoot amar poot, petni amar jhi, Ram Lokkhon bukey aachey, korbe amar ki” (The ghosts are my sons and daughters. God is in my heart, so nothing can happen to me). I am all grown up now and live alone, but sometimes when I hear a sound and get startled, I involuntarily start chanting this mantra in my head really fast.

After his cerebral stroke, his hands used to shake while writing. So once, I deliberately wrote a letter to dad with shaky hands, and gave it to him, saying that dadu had a note for him.

He would not let us say the word snake in Bangla after sunset. Some superstition. So every now and then, I’d go really close to his ears and say, “Snake!” And all hell would break loose. 

Okay, last one. Dadu used to walk very slowly, with a stick, and was a nervous and panicky person. His favorite afternoon job was to go around the house and count the number of people, to make sure everyone except dad was home. So he would go count Dida, Ma, and my sister. But where am I? Well, I was really tiny and short then. So as he walked slowly, I used to tippy toe right behind him. He would be walking the entire house looking for me, without realizing that I am walking right behind him (remember those Tom & Jerry cartoons?). Even if he realized, he walked so slowly that by the time he turned around, I would have turned around with him too.

I wonder where he is now. If there is life after death, I realize that he would be a twenty-something young man now, in some corner of the world. Maybe still in college. Maybe trying to impress young chicks with his music. And hopefully with a lot of hair. Ever since I remember him, he was bald. Actually my dad says the same thing. He has always remembered dadu bald.

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Grand Storytelling

A gentleman once boarded a crowded bus on a wintry morning, traveling with his wife, and two cauliflowers. Freshly plucked, he had bought them from the grocer near the Howrah Station for an excellent deal. A pair of huge cauliflowers with ripe florets weighed down his arms while he stood in the crowd. With her tiny frame, his wife had somehow managed to find a seat in the bus. However, he kept standing, making small talk with his fellow passengers, like he always did. 

For the rest of the ride, he held on to the bus rails with one hand, beaming and recounting to the fellow passengers how he had struck gold by managing to find these cauliflowers for ten rupees only. The fellow passengers nodded with interest. As the rickety bus continued to navigate the cobbled streets of Howrah, the gentleman continued to chatter, telling people about the wedding ceremony at home. His nephew was getting married soon, and the cauliflowers would be cooked for lunch by the women in the family. The three brothers lived together in a big house, with their wife, sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. The daughters and sons-in-laws were visiting too. Caterers were not in vogue back then, and the women in the household cooked together for every ritual before the wedding, although there would be a designated group of thakurs (cooks) hired for the main wedding spread. 

The fellow passengers listened with feigned interest as the chatty gentleman talked. When the stop arrived, the gentleman and his wife got off the bus. And so did one of the fellow passengers. Without preamble, the passenger shoved a ten rupee bill in the gentleman's hand, grabbed the cauliflowers, and vanished in the crowd. Just like that. The gentleman looked at the ten rupee bill, too confused to react quickly. Didn't he just carry the heavy produce all the way in a crowded bus, so that his family could cook it for lunch?

His wife misunderstood what happened, thinking that her husband just handed the cauliflowers as a good Samaritan. She bickered. He lost his temper, his ego already bruised. He argued back. And like children after a fight, he just started walking faster, using long steps. The house was a good fifteen-minute walk from the bus stop, and her four feet ten inches were no match for his six feet one inch frame. Not used to walking alone on the busy streets, she was hurt and confused, and wiped tears as she walked as fast as she could, trying to catch up with her husband. Still angry, he soon disappeared into the crowd. 

She crossed the dhopa'r maath (washerman's field), the narrow bylanes, and the pond, taking the final left to enter the corridor to the house. A movement caught her eye, and she turned to find her husband strategically hiding himself behind a tree, so that he could watch her walk back safely without her knowing it. She ignored him and entered the house, bursting into tears, managing to summarize the basic details of the event as she wiped tears. The brothers, sisters-in-law, nephew and nieces scolded him for acting childishly, while he stood there all grumpy until his anger melted. They did not eat cauliflowers that day, but still had a good lunch. 

My grandma just recounted this autobiographical story back from the nineties, for the umpteenth time. I have heard this story many times now, but still ask her to recount it. This is because I love my grandma's knack for storytelling. And once she did, I summarized it here. This is an ordinary, commonplace, inconsequential story from one day of my grandparents' life. Nothing life-changing, nothing spiritually awakening. But I still love it. I think that grandmas are the best storytellers, giving you a glimpse of a world where you either did not exist, or were too different to relate to. I have many friends here who grew up in different countries all over the world. I am curious about the stories all your grandmas told. And while I hope that you share some, I will try to document my share of stories, from my grandma's point of view.

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