My favourite memories are a series of summer vacations. It wasn’t the traveling that I remember, but the excitement brought on by the mundane reality of being home. Every summer morning, my grandfather would wake me up. Perched on the edge of my parents’ giant 4-poster bed, he would regale me with tales of Hindu mythology, each with an implicit lesson on ethics and goodness that became deeply ingrained in my behaviour and beliefs. The stories were about good versus evil, the bleak perils of mortality and immortality, penance, or karma in its absence. This custom, accompanied by his rumbling voice, became the most comforting and engaging phenomenon of my life. He could have told me the same story a 100 times (although he hardly ever did), and I would still sit there, drowsy and mesmerized.
He was the best man I knew, you see. He had lost so much at a young age; family, his home his sight. These were traumas most of us could never recover from. He never dwelled on it though. He persevered and loved us in a way only a truly good man ever could. He was a joker, a gentle giant, and sometimes would squeeze me so tight it would have been impossible to doubt his love for me. When he passed away, it was sudden, and my grief was so very odd. I don’t think I digested it, I still don’t think I have. I broke down at the most inopportune times — looking at my laptop in business class, during dinner. Now.
Sometimes I feel his absence so acutely, mostly when I remember the tiny one-bedroom house that was bursting with memories of my happiest times. This house was him. I miss the puja room with the bells on the door, the mantle of photo frames, stuffed toys, and travel mementos. I miss the TV stand with the photo albums under it, the washing stone, the coconut and guava trees, the terrace. The simple task of turning on the drinking water generator precisely at 5 pm, accompanying my grandfather on his evening walk, hanging our wet clothes on the clothesline to dry. I miss his endless supply of white veshtis, his combing ritual for his minimal hair, the excessive application of powder, his uneven gait, and his extra glossy, white smile courtesy of dentures. I miss playing the drums on his potbelly and the then permanent appearance of his old leather chappals and gold ring. It’s been six years, but I’ll miss him for the rest of my life. The house is gone and so is he, but I’ll never forget those summer mornings. It’s just so very difficult to look forward to the future when someone’s presence in the past made it so very bright.
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