My Grandma Who Loved Lavenders

It was a fine winter morning I started believing in God again.

My feet sank into the dense cushion of snow each time I placed it. My saggy-skinned legs were trembling in cold and my teeth chattering was prominent in my ears. The chill wind bit my skin,freezing it as I wrapped the old woolen blanket tight around me.Yet, I walked on just like I did ,every day for the past 40 years.The long,narrow road stretched unhappily before me,with it’s usual inhabitants loitering about doing their usual morning work.Soon, frost started to heap on my blanket.

A hymn from a faraway radio at the tea-stall reached my ears faintly.And like each morning,the tea-master Muninder was making tea.The aromatic smell of the tea came wafting to my nose and like everyday I tried to take comfort in it’s warmth,and to be reminded of a long-lost home.

Nothing had changed.There was the same cold of Shimla,the same people,the same shops and houses and the same library I spent arranging and re-arranging the books.So when I opened the large wooden door to the library,the smell of musty old books greeted me,and had become familiar like a mother’s touch.I pulled the too-old chair to sit,it’s creak a match to my weak grunt.

My wrinkled hand was shaky as I stretched to reach the tattered registry to copy it down to a new one.Even then,there wasn’t much to fill.Only old men came to read newspapers and the occasional visits of a few.At other times, the library served as a place for the drunkards,and the children who played hide and seek along the long arrays of books,or as a place to spend the cold nights for tramps and the homeless.

So,when the door opened to reveal visitors,despite the weather,I was surprised.A small girl covered from head-to-toe peeked in,a little of snow falling onto the dusty floor.She tugged her father into the library,who looked back and forth the wide hall of books.The girl ran to stand before my desk,with such big brown eyes filled full of excitement and wonder that I couldn’t help but smile.

“How can I help you,dear?”,I asked my voice hoarse and raspy due to the cold and my rising age.

The girl started,but her father said,”We moved to Shimla a few days ago,Aashna here,wanted a tour and she dragged me here”.

I gave him a nod politely and I turned again to see those wonder-filled eyes.

“Do you know what place this is?”,I asked.

She shaked her head.

”It’s a library.You get to read a lot of books here”

“Like I read in school?”,she asked.

“I have them too,but there is many storybooks if you want”.

That day she left home with two small books I had given her,and it became the beginning of the journey of books in Aashna’ s life.

From then,Aashna would come to the library atleast thrice in a week and seeing her would be like a whiff of fresh air in my boring life.We would spend evenings after school talking about the books she had read. And how she felt about them.Both her parents were illiterate and she would complain they didn’t understand anything she talked about,but I always told her to try different and simple topics to tell them about.

She once brought some of her friends,but none of them ever returned.The one person for whom the doors always remained open was for her.She started reading big books and had almost finished reading hundred books by the time she was 12 years.

                      *-------------*

“Dadi,don’t you have kids?,she once asked.

“No dear.You see,My husband died in the War.He was a soldier.He once told me he wanted to go to Shimla,I reached here but he never did.I have been living in this place ever since,and this library had become my enclave”

“How old are you,Dadi?”,she inquired.

I huffed out a laugh,”I have stopped counting over the years but I think Iam sixty years.Give or take a little”.

She had a sad smile over her face.”You have been alone all these years?”,she inquired.She had an intense look on her face as I answered.

“I learned to live with it,my child.If you really think hard,no one in this world is alone. Everyone has this inner self that is just waiting to come out in time of need,just waiting to be listened.It’s the same voice that guides you,soothes you in pain and is there with you always.So I listen to it now and then and somehow my life passed just like that.”I patted her head and she smiled.”Do you want to come to my house?”

She nodded her head cheerfully,her pony tail shaking back and forth and I thanked the almighty for sending such a bundle of joy into my life.

We walked along the freshly-dried roads of Shimla,almost half-hour to reach a far,lonely-yet a beautiful heaven of a cottage.It has been my place of paradise,one I take so much pleasure in looking after,never letting ill take over the most comfortable and loveliest house.

The beautiful fragrance of the hundred or so lavender flowers I had so carefully laid out swept me over and the little angel stopped right in her tracks once she took in the vast field.Her already big round eyes seemed to widen a bit further as she let herself soak in it’s effect.

For once in the whole of the three years that I had known her,she seemed out of words,that her silence passed over a worry in me.But before I could raise my concern,she murmured,”It’s so- so beautiful.I-I hadn’t imagined this”.

A smile crept over the corner of my lips and she tugged my hand to show her around.I remember thinking that the Gods finally felt pity and gave me a ray of sunshine in my dull life.The amount of happiness and gratefulness I felt that day knew no bounds.I knew right there how much I missed my family,how my life could have been if war hadn’t ruined my hopes.I felt my home with Chotu,and I hoped she felt the same.

Days and years passed and I saw my Chotu grow.Each day she would visit me to tell stories and to pass time.Seeing her,all my pain would go away and I would feel very healthy.Aashna became a top-scorer in her school and I would miss her when she went to cities for competitions.But she always returned with the same smile knowing I am her biggest supporter.

We both had the best times with each other.I even played cricket and football and like a child pranked the Shimla people only to end up laughing so much,our tummies hurt.

All was going well until that day came.

Aashna had been fifteen at that time.Her father had struck a deal with a business partner in Delhi and just like a leaf being blown away in autumn,every hope,joy and color left me.I still remember very clearly the day when Chotu came running to the back of the library,crying and shaking,to deliver the news.I swear I felt my heart being wrenched away.

Sweet little Chotu had cried with tears running down her cheeks, it hurt me to watch,”Please come with us,Dadi…please.I don’t want to leave”.

It was so horrible to see her go,drained and sad.But I remained here,where I had been all these years and the years thereafter.She did promise that she would visit though,that no matter how many big libraries she would see she can’t compare it to this beautiful wreck and whenever she would touch a book ,all the memories would come walloping to her.

And since that day,I had been waiting on her promise,waiting for her to knock on my door with that bright smile of hers but she never came.It had been ten years since and worry etched my heart,I was thinking too much that I had to be hospitalized twice and they wouldn’t let me stay at my house but at a dull nursing home,where the neighing and wheezing of other old-aged people would ring in my ears all day.

And yet that day never came.

                         *------------*

A woman was walking on the streets of Shimla,her black boots hitting on the slick roads.She seemed out of place,one could say,her clothing and briskness,too different to the modest livelihood of the fellow-people of that place. She marched right into the place she had wanted to go,but let out a choking noise out of shock upon seeing the crumbling remains of her beloved library.

She inquired about someone from a nearby tramp only to raise a hand to her forehead and shake her head many times.

She then went to the empty cottage, beside the now-fading lavenders only to be lead to a too-small nursery home,in which her dear Dadi was said to be.

                    *________*

I had reached a point where the place got unbearable.It had been almost a year since I was forced here and I just couldn’t hold on anymore.I have gotten a high fever that no doctor’s medicines seemed to have a effect on.I missed the lavenders so much,thinking of how it was all dying like me and everything seemed to slip out of my hands.

For now I don’t think of those days for it gives me nothing but pain,but I can’t help but worry over the child I lost years ago,about how I earned to see her even for a minute one last time.

I had become so preoccupied to notice that tears had slipped from my eyes and as I cleared my blurry vision I found a nurse pointing at my direction.I couldn’t see her clearly first, as my head started to hurt so much I feared it would burst.Then,I saw her.

Years had done nothing to the most beautiful fairy that stood before me.She raised a hand to her heart,and let out a wail that could have crushed my heart.I extended my hand, barely steady,in a feeble attempt to console her ,to show her all was okay.But nothing could be done for the tears that welled up each time she saw me.

I tried to speak,but nothing but a breathless rasp came from my mouth.
”Dadi….Iam so..sorry”.

I wanted to tell there was nothing to be sorry for,but she slipped her hand atop mine and held it.I gave her a reassuring squeeze.

All was okay.She was here and all that was ever bad was now okay.

“Iam sorry”,she repeated again,”I..I tried to”.

I shushed her,”It is okay,Chotu”.

“I never forgot you,Dadi.I always loved you”,she said.

And that was all a grandma could ever ask of her granddaughter.

Love ,care and acceptance.The amount of joy she filled my heart each time was enough for a lifetime more.I couldn’t ask the mighty gods anything else,for they gave me everything I needed.

With this happiness and utmost gratefulness that I had not ended like the so many unfortunate old people all over world,

that I am not alone,will not be forgotten and will always be loved,

I finally closed my eyes.