Aai

As I stared at my grandma’s coffin, I sat up higher and caught a glimpse of the bridge of her nose. I’m not sure why that did it, but my memories sparked up: arriving alone in India with my sister, her mocking chitrahaar videos, her last kind words to me, telling me how I would turn out fine, it was going to be hard, this writing, but I was going to be fine. Still in the background her worries about what I had become were always there. Tears filled my eyes as I shuddered.

I was once very close to my grandma. She, the matriarch of the family, raised me and my sister for a year and a half in the shadow of the Red Fort in Dehli. I remember the stories she would tell us: about the heroes of the subcontinent, the vile men of Empire (that old Empire), her family, my parents, our uncles, and a full familial saga — with the ups and downs written by finances and love — how everyone currently together met and who was succeeding and who wasn’t. Good intentions always taken advantage of, bad intentions always frowned upon.

I sometimes got the sense that the men in the family had either been too brutal or too romantic. Sometimes both.

Still, she wove a rich tapestry between the past and now, tales of actions and consequences. And oh were the consequences dire for those who were too naive, too romantic. All this helped gestate and grow my love for narratives.

I’m certain that these stories were not meant to make me a writer. When I was fully into my writing, I asked her to share those stories with me again, and she refused.