Farewell to Grandma

It was quite a solemn affair. The day my grandmother was to leave our house, everyone looked grave, except for me, and it rained quite a lot. It wasn’t a sudden, violent downpour, but a fairly constant drizzle, of the dreary sort, which highlighted the sombre undertone of the event; it was as if nature had decided that the world should be just as nostalgic and miserable as she felt. So, it was on a cold and wet winter evening that I waved goodbye to my grandmother; she didn’t say a word to me, my grandmother, but I could see quite clearly in her eyes as she patted my head, that she was truly sad. For a second I felt guilty for all the times I’d successfully avoided her and her sloppy, wet kisses.
My grandfather had married her because he had fallen in love with her centuries ago. I’m not exactly sure what he saw in her or why she agreed to marry him but I honestly never gave much thought to it either. The fact of the matter is that they got married in the traditional manner, had children as was customary in those times and then when the rioting began, they migrated to Pakistan, which, at the time, was a new born state that claimed to be ‘the land of the pure.’ They never really got along, my grandparents, but they had that old and now extinct, sense of duty, which used to prevent people from either divorcing each other or really ever living together; a sort of lifeless life lived for the sake of appearances and children. He would spend most of his time at work in another town and she would spend most of her time the way most clocks do: going round and round, ticking away. They did sort of stick it out in the end for the sake of the kids but really, one could always tell that something funny was going on between them. And I don’t just mean that figuratively; their mutual and growing dislike for one another was deeply rooted in their initial and equally mutual love for one another, so theirs was a relationship much prone to humour and would appear quite comical to the neutral observer: he would complain of her cooking, she would complain of his eating; he would steal what she was saving for later, she would save for later what he wanted to eat now etc.

My grandfather did not come out to see my grandmother off when she was to leave our house but there was no malicious design or grudge at play behind his absence. It was just that he had been tied down in his room by his ageing sons to prevent him from acting out his senile fantasies. More often than not he just assumed he was another character on whatever he was watching on television and if the television were turned off he would wonder what he was doing and whether there would be a picture taken; for some reason he always thought that there was going to be a picture taken.

“Is there going to be a picture taken?” he asked my father, later that evening.
“Picture? No. Why do you ask?” said my father.
“I seem to be tied up…so I wondered if there was going to be a picture taken.”
“What’s it got to do with being tied up?”
“Do you think my father ever got married?” he asked suddenly, addressing a more serious concern of his.
“Well obviously, where do you think you came from?”
“Yeah? Who did he marry?”
“Your mother, my grandmother.”
“Really? You’re my son then? Can we go now?”
“Go? Where?”
“Well anywhere…or is there going to be a picture taken?”

These conversations were always circular and therefore endless and futile. It was easier to just put on a wrestling match on television and watch him hurl abuse after abuse at those whom he considered to be his opponents in real life. He really thought that those wrestlers were trying to attack him. Being thus, of a delicate disposition, it wasn’t really necessary that he come out to say farewell to my grandmother; plus, he wasn’t exactly sure who she was anyway. Of course that doesn’t mean she didn’t say goodbye to him. She did go to his room and try and explain in an authoritative tone. She sounded somewhat like an old strict teacher, explaining how things were going to be like from now on…
He didn’t really follow her speech but remained silent, which was unusual because nowadays, one almost invariably expects a non sequitur from him. I suppose that’s precisely why she was being a bit strict; it hurts to not be recognized sometimes, especially by your sworn enemy lovers, and in those situations one has to try and let go. She had been practicing the art of letting go for quite some time now. It had been revealed to her that she would be moving out of our house many months in advance so she could properly prepare herself for the departure. Since she had lived in her room in our house for about more than half a century, it was probably hard for her to imagine the remainder of her life surrounded by unfamiliar walls. But once it was decided that she would go, she resigned herself to her fate, and in order to deal with this recent development, she decided to give away everything she had collected over the years. This was a surprisingly large and variegated list of things. From my father’s childhood pyjamas to napkins made out of flour bags; tea-sets, cutlery and old toys; frocks, outmoded currency and pictures, lots of pictures and even more towels, among other things. As she gave everything away, it became clear that it was a symbolic move on her part, one that would allow herself more comfort in leaving. By giving up all those things that tied her to this place, to that room and to that life, she would be free to move and go wherever she was taken. Her generation, it seemed, was doomed to re-enact the Partition over and over again. Why else would somebody have ever saved napkins made out of flour bags?

I was standing in the kitchen, watching from the window with the lights turned out, when my grandmother was brought outside, flanked by her two younger, but not so young, sisters-in-law. She walked slowly and carefully, measuring each step as well as she could. Her progress towards the car can be described as having been of a glacial pace or comparable to continental drift. But you have to make allowances for the elderly. Meanwhile, my mother, who was also present at the scene, looked pitiable. Her eyes were full of tears and her nose had gone pink, the way it does when she gets too emotional and her mind had forgotten all the many battles she had fought against the old woman now being sent into exile. My father seemed quite sad too but just as impatient as sad -he gets a bit snappy when distressed. The younger children were all present; not entirely sure of what was going on but clear in that something monumental was taking place, something historic. My sisters headed out to take over from the two ladies who had brought my grandmother thus far, and assist her on the remaining part of her journey to the car. Somewhere along the way my grandmother decided that the occasion called for a ‘forgive me if I have erred’ speech. It was quite the tear-jerker and with the constant drizzling in the background and grey clouds looming overhead, the impact was much augmented. Hugs were distributed all round and pats on the back. Hastily murmured niceties and farewells in my grandmother’s ears were reciprocated by her as she said brave ‘once more unto the breach dear friends…’ sort of things in return. She sniffed a bit, a silent tear made its way across her cheek and so she moved on again towards the awaiting car.
She was already in the car when I came out to see her off, so I had to open the door and sort of bend down awkwardly to have my head patted and etc. This had been my grand plan for avoiding sloppy kissses.
My pants were already smeared with muddy, rainwater splashes from my journey back from school and now my cat was moving in and out of my legs, making the situation even worse. It was a particularly uncaring cat in that she never bothered about not wiping herself clean on other people. Not me, I’m not an uncaring cat at all, although one might say that it was an indifferent attitude that reigned over me that evening and that I wasn’t really putting too much effort into my farewells. I suppose I’m one of those cynical people who call themselves ‘realistic’ or something. I mean to say that she was just leaving our house to go live next door with my father’s elder brother, so it wasn’t really like she was going away all that far; it was all about maybe fifteen yards or so. I mean judging from the tear stained face of my mother, one would have thought my grandmother was going off to fight the Nazis or something. I caught my brother’s eye as the weeping and wailing reached its crescendo and we both exchanged looks of exasperation; these people are too melodramatic! But I must say I felt rather guilty about having avoided so many of her messy kisses.