A lazy summer afternoon when most people are indoors, enjoying siesta, we excitedly went to her place aka Nani House. She opens the door slightly, to check who is on the other side and on seeing us, lovingly opens her door wide. She has just come out of bath with a towel wrapped like a turban around her washed hair and another towel covering her blouse, as she was about to drape her saree, when we appeared at her doorstep. She lovingly invites us in. We enter not into a house but a museum of our childhood memories. We walk behind her into her well lit bedroom. She drapes her cotton saree with such geometrical precision which comes only after years of practice! Then she goes into her temple room and sits on a mat in front of her idols. We sit on the floor beside her while she offers her prayers and chants. In one corner there is, like always, a small steel bowl containing a fruit, any seasonal fruit, which is offered to the deities. Once her prayers are done, she carries the bowl to the dining table and sits on the chair on her fixed leftmost corner of the table, and cuts the fruit slowly, as if she had all the time on the earth. We wait patiently for getting our share of the prasad, which we eventually get as a slice or two. Those prasad fruits also tasted differently. Then we would talk for some time about daily stuff and she would go into the kitchen to prepare the lunch. She is one of the best cooks, like most of the grandmothers! Her sambar-rice taste, still tantalizes our memories. We would then silently sit on the table, eating from her old solid steel plates and saucers, which still exist without any dent, even after 30 odd years. She then brings 2 mangoes on a plate and offers the slices to us, while she devoured the pulpy seed with her teeth and knife. May be its in our genes, as we too love the mango seeds more than the slices! After lunch is wrapped up, its time for her afternoon nap. She lies on the right side of her bed, covers her eyes with her saree and starts snoring away, while we are left to spend our time watching television in the other room. She wakes up after an hour of nap and goes into her balcony and sits on her chair with an aluminium plate full of pulses, that she cleans for pebbles and husk. Rays of setting sun glisten her henna-ed hair, which glows like a golden crown on her head. We sit on the ground, around her chair, talking away while she keeps sweeping the layers of pulses with her light fingers. On the corner of the balcony are glass jars of pickles, left there to be sun-dried and most of which would ultimately come to us. Then she would get up and make tea, which we would enjoy on the balcony while watching the sky getting dark while the sun sets in the horizon.
Those were some peaceful afternoons when we had no hurry to be anywhere, when simple home cooked food tasted like heaven, when fruits tasted sweet as nectar, when we had time to watch the birds chirping away on trees, when we could talk away for hours or sit silently in her company, without feeling lonely. Priceless days, now just pages in our memories! Those were our Afternoons with our Nani aka Badi Maa!
