#naniji

[insaani]

That is the memento I have kept of her. A bangle that she wore when she came to Jaipur and stayed with us till her last breath.

We miss you every day, Naniji.

[insaani]

Toast to the one who I lost!

And then she was gone. Yesterday morning around 8:30 am. How much pain she was suffering the night before. All we could hear were her painful groans as if every part of her body was suffering. I saw her lifeless body. She was lying on the body the same way the night before. Her hands in the same positions. Her head was on the pillow at the angle she likes. Her eyes closed as if she was tired and wants to sleep. But NOT BREATHING. Like a stream of joy has stopped moving. My unlimited subscription of blessings and joy has expired. She’s gone. Gone to a much better, more deserving, more humane place.

The priest performed her last rites and, they took her to a final ride towards the crematorium. She was ready to get burned. I decided to go along with her, to see her off for the last time. To see her face before she turns into ashes.

They put her body on the bed of woods and performed the rituals. I put ghee on her face, small woodblocks on her body; her head, lips, neck, chest, stomach and legs. And lastly, they put wooden logs on her. As I saw her pyre, a sad realization took hold of me.

When you are alive, you feel, your body is relaxed, but as you go, you look like rubber, you don’t feel anything. If you bleed, you bleed continuously. Your body becomes stiff like a tree branch.

Since yesterday, I did not shed a single tear because I know she has gone to a better place. A place where there is no pain. A place where pious souls reside.

[dilwaledyke-moved]

Ever since Maa outed me to nani every time we see a boy she says “tumhe ko ladke achche kyon nahin lagte beta?”

Its awesome

[ajmerphull]

#NaniJi 15th June 1949 - 24th April 2013

[ajmerphull]

#NaniJi 15th June 1949 - 24th April 2013

[rhubarbie]

Naniji

When I tugged on the skin of her elbow, it formed a precipice, stuck frozen in time until she chose to fold her arm.  But in her selflessness, she indulged me such that folding her arm was an accidental act of carelessness.  She would keep her arm straight, content to see me marvel at the absence of elasticity.  Such is the way of grandmothers.  Punjabi was her first language, Hindi almost indistinguishably second in line.  English was quite a ways further, but she knew the vocabulary of a young girl's favorite animals. Our phone conversations ended with her taking on the persona of a cat and we would exchange meows for minutes before hanging up - the language of a distinct filial contract.  

When she died, I pictured her in full, in her prime, most grand of grandmotherly years.  Draped in a white and turquoise floral sari made of pure silk chiffon.  As usual, the underpinnings of her white-turned-gray blouse and petticoat peeked out. She had a set of eleven hair pins in the shape of narrow Us that held in place her coiled, slushy gray hair bun.  She was always awake hours before me.  By the time I sat down to her salt and pepper-adorned buttered toast, she had already bathed, combed and recoiled her long hair and conducted her morning prayers and meditation.  Her gravelly voice was so starkly bare in its expression of unconditional love that it was impossible to picture her as a disciplinarian to eight children.  She would get visibly upset on occasion, her face scrunched up with internalized pain or concern.  I miss her from a deep place.  

[saleemahmed]

[saleemahmed]