My Grand ma

Mostly I get chance to visit my grandma during my summer vacation. She is more of a strict person those days. Grand ma house was on the main road. It is almost house arrest for us, as we can't play outside home. She wont allow us, as there are chances that we would want to cross road and get injured.

I had not shown much interest in visiting my native for various reason. Mainly the water and food taste much differ from the regular one which i have almost for rest of the year. Next we don't get chance to watch tv. Visit to distant relatives house with my parents were a boring one for me.

The other one big challenge was that, grand ma house did not have a bathroom. In those days, men, women and kids have the habit of taking bath in river. So only toilets were present in the houses. Each house was built in traditional kerala type. Back side of house will have open roof. They call it thotti or thodam , roof is kept open with iron rods. Sun light and rain fall into the back side of house.

If women and kids can't go to river means, they take bath in that thodam. I don't prefer bath in river but I can't bath in thodam for one reason. If the main door and next door are kept open, view of road is open and people who walk on road and who travel in bus can see us taking bath.

I would refuse to take bath there, and my mother would convince saying you are still a kid. My grandma who would be busy at home in preparing food for us, would be in kitchen. I would close all door and get ready for bath and my grand ma would keep the door open and go out to buy some vegetables. I would call my mother and ask her to close door again and again. Luckily these issues were solved in couple of years as we started to stay in uncle home and take bath in morning where bathroom were present.

Uncle home had a big water tank. Since we can't go in morning , we packed dresses and would go in late evening after dinner , sleep in night, morning wake up , take bath and come back to grandma house. Grand ma used to convince telling water is sufficient here and we can get bore water from nearby house etc. She was feeling sad that we are not staying with her.

I was happy that I got escaped from open bathroom. Staying in grand ma home or uncle home had not made much difference for me. My grand ma does not spend much time with me. It is not like she does not love to move with grand kids, but she does not have much time for it. She would be busy the entire day with house chores.

I had not known much details about my grand ma other than her name and age. Now I feel , I have missed spending time with her during my child hood days. Now she is very old and she cannot speak much, I do not want to disturb her.

Grand ma is a mother of ten kids. Five boys and Five girls. Hmm.. i used to think whether she had been a  baby making machine or what. The challenge is not just delivering kids, but bringing them up. Surely she had done tremendous effort, in that  no washing machine, mixer , grinder age. That physical work had actually given her strength.

My father used to tell that , they had hen at home and the eggs of hen would be given to kids on rotation. There is no chance of giving eggs to all kids at a time.

Life at her age was not that complicated like now, where we run school after school for admission. Still she gave education to all of her kids and they were settled well.

Gone are the days and it can't be back. I had missed interacting with my Grand ma.

What all I have described here is about my paternal grand mother. Almost my interaction with maternal grand mother is also the same.

--Dhanesh Amma