Memories of my grandmother
From my earliest memories, my grandmother — “Ba” as we called her, was a constant presence in our home and in our lives.
She always wore the same outfit — a simple white sari wrapped in neat folds around her body and over her head. The same simple clothing she had worn for almost 25 years after her husband had passed away from a sudden heart attack at the young age of 40. The same clothing, she had neatly packed into brown leather suitcases and flown across the world, from her small home in the middle-class neighborhoods of Ahmedabad to the suburb of San Jose in Northern California. A simple white cloth — mostly translucent, except for small flowers in a grid pattern across the surface. Mostly see through — so it required the many careful folds of the sari, and consistent wrapping to create clothing.
She was five feet and one or two inches, but she always walked with a bit of hunch from years of backbreaking work taking care of five children. She was always dressed completely in white — from head to toe, a white sari that engulfed her torso and legs, and with a loose covering she looped over her head. She worse large, horn-rimmed glasses that my father purchased from Costco, and she had large, expressive eyes — that until late in life, glimmered with laughter and wit. She had a grey box dangling from her neck, with two earpieces to help her hear. She suffered from diabetes most of the time I knew her — pricking her finger morning and evening to check her insulin, and taking shots depending on the reading. But she would take the used syringes — with their antiseptic plastic tubes and bright orange caps, wash them and break off the needles, and then give them to myself and my sister as mini water guns.
Ba always woke up very early in the morning — at 6 am or earlier, and followed a strict prayer schedule. In her small room, downstairs by the laundry — she had an entire wood shelving unit full of the various Hindu and Jain gods and deities she prayed to every morning. Mostly, it was simple mantras, pujas and hymns — spoken softly, in steady repetition. On auspicious days, the whole family would be involved in elaborate ceremonies. We would wake up before the sun rose, 5:30 or 6am sometimes, an unreasonably early time for our young ages. Yellow puddles of turmeric and red powder, streaked across the small marble and ivory murtis of various deities, gods and goddesses. Small cotton wicks, engulfed in ghee, and then lit on fire as candles as part of the prayers.
One ceremony I remember vividly involved washing with water and milk various coins and money. My grandmother had the normal currency — some quarters, dimes, and pennies, a shiny 50 cent piece with John F Kennedy on it. And she also had traditional indian coins — the rupees and paisa that you could get today. But she also had a irregularly shaped, dark black piece of coin — marked and indented with a Hindi numeral and colored with red paint. It must have been at least a hundred years old, and it was only taken out for this one prayer. We washed the coins, pouring milk and then water from small, silver sculpted pitchers. I honestly can’t remember the symbolism of the ceremony — but I will always remember that ancient currency.
We used to love playing Trouble — the board game — together. The simple square board with pegs for pieces, and the plastic dome in the center of the board with dice inside.