No doubt our parents love us and there’s every reason to be grateful towards them. But with all due respect, they don’t know much. They are probably the first of the generations where the hotchpotch that we wade through in our hearts and heads today, began to stir. But you go just one generation up, the one with our grandparents, and you’ll see the last custodians of a colossal legacy. Especially the female counterpart. The male, as much they might have influenced us at a personal level, collectively, I would like to think, they have always been the same and will mostly continue to remain the same barring costume changes over the years. But the grannies — our dadis, nanis, our ajjis, are the ones whose contributions we should acknowledge and pay closer attention to. For it’ll never be the same again.
Ironically, their biggest accomplishment as a group, has been to keep things the same. I bet the simple delicacies they wholeheartedly prepare, lost and isolated in their kitchens, have been the same ones which were perfected thousands of years ago. Because it tastes like perfection. An antique perfection.
The spices they grind, the clatter they churn, the hustle they conjure, the smells they weave, they all have a timelessness about them. And the humility of serving such divinity on crooked cracking plates older than you!
It is crouched and hunched over vials and bottles that they perhaps also learnt that kitchen is also a lab. That kitchen is really a place for health and food merely an element of it. Strange and old formulations are concocted and mixed, exact in measure and proportions as they were supposed to be in history, to ward off illnesses old as the medicine.
In the dark hours of mornings they are already up and humming, watering divine plants, feeding their animal friends who appear at the doorways certain of the precision of her routine. Down south, rangolis welcome the first rays of the sun. And before the next member of the family is up, the water is not just purified, but blessed and worshipped for him or her to partake. And before the morning din takes over the streets, she has already eaten her breakfast and has settled down with a coffee or tea. If it’s an ekadashi or some other kind of fasting, she might have skipped it effortlessly.
Then on her walks, her preferred way to keep up with the world, she keeps an eye out for the vegetable carts. Noticing its vegetables and fruits, and correlating their price with their freshness. The vendors see her approaching and know the choicest of their offerings will be gone even before the rest of the world has fully woken up. If for some reason she has to compromise on the quality, she would still prefer it over her grandkids picking some leftovers from the fridge. A quick reflection on better times when there was no question of saving yesterday’s food. It was for the birds, cows and dogs — her nameless (even after decades of knowing them) animal friends who, if you remember, she had already met earlier in the morning.
If not the vegetable market, it would then perhaps be first to the florist, and then to the temple. And on her way back home, maybe to the tailor or the cobbler. And if she sees yet another old house come down, making way for a four-storeyed edge-to-edge “apartment”, she would with a sigh try to recall who lived there decades ago. Her memory could have gotten a bit hazy but she vividly remembers the majestic tamarind tree that stood there once upon a time.
Come festivals, they are at their liveliest. Though mildly exasperated at the clumsiness of our parents when it comes to carrying out the rituals. But they would not let them ruin everything about the occasion, and would take it upon themselves to prepare the savouries. And expectedly, the sweets, the murukkus, and whatever else the season and the occasion demands, would be just perfect; forcing the eater to reflect on how in spite of all those years on her wrinkled hands, the consistency still remains. But of course, we wouldn’t reflect too long because a silly video just popped on our phones.
If you’re one of those who believes languages are but travel machines, then you’ve hit a goldmine. An authentic time travel to a bygone era is just a conversation away. And it’s not like you have to earn it or some such for our ajjis are always chattering. Merrily. Uninhibitedly. Audience-agnostically. As though in a desperate indiscriminate resort to sow the seeds of ancient wisdom. Heck, they even talk to air but not in a distracted self-absorbed way but a lively narration of life, fully sane, wholly aware. All you need to do is jump on the train. Or if you have a specific destination, just ask a question. And you’ll be in the lanes and homes of a bygone era, witnessing characters and their lives, compelling and accurate. If you notice their choice of words and their delectable sounds, their proverbial prowess, the articulation, the very mark of a strong civilization behind it all, you’ll perhaps even empathize with their lifetime’s efforts to keep it alive. As it was. Generation after generation.
But you ask them for a story, your journey gets deeper. In time. And in truth. Tireless, never cutting corners, never skipping characters, never missing the details of colours and smells, they’ll happily take kids (and adults alike) to a world where the lines of reality blur but truth and wisdom shine. Their patience and consistency through the entire exercise is proof of their sheer conviction in the relevance of these tales even today.
But, of course, times are changing. And one would expect our ajjis, whose lifetime’s endeavours seeming to fall apart, to be particularly affected. Ha! Not them. In spite of them heading towards a colossal failure, they are the happiest, chirpiest and healthiest lot around. Especially those who have made it past the 70 mark. Their vigour, their suppleness, their mental balance, their sharpness, the sheer vibrancy in living can make their grandkids term them ‘freaks’. Of course the age shows, the knees hurt a bit, and there’s that occasional cribbing, but by most accounts “too healthy for their age”. The reason perhaps could be they lived by what they learnt, and are still living what they preach. Which, going by the results, is a testament to a superior way of living. At the root of which is a timeless wisdom. What that wisdom says probably needs to be lived to be understood. Or maybe is beyond words. But it sure works.
Ironically, in spite of trying to keep things the same as once long ago, they welcome and accept change better than most of us. Even drastic changes like the loss of their children. So what is it that they’re trying to safeguard? Maybe it’s the fundamentals. The rulebook of life. But the real answers can come only from them. Only if we can look at them unprejudiced, cognizant of their life’s work. If not inherit the whole treasure, at least the choicest gems. And now. Because they’ll soon be gone. The last of the finest. And their successors just won’t be the same. I mean, our parents are great and mean well and all, but heck, they throw tablets at us at the slightest headaches. It’s just not the same.
