Reminiscing Iyaji

By Rashmi Singh

[Recalling some cherished moments spent with Smt. Radhika Singh, my Iyaji (Bhojpuri term for paternal grandmother) in our ancestral home in village “Akarvaan” in “Arrah” district of Bihar] My paternal grandmother’s “Awalkhana” that I inherited or rather proudly took possession of from the family’s heirloom had been lying safe in my closet for years, until, one fine day I noticed it had begun to fade. That’s when I realised I needed to preserve it better, not just for the love and special attachment I have with it but also for the ambitious plans I have for it. To me, Radhika Devi remains adoting grandmother, a voracious reader, an amazing story teller, a culinary expert, a quiet but very sophisticated, warm, affectionate person. My most vivid memories of her are all about food that she magically churned, endless moments of storytelling, and of digging dark corners of the haveli. As a kid, I used to be in awe of her energy and agility. Her exceptional drive, passion and creativity had its imprints on every nook and corner of our big ancestral house. They all had some sort of riches stored and capped within bell jars, tins and trunks. Typical of havelis in those times, there was a central courtyard, on one side of which were a row of rooms that housed all her culinary fineries, from pickles to delicious lip smacking sweets and savoury. When visiting my ancestral home, (though not manytimes) I would lose count of the number of times I saw her swiftly climbing the angular stone stairway leading to the kotha (the big terrace) that stored the grains and fruits from our orchards, to dry clothes, clean and sort out dry grains, pickle and spices. Just when you thought she was up on the kotha, she would surprise you in one of the courtyard rooms that housed the jaanta and dhenki (the Bhojpuri term for household tools that were used for pounding and grinding grains). There she was, turning wheat grain into atta or pounding the arhar harvest. The taste of that cooked arhar dal loaded with homemade ghee, which we all slurped with dried mango pickle she made is somethingthat has stayed locked in my senses and cannot be expressed in words. Her moving in and out of spaces like she lived in a maze, fascinated me the most. Another interesting fixture in the day was the malaibarafwala (ice candy seller) who announced his arrival by his bell ringing through the lanes of the village. As this ringing grew closer to our lane, my cousins and I would get my grandmother to basket her grains for barter. It was super convenient, you really did not have to nag your parents for money, all you needed was some measure of grain that was harvested in your very own farms and which my grandmother was happy to barter for our bright smiling eyes that hunted for their favourite colour malaibaraf(ice candy) in the box hung through his neck. The opposite end of the courtyard had rows of bedrooms and inside the bedrooms were smaller rooms which she typically called the jhaanpi (decorative gift boxes for a bride and her to-be mother-in-law) room. The jhaanpi room was in this dark and gloomy corner with scary big spiders, staring into your eyes. This room's antiquity was compounded by a row of huge trunk boxes that one would instantly become curious of. Like every other space, this also had its own narrative. At the first opportune moment, we would get our grandmother to open some of those huge trunks to settle our curiosity. As she would open the lid, our nostrils would meet with the old dusty aroma of stack of old hand woven sarees, fabric and other gift items. With each of them came a story- “this was given as bride's gift to your mother at her wedding” she would remark and then came “would you like a frockstitched out of this embroidered piece of fabric”. It was these stories about all that was stored in thetrunks, which excited us more than the desire to acquire some of those fancy stuff. Her ability to express and animate her narratives was exhilarating and overwhelming. She would never get tired of telling us stories, even though I was not very good with conversing in Bhojpuri, I could easily understand and connect with the tales she narrated in Bhojpuri. I used to be completely mesmerised and immersed while listening to her stories which many times had musicand songs in them. They would range from excerpts from Ramayana, Mahabharata to stories from Panchatantra and other local folk lore. Apart from these there were also ones which were of her own imagination and creation. These would be full of life size images and characters that she borrowed from her own everyday life. They almost always had birds and animals like horse, donkey, elephant, dog, fish, sparrow, parrot, which I assumed she normally encountered every day. However, one particular bird that figured in almost all our childhood stories and for the longest time as a kid, I thought was a fictitious bird, was the khedan chiraiyan (A Bhojpuri term for the birds that flocked around the farms on the scarecrows and were always driven away by the farmers). A song featuring this bird was a favourite lullaby and nothing less than a lineage tradition as it had put all children in our family, including my infant daughter, to sleep! As I grew up, I only moved further away from such moments of connecting and being with her in person. This may be attributed to the fact that young ambitious women (and men) who grew up in Bihar had no way out but to migrate to metros like Delhi, chasing endlessly, our dreams of higher education and career. Only to move away from simple pleasures and joys of life! I am told by my Buas (father's sisters) that my Iyaji would often narrate my childhood playtime moments and all the drama that I crafted around those to them and others whenever there were family get-togethers. She had an exceptionally fine memory even at that age, to be able to narrate them with the minutest of details, dialogues and anecdotes that would fail most her age. I scratch my brain now, only to realise, like the fading “Awalkhana” of my Iyaji that I am a proud owner of, much of my cherished childhood moments spent with her have also faded quite a bit. Vivid images of her in the haveli, all its hustle-bustle with us visiting her during our summer holidays or on occasions such as marriage in the family, keep flashing in front of my eyes. Only to remind me that none exist any longer. The haveli is forlorn, has aged and wrinkled to tatters. No one lives there now. It isn’t what it used to be, full with family and abundant with harvest. Most of us are over consumed in our ‘big city’ lifestyle and professions. How I wish I could go there, to revive and bring back all its youthful energy! I wish I could take my daughter there to experience what she has only heard and felt through my description and narrative of my childhood spent there. I can go on and on writing about Iyaji from what I may gather from her children and significant others of her family. I intend not to do so, I wish to keep this short and centred on my lived experience of her. I nonetheless, do hope that I am able to share and reach out to the “grandchildren” within each one of you. To those who have been fortunate and blessed with some joyous moments of bonding and connecting with your grandparents, of stories galore like I do, of being loved, pampered and heard.