My Childhood with grand parents

I had a happy childhood.

First let me tell about my grandparents. I dont ve paternal grandparents but i ve two maternal grandpartents. confusing? My mom was adapted by her great uncle and aunty since they didnt ve any child so I had two.

Just a week before my birth, my grandfather was seriously ill and was in the hospital. At that time an astrologer came to our house and he told my grandma that the grandpa will be alright if my mom delivers a girl baby and he told for sure that they would ve a girl baby and he stayed there till my birth. So I was most expected child :). My grandma used to praise me often that I was the one who saved my grandpa's life.

Though I know I did nothing I used to be proud about it. But I used to get scolding from my grandma later for the same is a different story :)

I was so adamant and possessive. I ll just give an example for my adamancy which i heard from my grandma, we were living in palani and visit my grandparents in madurai. We ve to walk a kilometer to home from the bus stop. During one such visit my mom's adapted father and her grandfather came to recieve us halfway. I was around 3 years old i think, my mom's grandfather carried me home. I was crying all the way and as soon as we reached home i told my grandfather he should only carried me home and again they took back me to the same place and he carried me back.

Paniyaram is one of my favourite dishes. So whenever they visit us or we visit them grandma used to make it for me. Grandpa lost his eye sight due to cataract but he was so scared to undergo surgery for that and he lived his rest of the life with out eye sight. They took care of their expenses from the house rent. They had quarrels on sharing the rent often. Grandpa was so careful in keeping his money. Though he couldnt see he used to scale the size of the note and could identify the denomination. He was stingy for my grandma but for us he used to spend money for our evening snacks. He demanded my grandma to make special dishes for us during our visits. He showered his love the same way even after I became a mother till his death.

Since he couldnt see he kept on nagging my grandma for even simple things and which irritated her so much since she was also getting older. He lived for nearly 85 years. So grandma got irritated and used to tell me that I was the reason for that :)

The place where my grandparents lived was outskirts that time, now it has become small township. Those days the grandparents' houses was sourrounded by agricultural lands and they had the pumpsets and it is close to river Vaigai. During holidays, I join the gang of my mom's siblings and cousins and we roamed around that area. I should tell about my mom's siblings, she has 6 sisters, 3 brothers and around 9 cousins. Out of these 7 or 8 are of my age group. Me and my brothers join with them to form a group of 10. They used to go to the pumpset to take bath but my grandma wouldnot allow us because she was afraid that we may fall into the well. At that young age we thought that as an adventure and without her knowledge we went with them to bath. But there was no permission to go to river for bath but we used to go there also had after that we applied sand on our face to show that we didnt ve bath to cheat people at home :). The soil in that area was clay so we used to make utensils out of it and play. My uncle is good in creating cart, bulls, cars out of it. I enjoyed those days. I pity for my children that they didnt ve such an experience. My son is sticked to tv and computer games.

Taking oil bath on fridays was a terror to me. I could not forget one such friday. I had finished my fourth standard and was in Madurai for summer holidays. I was having thick and curly hair. As usual our gang went out and we decided to take bath in the river that day. We came back to my mom's parents house after bath. My grandma and aunty asked me to take oil bath and I started crying telling I had bath already but my maternal grandpa told he would give me bath and he gave me oil bath. Then he left for his work. He was around 45 i think. He was in night shift too, so he came back for supper. Since our gang was involved in our own activities we didnt see him then. On the way back to work he met with an accident and he died. :(( They had brought his body the next day morning. I was so afraid to see a dead body and didnt even go near his coffin. My cousin took me there and asked me to look at him.

So the whole responsiblity was on my grandma. She was not educated and had only two houses which got her rent and three cows. One uncle had finished his PUC and was helping my father in the studio and another one was studying his degree. So she managed on her own to upbring all the children. She got them all married and all are well settled in life now. She is a very good cook. I like her pickles very much. Now she is in her last days. She needs somebody's help to even to stand. Even then, when i visited her 10 days back she was telling she could make some pickles for me. Such a nice grandma.

I cant finish this episode without telling about my great grandmother, my mom's paternal grandmother. She was very intelligent though not educated. She judged people correctly. She imitates, mimics and criticize peoples. It is very difficult to get good name from her. But somehow i got that from her, 'Vashistar vayal brahmmarishi' :)

I ll continue my childhood with my parents in another episode