My earliest memories of my grandfather involve the large front verandah of our second floor house, the very first house I have lived in. I remember him sitting on the cane reclining chair we still have, while I rode around the verandah on a little red tricycle pretending it was an autorickshaw and asking him where he wanted to go. He would often take me for walks upto the railway track .We would sit on a bench watching the trains pass by, and I would jump about excitedly if anybody waved back from the train. Sometimes these walks would include a stop at a small departmental store where he would buy me ‘Gems’ chocolates. We called the shop ‘Kannaadi kade’, kannaadi meaning glass, as it was one of the rare shops that had huge tinted glass doors.
I would often play a form of ‘hide and seek’ with him, which involved him sitting on his mattress and me hiding in various parts of the small room and him finding me by pointing me out without moving. He taught me to play chess when I was merely five or six years old, I distinctly remember the chess board we used to have, a wooden box with light brown and ivory squares instead of the usual; black and white, and black and ivory magnetic coins. I remember sitting across him on the single bed by the window and trying to remember how the bishop moves and how the horse.
Once we shifted our house, his spot changed from the verandah to a small bench we had built at the front of the house. Dressed always in a spotless white dhoti and a neat shirt of light blue or grey, he would sit watching the activities of the road. He would still involve in games, with not just me but the other children of the road as well. I remember endless games of ‘King Queen Police Robber’ where we wrote on tiny chits and maintained strict score cards. We would also play board games- he would call out numbers when we played ‘Housie’, we played Scrabble and Uno and Snakes and Ladders.
Sometimes the whole family would play carrom- I remember his unique carrom strike, he would rest his hand on the board and flick the striker with his index finger, accurately pocketing the coins.
We would play brain games, twenty questions, quiz and memory games, he sometimes looked through my essays, spoke to me about the books he used to read when he was younger- Dickens, Wodehouse...
And then there was music. He was a self taught musician. Never had he attended classical music lessons, but he could identify a raga within ten seconds, and would constantly hum his own notes, quizzing me on identifying the raga as I grew older. I remember once during a power cut, he was in the house humming a tune and a neighbour came to enquire how our television was working despite the power cut, only to catch the live show.
Order and systems- even his retired life was governed by these. His time of waking up, duration of walking, reading the paper, his meals, his afternoon nap, everything he did was as though according to a never-wavering time table. Even in his later years, he would never fail to go to the bank on exactly the first of every month for his pension. And if ever he was going out of town, he would have his tiny suitcase packed and kept by the door at least a week in advance.
He was involved in my school life in ways I only appreciate now- he always undertook the responsibility of covering my new school books every year. It was an elaborate ritual, he would sit down with the brown paper, labels, scissors and tape and neatly wrap all the books and stick the label correctly aligned on the top right corner. He also undertook ironing of my school uniform, and having the white canvas shoes polished pure white ready on Mondays and Thursdays while the ‘black shoes’ shone with Kiwi Polish on the other days.
As I got more involved in school activities and studies and friends, the games and conversations reduced. But my grandfather managed to keep himself entertained in his own way- he would play Solitaire and Patience with a deck of playing cards sitting on his bed, he would sing as usual and often listen in when I practice correcting my pitching, he would religiously watch the same news on all the news channels, he would pass most days quite uneventfully but without complaint. He was not one for constantly visiting relatives or chatting with the neighbours. Of course, at home he would constantly bicker with my grandmother on trivial issues like writing the ration list, and when his daughters and grandchildren came to visit; he would get into a talkative mood, narrating nostalgic stories. But otherwise, he generally appeared as a silent and dignified person, earning the respect of all around.
And so he remains in our memories, a person respected by all. I continue to picture him sitting on the verandah peacefully everytime I hear one of his favourite songs-‘Endaro Mahanubavulu Andariki Vandanumulu’ , translating to ‘There are many great men, to all of them my salutations’. A fitting tribute
