Grey hairs and a handful of Cashews-2

Handbook of life and a story on beliefs

Link to previous part: /https://myscribblessite.wordpress.com/2020/05/06/grey-hairs-and-a-handful-of-cashews/

“How often do I come in your memories?”, she asked me.

I lifted my head and looked at her annoyingly. I was finally feeling relaxed at the moment and the question was so inapt for the moment.

“Why are you getting upset? I know that you don’t miss me every single second.”

“That is true. I don’t miss you every single second. But there are times when I do. The memories pop up all of a sudden and leave you still for a long time.”, I said and she nodded in agreement. “It is just that there is a huge baggage of memories that we all carry around in our life. We don’t feel any weight , neither do we remember its existence until some moments happen. Certain things around us or certain situations bring back those memories and make us feel the emptiness of not having those someone around with whom we had a fond memory attached. It can be anything, a small object that belonged to them, a situation where we wish if they were there, or it can be even the food that we eat that may bring back he beautiful moments we had with them.”

“Ah, the food! “, She interrupted my free flow of thoughtful words. Another moment of annoyance for me. But I pretended to be patient enough to let that slide away.

“I bet then that I am remembered most of the time, right.”, She asked, her sound filled with a lot of hopeful notes that somehow synced in harmony with my lost emotions. I looked at her confused, my mind restless, waiting to find the right words to fill the silence, that was widening as each second passed.Somehow, she knew the hesitance in me and took my both hands and put something inside and closed it and pushed it towards me.

I brought my hands towards me and opened it. What was inside of it was the key to the locked words that were wrestling in my throat, waiting to get out, slightly choking me in between.

“You are remembered most of the time”. I finally managed to say it out loud.She started laughing hearing it, probably the cracks in my voice had let her lose control of what was supposed to be a very sentimental moment. Hiding my embarrassment, I too joined her, clenching my fists tight, holding the treasure she had handed over to me. A handful of cashews-It was as if I was holding onto the million memories associated with it and with her, than anything else. The memories of summer holidays, rains and the scent of the burnt cashews.

Death is an inevitable part of the story book of life. We start with a rather beautiful prologue of birth which we barely remember, but after the many chapters of life, the epilogue is pretty much remembered and often written by us. Over the nearly three decades I’ve been around, many of my chapters were written by quite a number of wonderful people, of which some of them had signed off their stories and left, including my grey haired lady.

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“Why can’t we roast cashews today?”, 7 year old me was furious, my round chubby face almost red and ready for an outburst of tears.

“Because it is a Tuesday, Dee”, my Grandma mumbled while cutting raw jack fruit to thin long slices, for frying it later in the evening Her fingers trembled as she carefully took each jack fruit piece and carefully cut it into almost equal , long slices.For a moment, my mind drifted off from the actual issue and went along with the idea of eating piping hot jack fruit chips with the tea. Just in time, as if adding oil to the burning fire of despair, a deafening sound of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning together exploded outside, bringing me back to my actual problem.

“What’s with a Tuesday? I want to eat roasted cashews. We have been collecting cashews for last two days for it and you know, I haven’t eaten a single piece of it because you promised me. Now, you are just wandering off from that.” I said, pulling her hand away from the bowl of jack fruits. She stopped cutting and turned to me. The very first drop of tear was ready at the corner of my eyes, waiting for my order which was nothing but a word of refute of my wish from my grandmother.

Adding more drama, the afternoon sky got ready for the downpour, the dark clouds covering the last inch of what was left of the blue sky. I felt frustrated and angry with the rain clouds over my head, as it was just another excuse for my grandmother to not roast cashews. She kept her knife and bowl aside and pulled me closer to her as we sat on the veranda. As if to enhance the gloominess of the situation, another thunder rumbled in the sky accompanied by a shimmering lightning. I closed my ears and eyes at the same time and turned my face towards her, hiding myself under white neryathu. I was scared of thunderstorms and she was now my only messiah who will save me from getting hit by a lightning.

All the while, my grandmother kept smiling, watching all my tactics with a playfulness in her eyes. She held me in one hand as she stood up, taking the bowl and knife in the other hand and got me inside the house. As was the custom, she took me to the bedroom and made me sit on the bed. The moment she released me from her hold, I immediately pulled the blanket and covered head to toe. Outside, I could hear the heavy downpour, that had already started with full strength as we got inside.

“Shut the windows and doors. Light is coming in”, I screamed with all might to her and snuggled deeper inside the bed, avoiding the bed side wall. My cousin sister had told me that lightning was electricity and walls were its accomplices and if you touch the walls during thunderstorm, you could get hit with the shock and die. I pulled two pillows and kept it as a barrier to protect me. Meanwhile, as I arranged our protective shelter, my grandmother had the duty of shutting the doors and windows so that the storm won’t find us. After securing the premises, my grandmother declared, “Dee, come out from the blankets. I have closed the doors and windows. You are safe now”. Listening to her, my little innocent mind convinced by the fact that grandmother had yet again saved me from a near death situation, I peeked outside of the blanket and looked at her. She slowly walked towards me and sat near me, on bed side.

All the while, the major issue had been lying inside, somewhat forgotten because of the thunder and rains, but inside the room, sheltered by the warmth of her care and comfort of the room, I was ready to shoot the million dollar question when , all of a sudden, my grandmother started to speak; “Dee, I am sorry to have promised you yesterday and then broken it. I did not realise it was a Tuesday. ”

“But what’s with a Tuesday, Ammoomma ? It is like any other day, right”, I asked.

She looked at me and nuzzled my hair. “You know when I was growing up, things were different from how it was now. Old times, you see. I grew up in that old times where we hold onto a lot of beliefs. Most of them come with an explanation based on the science that you are learning know but most others, don’t have any. Yet, we tend to cling on to those things because when we are at loss and don’t have anything, sometimes, these beliefs provide a safe haven and protect us.”

As usual, I understood only little and I had started to realise that that was enough for the present.Her words were mostly meant for the future where there will be situations that I have to face alone, I realise that now.

“Do I have to learn and follow these beliefs too?”, I threw another question at her. My grandmother went silent for a moment, her eyes narrowing down as if she was in deep thought. After a while, she woke up from her thoughts and replied, “Learning is always good,Dee. It helps you grow as a person. Lean as much as you can, not just from the text books that you have at school, but also from the story books, the religious books, the people around you and their experiences. Ultimately, after all that lessons, you have to learn from yourself. You have to learn to figure out what is right and what is wrong for you. You know, every belief and every faith is a necessity of the time they were created. As time passes, things need to evolve and I don’t want you to get stuck in those aged and expired stuffs and be a blind follower. The world already has enough of that kind. It needs people who can think, comprehend and question.”

“What should I do, Ammoomma?”, I asked, my voice already quivering with the weight of the amount of information that she has shared to me, all that for wanting to roast cashews on a Tuesday.

“Read a lot, Dee. And never stop learning from the experiences that you have when you face the world in a later tomorrow”, she looked into my eyes and smiled. Probably wondering whether the child had comprehended anything of what she had told.

Outside, the rain had almost stopped and all I could hear was the slight rumble of a retracting thunderstorm. I got outside of my blanket and took a leap from the bed to the floor. “Careful”, my grandmother said as she tried to stand up, holding onto the side of the bed. I pulled her hand again and we walked outside of the room towards the kitchen, as I shout out,

“Cashews for tomorrow, chips for today,

My grandmother’s beliefs more important for me any day”

As I repeated my new poem out loud and trod in front, I could hear my grandmother laughing between her heavy breaths as she walked behind me.

…to be continued

neryathu: Saree like cloth worn by women in kerala

ammoomma: Grandmother