A month ago when our grand father Subramani passed away, it is time to ponder over his life, to celebrate it..
At the age of 89, he has left us to eternity. Being a close knit family, losing the Patriarch himself has created a huge vacuum in our lives. Nevertheless its our duty and pleasure to kindle our memories with him and celebrate his life with us as his true heirs.
None of our childhood images comes forth without him in the frame. Every nook and corner of the house he lived and brought us up has his posture. His voice calls out to you the moment you think of him.
In Indian society even parents would look at their children as burden at any point of time but grand parents never. They always say with pride that they have become grand parents and garner the grand children with all the love in their world, our grand father was such person.
He became a grand father in his late 40s. Been a white and white man - white dhoti and crip white half slack shirt (courtesy - grandma). Occasionally at home he would wear a lung with white vest. His shirt would have 2 pockets one in front and the other inside or just mirroring the front pocket. Very particular about his cleanliness, he would bathe twice a day and kept his room spic and span. Kids are not allowed to sit in his bed while eating to avoid ant. He hates mosquito / ant bites and also had a sensitive skin which would get allergic. He would cycle home for lunch everyday. Wash and dry his handkerchief and take with him again to work after having had his lunch. Once his knee stopped to cooperate with him for all the hard work, he gave cycling. While walking he used to catch one end of hid dhoti lest it got dirtied on the road, That hitherto became his USP walking style. The cleanliness he practiced is just unimaginable for a person coming from a humble background.
He hails from a remote village - Pudukuppam in the Tamilnadu - Andhra border. His street in pudukuppam had Tamil speaking people in row and the opposite row houses were occupied by Telugu speaking folks. So he obviously had fluency in Telugu and lot of those words formed part of his Tamil vocabulary as well. After his elder sister gets married and moves to a town where her husband resides he also relocates in sometime to her place to assist the brother-in-law is unwell and at pudukuppam his father gives away his lands to neighbors in exchange for surutu (cigars).
In the new town he would do various jobs and business to bring up his sister's family while he also gets married and brings up 4 children. At one point the next generation in his sister's family throws him away in greed for money. Enraged he comes out a starts building a new home for his own family. All efforts spend and money till then left at the mercy of his sister. Along with his family he helps the family of two younger sister and get their kids married and ensure they settle down.
Throughout our childhood we have seen him and granny constantly helping their nieces and nephews. Whenever they visited our grand father's house they will be treated to good food. They will reside for an entire day or two and leave with money and goodies to carry back home. Every day there would be extra food made for 2-3 persons more. Any body from his village or friends or acquaintances would walk in for dining at lunch. Having to do so much of hard work for his liveliness he had never been a miser.
The grand father known to us always carried some innocence with him, thanks to his humble beginnings which created an auro of fondness towards him. Any child not just his own blood were attracted to him. Looking at him and following his activity in those days of no smart phones has lead us to inculcate his habits unknowingly. The neatness with which we complete our tasks and the cleanliness we uphold today are all that we owe to him. He would always fell happy and interested to share is young age stories to us when questioned about them. One remarkable story was the first time he met granny. He was told us numerous stories when we were kids, but of the same genre. Not formally educated, all his stories would be spun around boy leaving his native and ending up as a rich man with happily ever after climax. When looking back now we can see how he correlated the stories with his life.
He has never minced with words, it would be either yes or no. When asked how he decided he would say that's it no point in pondering over. If at all he minced or never gave a straight forward answer it for the well being of his family or any person. Not one to hold any grudges he would eventually come around with his us. Also as couples, our grand parents never had fights that lasted more than few minutes. So it was always fun to be with their company.He was child-like in many ways, never wished bad for anyone. He was a good soul.
In those days when our holidays were consumed in ludo and cards, he would be the first person to do cheating. He will not have the patience to sit through these games so he'll do somethings to end the game at the earliest. All us playing end up finding this out in some occasions and will have a riot at home. He presence will ensure a light hearted atmosphere. All neighbors had good comrade with him. Elders of his times would break into banter at our verandah at those times. Family panchayats will take place and all participants will be treated to tea and coffee. He was an affectionate person so rarely hurt anyone during these meet ups.
His liking for food was never understood by us in our early days as our taste buds were yet to appear. He would talk in length about the food cooked by his mother. He could recollect often that his pudukuppam house had a cashew tree. His mother had to pluck the fruit and put the nut in the firewood. She will break the nuts in its hot stage, burning her fingers and still make tasty cashew nut pakoda for him and his siblings. He always relished non-vegetarian food. Atleast an egg is needed to complete his food plate. His frequent travels to Chennai made accustomed to restaurant food here. Food served at Buhari in the 70s and 80s was his favorite. Sweets and savories were his preference at any time of the day. He liked rusk with tea in his older days as was easy on his falling teeth. Icecreams and milk sweets remained his favored ones till his last days. He will insist all of us to have good food particularly the food we like to have.
Except for the high blood pressure and glaucoma developed in his eyes, he remained a healthy person. Eye sight loss costed him dearly but he still read newspaper daily with the little sight. This remained his long time habit till his back gave away the strength to sit. The leg with knee pain and the eyes with very little sight made his life difficult for more than 20 years. But the ever hard working he was, carried with life despising these short comes. These difficulties tied him to the confines of this house but not his spirit. H
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the same Thatha for every time we visited him. He fell down many times at home due to poor eye sight. When we go to see he would never crib rather let us know how he happened to fall and start checking on our well being. That quality of check about each one of was unique. When with you he will talk only about you. In few instances when granny was unwell and when he was not able to help he had declared his sympathy for her to us.
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the same Thatha for every time we visited him. He fell down many times at home due to poor eye sight. When we go to see he would never crib rather let us know how he happened to fall and start checking on our well being. That quality of check about each one of was unique. When with you he will talk only about you. In few instances when granny was unwell and when he was not able to help he had declared his sympathy for her to us.
More and more memories of Thatha floods the mind, overflows from the heart, clouds the eyes and dims the ears. All his memories I will carry with me to my grave..
He shines in our sky guiding us
He resides in our hearts loving all
He is etched in our thought
He is craved in our conscience
He'll pull us out of our failures
He'll be the reason for our success
His life we will, celebrate till our last
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