THE LOST ONES

In the big frame of things, break-ups seem to become almost inconsequential. Because, even though you burn all the pictures and delete all the chats and forget his contact details, somewhere at the back of your mind, you know that if the dire need arises, some friend of a friend (of a friend?) will provide you with the phone number and you could connect. And despite you acting like your life is over after a break-up, the only thing that should truly bum you out is literally just that; the end of a life.

Last evening I was having the usual hectic day, with the plans for a not-so-usual good night. Everything was running as smooth as it does, when this guest lecturer arrived to teach us about the petroleum sector in India. He was this distinguished old man, with that grandfatherly aura around him. And all of a sudden, amidst a discussion of oil bonds and the recent deregulation of diesel, I started missing my grandfather. My maternal grandfather, to be precise, since I didn’t have the fortune to remember much of my paternal one; he died when I was 2. And I prayed it was a case of some dramatic fight or estrangement, or some generation gap issues which made us not talk to each other, so that I could just call him or travel to see him. But all I am left with are old photographs, and memories that are slowly fading away. My grandfather died on 2^nd August, 2012, two and a half years after my paternal grandmother died on January 16, 2010. And I miss them terribly. I don’t like discussing them with my parents, because I don’t want to make them sad. I understand that their pain is so much more than what mine is, because compared to my parents, I knew them for a short span of time, visiting them only during vacations.

Yesterday, this one incident was playing over and over in my mind. I don’t remember in which class I was back then. My grandfather had come to visit us in Bokaro, and we used to live in our old quarters. It was a school day and I had to get some Xeroxes done for class next day, so he and I went to the Sector 6 market to get it done. Once there, the photocopied papers didn’t come out that well. It was dark and not clear, and dadu told the photocopy guy to Xerox it all again. The guy was reluctant, but dadu was firm. He said that had it been some office document, he wouldn’t have minded, but this was his granddaughter’s school work, so the prints must be perfect. And honestly, I was embarrassed to see him fight with the photocopy guy like that, in his broken Hindi. But now, when I have more sense that I did when I was a kid, I realise that gesture for what it truly was. A proclamation that nothing but the best for his granddaughter, even if he has to speak in broken Hindi for it, even if he has to argue with the photocopy guy for it.

Another instance comes to mind, when being the kid that I was, I decided I wanted to become a doctor, and my dadu was to play the part of a patient. He went out and bought a genuine stethoscope for me. I wonder where that is now, but I remember hours of playing “doctor-doctor” with him, where he would lie patiently, and I would “diagnose and treat” him.

He used to say we were like “q and u”. I was the “u” and him the “q”, because in the English vocabulary, a lot of independent words start with “u”, but “q” is almost always succeeded by a “u”- quick, quiet, quilt, question, you get the drift. So, that was how important “u (me)” was for his “q”.

I like to believe I inherited my love for English from both my grandfathers. My mom said my paternal grandfather would carry me in his lap while teaching students English in the evenings. I, of course, don’t remember any of it. But it feels nice to muse over such things, trying to find connections with your grandparents, despite not remembering them.  

I have a very fond memory of making my first even sandwich for my dadu. I was in class 6-7 maybe. We were in Uttarpara, and my mom and grandmom had left me and dadu at the house to go shopping somewhere. They were taking a lot of time to return, and I got hungry. I decided to cook something for us both, and I remember it took my almost 15 minutes to figure out that the cucumbers and tomatoes are kept in the fridge. It was a semi-decent sandwich, I guess. I hadn’t even toasted the bread. But I remember him praising it greatly, and then proudly saying that I fed him when my mom and grandmom returned, and to everyone else that came for the next few days.

So many wonderful memories, so many great moments, and it doesn’t matter where you are and how busy you have been keeping, some days you really can’t help but think about the important people in your life, who you will never see, whose voices you will never hear, whose hands you will never hold, and it makes you profoundly sad.

And whenever I think of my grandfather, I remember this one particular quote he used to always say. It was his favourite, by far, and written by famous Bengali poet Michael Madhusudhan Dutta, “Sey aajike holo koto kal, tobu jano mone hoy sedin sokal.”