“I am on my way to our ancestral village, approximately twenty kilometres from the city of Sambalpur in Odisha. Whenever there is school vacation, I go there to meet and stay with my grandmother for a couple of days. She is fat, and therefore we fondly call her Badbadi.

Maa, literally meaning the fatty mother. Since she looks after family farming, she has to stay in the village most of the time. Whenever she is free, she comes to our house in the town where my father has a job. Mata, another old woman of the village, comes to stay with her at night to give her company and, in return for her service, gets a fixed amount of money or paddy every month. My grandmother lost her husband at a very young age, and since my father came to the town for a, she has been living in the village all alone. Mata has given her the nickname Badbadi Maa. She does not mind when we call her that and laughs it away. 

Thinking of her and her loneliness, I reach our ancestral house when evening sets in. Mata has not yet turned up. She will come after some time, only after her dinner is over. So my grandmother, being all alone in the house, does not open the main door.

There is another small door opening to another side of the village. Knowing this very well, I knock on the small door. She opens it and welcomes me inside. Her joys know no bounds. She embraces me and offers me red tea and Murhi (prepared from rice), knowing fully well that in the town we take dinner a little late. I am really surprised to see her alive. I ask her, How do you live without a stomach and look after farming and our ancestral house so well?” She tries to hold back her tears but fails. I know she loves her house and will never come to stay with us in the town permanently. My father and we children have failed on several occasions to persuade her to do so. But she just loves her house and farming. She is also growing old day by day. At this age, she has to cook her own food and do all the household chores herself. I cannot control my tears, which roll down my cheeks. She tells me, When you grow up and do a job, I will definitely go and live with you. I will be too old then and cannot do all this alone.” I stay with her for a couple of days and come back to attend my school. She comes up to the door to bid me farewell. There were tears in her eyes. She asks me to come again at the earliest.” Before I say anything, my sleep breaks and my dream comes to an end. Alas! She is no more with us and is also not likely to ever come back to our midst.

I often have the same dream even now. The reason has to be explained to be believed. The year was 1988 when I got my first appointment and had to leave my home state. By that time, my grandmother was alive and had a uterine problem. When I left for my destination, she had come up to the door as usual to bid me farewell. I took leave of her. There were tears in her eyes. I told her to take it easy. I would come home soon to meet her whenever I got leave. A few months rolled on. At that time, the mobile phone was not in use. There was no landline phone at home either. So I found it difficult to communicate with anybody. My sister used to send letters to me at regular intervals.

One day I decided to go home and meet my family members, particularly my grandmother who was ill. I had sent home a letter as to which date I would reach home. I reached home on the scheduled date and knocked on the door. But my grandmother was not there to welcome me as expected. My mother opened the door and started crying on seeing me. Only the I realised that my grandmother was no more. My sister had sent a letter to me regarding her death. But I was not in receipt of it. I also started crying and lamenting her loss. My father, mother and sister tried to console me. But I was inconsolable as I could not see her face at the time of her death. After spending a few days, I again left for my place of service. But the experience was so painful and touching that I often have this dream of my grandmother without a stomach, as she died of her uterine ailment.

Other than the recurring dream, I cherish many memories of my grandmother. Since my parents were the first children in the family, we were very close to her. As my other brothers and sisters were very small, I often went to the village to be with her. She would sleep in the middle, and early in the morning, when she would get up for her bath in the village pond, she would put a pillow and go so that we could not feel her absence. After coming from her bath, she would wake us up for our breakfast. Before that, she would get our teeth brushed. She would take us to the paddy fields and say, besides studies, unless and until we learnt management of farming, then who would do this. She was a hard-working and traditional lady. She could prepare all traditional items. All the tithis, fairs and festivals were on her finger tips. She would take us to festivals like Rathyatra and temples so that we could listen to recitals from the R and Shrimad Bhagavata. She thought that in addition to studies, an interest in scriptures and spiritualism would guide us along the right path. She was a brave lady. She became a widow at an early age but never lost her spirit in bringing up my father. She managed farming and the household chores s after sending my father and her only son to the town for education and a career. I have never seen such a perfect woman like her.

My grandmother was a woman par excellence. She loved all nine brothers and sisters in the family from the very core of her heart, though my elders were very close to her as the eldest children. Today, whatever we are, we owe it to her because of her knowledge of farming, tradition, household chores, script and interest in spiritualism. Sometimes I think and brood over the matter: had she not been there, what would have happened to my course of life?

Apart from dreams, whenever I am conscious and alone, I remember her, her regular offer of red tea and Murhi to us and last but not least the Thak Thak sound of Mata’s stick on the village road when she came to our house at night to be with her so that she did not remain alone. Alas! She is no more. I wish she were alive. Though I see her in dreams, my actual dream of keeping her with me in her extreme old age has never come true.

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