Baba.

 

Down the old lane lined with new houses is the abode of my Grandparents. The four storied building is nothing like the houses that surround it. Its chipped teal paint and damaged walls stand in sharp contrast with its newly erected tiled neighbors. The iron gate screeched as I pushed it to enter the small parking. It was a warm June evening, not the kind of warmth that comforts you and makes you want to curl up on the sofa with a cup of cold coffee, but the kind of warmth that make you squirm and unwilling to leave your nice air conditioned room. I flew up the staircase, taking two stairs at a time and then rang the doorbell to another black iron gate. We Indians have a thing about iron gates. You rarely see a middle class house without an iron gate, in fact, our houses aren’t guarded by just one gate. First, we have an iron gate and then a wooden one. Security issues, we can say. The iron gate on my grandparents house was decorated by a garland of dried marigolds and mango leaves which was just below a door hanging saying ” Shubh Deepawali”. The wooden gate had a poster of Sai Baba, whose forehead had been painted with tilaks of chandan and roli. My grandparents are very religious people, like every other person in my family. My grandmother opened the door and smiled when she saw me. A frail old woman. Inside the house, I see my Baba sleeping. My grandfather, he is my favourite person. He was there, sleeping peacefully in this small house of his. He has a hearing problem but doesn’t wear any hearing aids, So you have to sit near him and yell into his ears if you want to talk to him. So people rarely put any effort into communicating with him. So everytime anyone visits my grandparents place, Amma engages them into gossips and complaints and stories about neighbors, relatives, relatives of relatives, her maid, her maid’s relatives and the list is never ending. And my Baba just sits there, hearing nothing, smiling at nothing. He has a beautiful smile. Beautiful, Beautiful man. And there he was, sleeping. So, I pulled up the ancient wooden chair that has probably been on this planet since 1455, and sat next to my grandfather. I talked to my grandmother about things I really didn’t care about, like her neighbor’s family and far far relatives that I don’t even recognize. My Amma used to be teacher. On the wall in front of me, there were three framed photographs, the first one was of me in a pink dress when I was five or six years of age. The next one was an age old photograph of Hindu deities. And the last one was a black and white photograph of Amma, Baba holding my father when he was just a few months old. Amma used to be beautiful. When I was a kid, I found it very hard to believe that my grandparents could once have been so young. They looked happy. And I realized, how little of my Baba have I known. And it surprised me, how much you can love a person without ever really knowing him. There are a million things about him that I’ve never known, a million stories that I’ve never heard. And yet, I can promise you that there isn’t anything in the world that could allay my love for this person. Faith. I have faith in this person. This person with a history unknown to me. This person who made mistakes. This person who lived and who loved. This person with a nose too big for his face. This person with a beautiful smile. The person who lay asleep in his lonely old house. 

He stirred in his sleep and both Amma and I got up to stand near him.

He opened his eyes lazily as Amma touched his forehead and smiled down at him. He looked confused. The lost gaze of a man who just woke up from a deep sleep. His gaze slipped through the walls, the television, me. Then his eyes rested on my grandmother’s warm smile. And he looked at her, just for a second. And that lost gaze found its home, as his lips reflected her smile.