Kinship at 75
Old age brings health issues to even the stoutest. My sister Pushpa, an M.A. in Economics and now 75, has been a pillar of strength for our big, joint family. Her support ranges from handling the accounts of the family business to helping young school-going children of the family with homework, or, reaching out to her three younger sisters in hour of need. And she does all this despite a discomforting knee and sciatica pain, which she takes in her stride. But, recently, it was the turn of the rest of the family to rally around her as care-givers, when she was hospitalized for a week since her blood-sugar levels soared to 500 units (hyper-glycemia), about a month ago. She is recovering, though still under medication, and needs to report weekly to the hospital for a check-up. It is harsh on her, as she was never ever hospitalized, before this.
Pushpa is three years senior to me. It is a closely knit family in the traditional way. The generation next to us address her as ‘Badi Aunty’ (i.e. the senior aunt), and the grandchildren too follow suit, by calling her ‘Badi Aunty’. As a part of the bonhomie of a joint family, we fondly refer to her room as the Head Office, since she is the eldest in the family. Since, I now live in a metropolis, 1600 kms away, I call her on phone everyday to enquire about her progress. Her B.P. shot up for a day or two, a week ago. I told her not to worry and to get back gradually to her original routine. Pushpa and I have had a strong bond since our childhood. Her father being the younger brother of my own father, and her mother, the younger sister of my mother, made it a ‘covalent’ bond, as stated in chemistry. This bond got strengthened when my grandmother (nani) instructed in 1955 that Pushpa be stationed for a while at my home, about a km away from hers, to give me company, as I was the only child of my parents, and my father largely stayed out-of-town on his job. Hence, for the next two years it was my mother, Pushpa and I, together.
Pushpa has always been known to be bold and fearless. As a school teacher, once when her posting was at a school located 20 km away from home, she started living in a place close to her school, alone, to skip the daily commute. One night, when a burglar tried to gain entry, she single-handedly thrashed him and drove him away, though not before the thief gashed her left-hand fingers with his knife. Luckily, the fingers could be rejoined at a hospital, soon after.
Pushpa was the first one in our big joint family to go to the local college. The co-ed college was located three km outside our town. So, a bicycle was bought for her, so that she could bike to the college and back independently, like all other students did. It was in 1961, when India was still largely orthodox. Fearing eve-teasing by bike-riding boy-students of the college, Kulbhushan our eldest brother, who is now no more, insisted that she will go to college and return pillion-riding with him, everyday. He realized after a week, of course, that it was all safe and Pushpa could handle the college commute herself. I recall that I was then in final year of my school days, and used to enjoy reading her college text-books on English language, and in the process, learnt about Coriolanus by Shakespeare, for the first time.
Worried about her health and to soften her misery, I keep narrating some happy anecdotes from our past on phone to her, such as a few childhood events which were common between her, myself and our brother Dharam Pal, who is generally with her when I call. For instance, I asked her a week ago if she can recollect that as a young boy, I used to throw a tantrum if I was not given the morning tea in my favorite ceramic cup. Doing a pep-talk, I reminded her, on another day, that she has a bit of my ‘hardy’ mother in her, and that should see her through to normalcy soon, and to working again from the Head Office. To bring a smile to her, I told her light-heartedly that Dharam Pal keeps misplacing his smartphone frequently because she blesses him every now and then with ‘Dhar Dhar Bhullein’. Translated from Punjabi, it means ‘may you have so much wealth and goodies that you keep forgetting where you kept them!’
I asked Pushpa yesterday to recall how she tricked me once with artistry of words. I could sense the sudden excitement in her voice, as she laughed, saying, “I know you refer to the Kaalney-Maalney incident”. It happened in 1955, when I was about nine years old. The milkman had not come that day, and my mother gave me money and a large brass tumbler to buy some milk from a shop 200 m away. She sent Pushpa, too, with me so that I will cross the road safely. Having bought it, as soon as I started walking back home holding the milk tumbler in my hand, Pushpa suggested that I let her carry it till we have crossed the road, after which I would carry it. I agreed. We crossed the road but she continued to walk carrying the tumbler. I reminded her to return it to me as promised. She said she would return it if I said, ‘Kaalney’. I said why should I say the strange word ‘Kaalney’, which was meaningless. She said that didn’t matter, but if I want the tumbler back, I must comply. We were already half way back to home, so to beat it, I said: ‘Kaalney’. She said, ‘Good’, but instead of handing over the tumbler to me, she continued walking briskly with it, and put a further condition, sort of changing the goal-post, and said I will get it only if I also said, ‘Maalney’, another meaningless, though rhyming word. By then, I knew she was pulling a fast one on me, but being helpless, and not to lose time in arguments, I said, ‘Maalney’. At which she shot back, ‘I will sure give the tumbler if you finally say Taalney’, even as she climbed the stairs of our first floor home, with me trailing. I yelled ‘Taalney’ in exasperation, but by then she had completed her mission of handing over the milk tumbler to my mother, explaining that she doubted if I could carry the milk tumbler safely, and therefore, to block that, she had quickly devised a game of words which she played on me. A smart job!
