Bibi Ji

One of the most beautiful relationship that a person can have is the one that is shared between a Grandmother and Grandson… Especially with maternal Grandma. My Nani passed away last week at a ripe age of 95, As always each time the phone rings early morning it makes you sit up thinking of the worse and so it was.

So many memories flash by when you hear of someone close passing over, the earliest memories that I have are of my summer vacations spent in the village at my maternal grandparents house.  We use to call my grandma Bibi.

Kids in those days use to be got married off especially girls at a very early age, My mom was only 18 when she was married and funny as it may sound the race to have a male heir for the family name meant try try until you have a male child , so was the case here too ,  Nani had to give birth to 6 girls before she had a male heir, and so it happened that the age difference between me and My Mama (mother’s brother) is almost nothing.

The biggest problem of coming abroad is not to be able to see loved ones at the end that always bothers me and I have had to get through a few of them over the last few years.

Things were not that advanced so everything had to be done manually, filling up of water, preparing food for the farm labourers, taking care of the household work , looking after the household animals, There was always so much work to be done and Nani was always busy doing something or the other.

She was GOOD and when I say good I do mean Good at everything ,  apart from preparing food, I remember her stitching, most of my school shirts/trousers were stitched by her not just mine but the rest of the household too,  other than that the women also had the skills of creating beautiful Phulkari’s , Women had to prepare for their dowry themselves  and by the grace of god (or was it my Grand father’s 🙂 ).. Nani had 6 daughters for whom all the Dowry had to be created, so Nani had a busy time.

I also remember the amount of time that was spent spinning the Charkha to weave thread from cotton,  The thread then used to create the beautiful bed sheets or Shawls and other type of clothes. Women had so much work to do in a day, long long working hours get up very early to make sure everything is set in motion for the day.

Men had it easy I believe as they had only one big thing to look after , tend to the fields all day long every day, I use to laugh with my Nani saying she was a Work horse never got tired, taking care of  such a big household took immense strength and Lot of hard work.

The amount of Desi Ghee, the big dollops of butter on the food I have had growing up, the yummyliscious food cooked with all that love over the fireplace, I remember I use to sit on one side of the Chulha pushing the cotton plant dried sticks for fire, as Nani cooked.

Going to bed and she would bring hot milk and tell stories till we dozed of.  Makes me think how it will be visiting the maternal grandparents house now that they are gone, time will tell.

I miss you Bibi ji world is not going to be the same place anymore.

 

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