Dadubhai ( Grandfather) :
From the day I gained consciousness, the day I learned to recognize people around me the few people I had known were ma, papa, dadubhai and amma and this is what I called my family. Eighteen years of my life had passed this way, dadubhai never wanted me to come into this world, as in he wanted a grandson and not a granddaughter, and definitely not a brown skinned grand daughter. So he was pretty unhappy with my birth but then eventually when to tend to live with someone it’s difficult not to like that person (for him I was a kid and it’s even more difficult to dislike an innocent creature). As they say small children are very sensitive towards the people who like them and people whom they like, they are like dogs who can sniff and tell you weather the person likes you or doesn’t. So even I had figured out that very early in my life. Later on the feeling had become mutual.
Slowly when I grew up he didn’t like most of the things I did right from the kind of clothes I wore ; the language I spoke; the way I was pampered by my parents; then came my guy friends and finally my boy friend ( who has dumped me now).
But in spite of all this there was some kind of love also blooming, as they say u can only hate a person if you have some kind of love for that person. This was pretty strange but now when I think about it, it was actually beautiful and nice. Dadubhai loved the fact that I was passionate about cooking (this is one activity that girls from conservative Bengali family should learn) since childhood when no one in the family let me enter the kitchen because they thought I would burn myself. Hence he would always encourage me in this and he was the first and many a times the only person to taste the end product of my experiment (which was usually great). He used to pick me up everyday from the bus stop when I came back from school (he did this because he used to go for his evening walk to the same place and also later on so that he could keep an eye on me). He had diabetes so no one allowed him to have sweets in the house and we both had a sweet tooth so he used to take me to a sweet shop every evening to have our favorite sweet nalen gurer sondesh ( a bengali delicacy).
The day he left all of us and went (don’t know where heaven or hell), I had tears in my eyes. Thou in the past many a times I wished for this day to come as early as possible and I thought that would be my happiest day, contradictory to my thought it wasn’t so.
I never thought I would be able to say this but dadubhai I seriously miss you when ever I go back home and see your bed empty with no one sitting there and watching all the Bengali serials in a row; when I don’t feel scared to bring my friends at any point of the day at home; when I don’t have to worry about the people who call on my land line. I’m sorry for the times I have hurt you but then it’s better late than never.
Fuldadu ( grandmothers sisters husband)
What shall I say about him, when I felt that I was not loved enough by my grandfather, this person made me realize that I was loved by him. I used to visit him quite a number of times in the year and he was a person not only loved by me but by every one who has ever had the privilege to know him. All his good deeds probably sum up to his two brilliant and extremely successful sons. He was extremely knowledgeable and whenever I had any problem with any subject the first person I went to was him. He always appreciated me, watched all my dance performances, be it on television, DVD or live. He always took keen interest in what was happening in my life and was always ready with a solution.
Last week suddenly when ma told me about that horrifying incident of his sudden death I couldn’t bear the shock. I still can’t believe that he is not there with us any more. I don’t know what else to write, probably when you feel very deeply for someone even words are not enough.
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