Cheers! Nani
I was the first of her nine grandchildren, and her only granddaughter. She was like The Incredible Hulk to me. I am like her: hypochondriac, straight talker, and someone who enjoys their drink.
I woke up on Sunday afternoon to a WhatsApp message on our family group “6th punyatithi. Shraddhanjali”. This came with a garlanded photo of Nani. Groggy and sleepy-eyed I plonked a ❤️ emoji. I can’t write messages like “miss you” —but that’s just me. To each her own, I guess.
An hour later, with coffee inside my system, I zoomed the photograph. In front of her garlanded framed photo were plates of some of her favourite food—kachori and aata ka halwa with big chunks of cashews—AND a PEPSI can. I was chuckling. Nani loved her soft drink!
I couldn’t resist myself. And among all the tribute-ory messages, I sent “Pepsi ke saath. 😍cheers, Nani. ❤️🙏🏼”.
2018, Darbhanga, Bihar. Nani lay on the floor, on a bed of sand, surrounded by slabs of ice, in a room with the AC on full blast. She looked like she was going to get up any moment now. She looked beautiful, calm and at peace.
I was the eldest of her nine grandchildren and her only granddaughter. The only one. But I couldn’t cry. We had all met in May that year to celebrate Mama-Mami’s 25th anniversary. I was certain she would get up. Anytime, now.
The lasting image of her in my mind is a young Nani (barely 50) carrying a big bag with one hand, flung on her back and she crossing the road to come to our flat. For me that was my strong, brave, courageous Nani. I must have been five or six. She was there to help ma take care of me.
Now when I think of it (and had I known back then), she looked nothing less than The Hulk. The Incredible Hulk.
For 83, she was in good health — mental and physical. She washed her own clothes everyday!
Of course, she took thyroid and BP meds. Of course she had an episode of low sodium levels. Of course she had hypochondria just like any 80 year old. Of course she thought doctors were useless if they couldn’t diagnose ‘something’. And of course, even a casual enquiry about her health would open the floodgates of information about her bad knee, dodgy bowel movements and a shaky tooth.
She was fine except for a niggling restlessness that had set in a week before she passed away. She had been preparing for the day since Nana died in December 2013. Not in a sad, doomed way but in a “ok-everyone-has-to-go-one-day” kind of a way.
Her conversations with her children were often peppered with her conviction that her time had come. On the night before she died, she complained of a neck pain. She recalled, rather proudly, how Nana could set it right by simply popping the neck. Mama refused to take up the challenge.
A couple of hours later, she said her neck was fine and that perhaps Nana had come and set it right. And that Nana had also come to take her.
The morning she passed on, she woke up at about 4. She told Mama this was it and that she certainly didn’t want to go to the hospital. They insisted. She was reluctant but she insisted on combing her hair and wearing a fresh set of clothes. She wanted to look well groomed in her passing, as she had been all her life.
She breathed her last in the ambulance with her son by her side.
Apart from hypochondria, I think a couple of her grandchildren (at least) have inherited her love for food. She absolutely detested any sort of food restrictions. In the last few years, her food at different times of the day looked like a child’s, a teenager, or an adult’s diet but never an octogenarian’s— tea and biscuit, a glass of sattu and a pint of Mango shake (she preferred to have her mango shake in a beer mug). She loved kebabs, chicken curry, and of course soft drinks. Especially, Sprite.
When Nani went to stay with mum, earlier that year, mum took extra precaution regarding her diet, especially the use of oil. Nani complained of bland food and went as far as to insinuate that her daughter had forgotten how to cook.
The next day mum made very spicy chicken curry in a generous amount of mustard oil, and dad got some kebabs as sides. Nani finally approved of that meal and acknowledged the fact that her 63 year old daughter could still cook. Dad ensured there was some kebab at home at all times. And of course, Sprite.
She was very conscious of not becoming a burden on anyone or inconveniencing her children —neither her son, who she preferred to live with, nor her three daughters, who she spent brief periods with once every few years.
Her biggest concern in the last one week was that if it rained when she died how would her daughters and grandchildren make it to the cremation? Will it not become too cumbersome to cremate? Will it be too much a hassle for her son?
She was preparing to die.
I may also have partly (very partly) inherited her sense of dressing. In fact it stops at sleeveless blouse and cotton saree. She wore it before you could say Nani. Now that is something I can’t do. And neither can I look prim and proper at all times like mum and Nani.
Now she wasn’t very thrilled about my hair. To give you an idea, an ex colleague
calls me Sheru. It is like a Lion’s manes (not the mushroom), untamed, and more salt than pepper. So the last time we met in May, Nani had sat me down and tried to tame the mane. That was the last time she did my hair.She, just like Nana, ensured that no one was hassled. They went on a Saturday and pretty quickly (no prolonged agony and indignity of hospitals). It had been raining on and off in Darbhanga that day. The weather app forecast rain the next day, the day of the cremation. But it somehow just didn’t rain from the time she was taken from home after all the rituals till the cremation got over. It rained after that.
All her children, and five of her grandchildren were there to bid her goodbye. She had the perfect send off. Muffled sun, pleasant weather, lush greenery and a round of her favourite Sprite. Sort of ‘one for the road’.
Cheers, Nani. I hope you went well!
All my written words on Substack have been made possible by mentors like & and the fabulous writing circle. They have announced their next workshop and I would highly recommend it to everyone.
Especially, Sprite
Savvy ki Nani ki jai ho 🪁
Sigh Savvy ,it made me miss my Nani . Your Nani,Darbhanga and Sprite. I will have it tonight, in memory of your Nani and mine.