Moromor Aata, Aita!

The weather in Delhi is making me nostalgic, reminding me of my childhood school days and the way I spent my carefree time post school. I feel like getting my hands on one book and this yearning takes me back time. I am another one of those lucky children having  grown and spent the better part of my formative days with my grandparents.

A month back when I visited home, I came back with myriads of emotion. A week in Guwahati is short, to say the least. As I was busy dropping in at every relatives house to exchange a greeting, I made it to my maternal grandmother at 4pm in the afternoon. Not the perfect time to visit her. Although I have moved on with my fast paced life, Aita (grandmother in Assamese) still sticks to her lunch at 1-1.30pm and afternoon nap from 2pm to 5pm. For her everything is the same like it was 20 years back, she does not have a smart phone to be busy in whatsapp, not a computer or an email mailbox, she is still particular about not missing the evening 7 o clock news. At an age, where I order my bay leaves from Big Basket app, she still plucks them from the tree behind our house and then dries them to use. She is known for the various pickles that she prepares, lemon,mango, chilly are my favorite ones. We also have a mango tree in the courtyard and the rest of the fruits are from the weekly mandi.

That day she woke up earlier than her usual timing at 4:30 pm and was very glad to see me, my brother and my cousin sister in the family room. She mentioned a quick line of how she wakes up by 4pm but tries sleeping and passing some time twisting and turning on the bed till 5pm. She was a constant company to my grandfather for all these years; I imagined staying alone in the same house without him must be difficult.

But her simplicity somewhere always strikes a different chord within me. She was worried and angry that day because she asked someone to get her a small bottle of vinegar for her pickles and the person got a big bottle. She was worried how will she use such a huge bottle. She got up from her chair, walked to the kitchen angrily complaining and even showed us the big bottle of vinegar.

She then started talking about our childhood days as she was cutting few mangoes which fell down from our mango tree. She was telling my younger brother and sister, how I was as a child. It feels so special to know about yesteryears that you don’t remember, from your grandmother. I was a little overwhelmed to know that I was a very easy kid to handle. I learnt how I was left alone in the bed and I played with my feet and hands and rolled off to sleep.

As I grew up I became the naughty kid, she used to tie me up to a pillar when she used to take her afternoon nap. My younger siblings enjoyed this story a little more. I apparently tried stunts to put together tables and opening the front door and running into the middle of the busy road. We continued listening to her stories. The mangoes were not very sweet, but in today’s world I gladly had the mangoes and was happy that it did not have artificial ingredients.

As I was having the mangoes in the fresh mid June afternoon with rain drizzles pouring in the courtyard, I remembered my grandfather. I used to sit with him for his afternoon tea and discuss so many things. I vaguely remember him telling me his idea of investment. He mentioned planting betel nut trees, coconut trees, mangoes and how it would reap benefit for years; I was a kid and hardly understood what investment meant. But today it makes sense to me and I try hard to remember what he actually said.

He is a true source of inspiration, his principles and his radical thoughts aligned with his simple yet fearless personality. He has shared all of his these perspectives with Aita over numerous cups of tea for all these years. The super simple,innocent, gulliable Aita has reserves of knowledge and a perspective which is anything but, impressive.

Talking about Aata (grand dad) and his thoughts on trees with Aita, we started talking about agriculture. I discovered that he actually wrote a book called ‘Biplobi Krishak’ on peasants during the time he spent in the Jail, for aligning with the Communist during India’s struggle for Independence.

The book was published and several copies were distributed but when the British officers discovered the content of the book and how it talked about ‘land to the tiller’, the book was banned.

As I took bites of the pieces of not-so-sweet mangoes, I was filled with pride, pride of having fruits of what he planted even nine years after his death. Probably this is the kind of investment return he talked about.

60-70 years later, today I wish to find that book he wrote, gift a copy to my old grandmother and learn with the understanding of a 25 year old, what he actually wanted to say about Agriculture.