“Nameste Bhai Saheb… didn’t spot you and wife in Mandir for quite some time?” “Yes Mata ji, first there was a bereavement in the family, and then I had a cataract operation. So couldn’t make it.”
“How are your eyes now?” “Fine Ma’m, and am continuing with eye drops. I went for a check up on a morning, got it operated at noon, and returned home in the afternoon,” I said in the Julius Caesar’s I came, I saw, I conquered style, in an bid to impress her on the swift action.
“Well I got mine too done in Rajkot. Mine in the Chat Mangni, Pat Byah style. Today operation tomorrow train journey back to Bangalore,” she said, eclipsing my feat.
Yes, the lady I am talking about is the one and only graceful (sorry, that would be inviting trouble) Vijayaben, Manoj’s mother, and Snehal’s mother in law (Maple 3181). Whenever Aunty and I meet her in the Madheshwar Mandir, we walk back home with her, though that meant a shift to top gear to keep pace with her.
Vijayaben leads a simple, regimented life. Past her 80, she gets up at 3 am when most of us are in the deep-sleep zone; reads Bhagawat Gita and other religious scriptures for nearly two hours. “Then she would prepare a warm cup of tea to quench her parched throat”, is what you would guess as the next sentence. Precisely not. She never tasted tea or coffee in life. Can you beat that? And her first contact with food on any day is at 9 am - breakfast.
At 5.30 she is all set for destination-Joggers-Park. When I reach the park at around 6.45, she is mostly back home. But sometimes I do see her on the last leg of her morning quota. Evening, of course, is her unfailing to and fro walk to the Mandir.
“So, you must be compensating this early wake-up with a nap at noon?” I asked her. “No way. Yeah, sometimes I do doze off while sitting in the sofa, but never a deliberate attempt to rest. Never.” “I must recast my own afternoon liberal quota of sleep, just because I get up at 5.30,” I said to myself.
“Then, surely you must be taking a day off every week - probably Sunday?” I continued, hell-bent on identifying some matching area with mine. “No way. Why should you? Never respond to your mind’s call, it is your worst enemy. Respond only to your body’s call. If your body signals, say, through some pain here or there, then by all means respect it, and skip for a day. Never otherwise.” Now I begin to worry if I should engage myself in further conversation, lest unwittingly I get brainwashed to change my lifestyle. That would mean denying my Sunday off, mid-week skip on the pretext of drizzling, windy, cloudy, or, ‘went to bed late’…
“You must be giving a helping hand in the household chores, or you take it easy?” “Though Snehal insists on me to relax, I volunteer to clean all the utensils. Otherwise my hands will rust. Stay active and alert,” she delivered a crisp message - again running counter to mine: rest and relax. This healthy geriatric hyper-activism reminds me of Geeta Hari’s mother in Palakkad. At 98 - yes 98, no typo error - she gets up at 5 in the morning, sprinkles cow-dung-mixed water in the front yard, draws sparkling rangoli at pre-dawn, washes clothes herself, cooks food - does everything all by herself. Thus, Geeta’s youngest brother who is positioned in the village basically to look after the mother, enjoys being looked after. By the way, Geeta Hari is our neighbour. Strictly speaking, not neighbour but neighbour-in-law, because they are in 3192, and we are in 3195.
“And so, with all work and no play, Vijayaben ji, at what time of the day do you relax?” I asked her. “Every evening I join the ladies meet in the kiosk near the swimming pool, though I can’t vouch I follow all their conversation.” “Why, they speak a language you are not familiar with?” “No, no, my ears are no longer trustworthy.”
“Not to worry Ma’m. You are not alone. Mine too have begun to disown me,” I reassured her. “The other day my sister-in-law’s daughter in Oak asked me, “So when did you move in?” And I replied, “No movies… for quite sometime”. Thereafter whenever I utter, ‘Beg your pardon’, or ‘come again”, she would say, “Never mind.”
V V Sundaram
Maple 3195
vvsundaram.blogspot.in
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