Bhabi Ji, my grandmother, came to visit us about twice a year. She made her home with Baba Ji, my uncle and her eldest son, and visited the other four by turn during the year. Her visits to our home were a mixed bag. Papaji, my father, loved to have her come over in the beginning; but later tired. Biji, my mother, played the passive aggressive card. She would be very polite and respectful on the outside and deeply resented her on the inside. I loved her visits and the sitcom worthy drama they created. My younger brother, Kuku and sister, Bablee, under the influence of Biji, were not able to see the entertaining Ram-Leela aspect of it.
Bhabi Ji was a high maintenance guest. First of all she did not consider herself as guest. When she came to visit she instantly installed herself as the lady of the house returning from a long journey. She would walk in, carrying her cloth bundle that held her precious essentials, and accept Biji’s paripana; In return blessing Biji with many sons and wish a long life for Biji’s husband. Then she would scout the house for the best place to enthrone her cot. She liked it placed where she could have a modicum of privacy but also be able to see all the going ons in the house. She also liked to be able to see the front of the house to monitor all entries and exits. Out of necessity, she needed to be close to the bathroom, to make it there without having an accident. But not so close that she could smell it. This invariably turned out to be in the middle of our corridor between the kitchen and the sitting room, a place we had to pass on way to everywhere. This became the first pet peeve of Biji. She would hit her knees on the corners of the cot twenty times a day. She bore it like a martyr.
The cot was Bhabi Ji’s domain while she was there. It was made of woven jute stretched on a wooden frame. The firmness could be controlled by the amount of tension in the binding rope at one end. We had to adjust it to her specifications. This took a few days since she was not sure what her specifications were. She would agree to try a setting for one night. After adjusting the tension Biji would cover the jute with a durrie and then a soft quilt called talai. She would then cover these with a clean white bed sheet and tuck the ends in. The two pillows would be covered in odd pillowcases because the matching ones would suddenly become lost. A heavy comforter and a kambal (heavy woolen blanket) would be neatly folded at the foot of the bed no matter the season. Bhabi Ji would then get busy unpacking. She would open her cloth bundle and take out various articles and tuck them under one corner or the other. Her clothes would be nicely folded and spread under the talai. Her bag with datoon, a tree bark she used to clean her teeth with, would be tucked under the right pillow; her bag with a diary of addresses, some money, sugar crystals to calm her cough and few homeopathic medicines for her many ailments would be under the other pillow. There would be articles tucked in the folds of the kambal and the quilt too. Then she would sit down heavily on the cot and lay her walking stick, a polished branch from the kikar tree in our village, by the side of the bed. Then she would discover that the tension of the cot is not exactly right. The whole night she would toss and turn, complaining of body ache, but bare it all till next morning when the whole bed would be stripped bare and the process started all over again after correcting the tension to her specifications. This would be repeated every morning for a few days and many other times during her stay. The perfect tension always eluded her.
Bhabi Ji was easy to feed. She liked everything with a large dose of ghee (clarified butter). If she did not like what Biji had cooked, all you had to do was add sugar to the ghee, wrap it in a parantha (leavened flat bread) and mash it by hand to her specifications to make choori, and she was satisfied. Biji knew all the dishes Bhabi Ji did not like. They suddenly came into season during Bhabi Ji’s visit. Bhabi Ji opted for choori often. When Biji was ready to make the choori Bhabi Ji would send me to go check and make sure Biji was not substituting pure ghee with dalda (a vegetable product). Biji never did that. She was too honest.
Bhabi Ji, in her old age, was slowly loosing her taste buds. She liked to alternate salty, sweet, tart and spicy foods to keep her taste buds from becoming dull. She also liked them in small quantities so as not to over whelm the satiety center. We had to serve her in the smallest dishes we could find. The water had to be served in baby glasses. As she progressed in age it became a small tea cup then a small (very small) bowl. Finally when she requested it in a spoon Biji threw in the towel and walked out of the kitchen. Not to worry though. Bhabi Ji, mother-in-law to five daughter-in-laws, has weathered all sorts of storms. She refused to notice anything amiss and Biji ultimately gave in.
If anyone ever happened to inquire about Bhabi Ji’s health they got a long list of ailments starting from her ever present joint pain to that pesky night cough and everything in between. She spent the day giving voice to her suffering in the form of short expletives and long sighs. Any time we sat near her she would slowly guide our hands to her joints that needed to be massaged. Bablee, my little sister was a regular recruit for this joint therapy. She was too little to be effective with her hands so she had to get up and walk on Bhabi ji’s legs. To keep balance she held Bhabi Ji’s stick that walked along with her on the floor next to the cot. Bablee did not like this at all. She escaped from it by spending as little time at home as possible; visiting all the neighborhood homes that did not have old visiting grandmothers. When at home she diligently spent the time doing schoolwork. However, there was still time left that she could not fill with anything. That is when Bhabi Ji would catch her. Bablee performed this duty morosely. Bhabi Ji sensed this and resented it. Bablee thought five to ten minutes of kneading Bhabi Ji’s body more than enough. Bhabi Ji liked the activity to go on for hours. Bablee was too timid to say no or to end it without permission. Bhabi Ji saw her as too puny to give any notice to her bored expression. Biji usually had to rescue her by calling her for some chore in the kitchen. Bablee was Biji’s ‘damsel-in-distress’. Biji had not outgrown babying her yet. That was one big strike against Bablee in Bhabi Ji’s book. In addition she was convinced that Bablee, out of spite, did not put all the weight on Bhabi Ji’s legs during massaging. When Biji heard this she was livid. When Papaji heard it (from Biji) he could not speak for good ten minutes due to the fit of laughter that burst out of him. With tears of mirth flowing down his eyes he tried, without success, to explain to Bhabi Ji that it is not possible to hold one’s weight back while standing on something. But Bhabi Ji was no scholar of physics and remained convinced that Bablee was somehow cheating her of the benefit of the full weight. She called her ‘khhachree’ - a conniving mule.
Bhabi Ji did not like to sit idle. Her favorite activity was telling stories and chatting with us while we sat on or around her cot. She hated it when we were busy or left her to go to school or office. Biji was not much company as far as Bhabi Ji was concerned. Biji liked to do her house chores quietly and did not indulge in innocent gossip. Biji’s sense of scruples mildly annoyed and bemused Bhabi Ji. When left alone Bhabi Ji would make Biji gather all the clothes that needed repair and do the mending. Bhabi ji was really adept at sewing. Her work was neat and professional. The problem was she abhorred tedium. She would soon tire of mending and get creative. A slightly torn shirt and a dress with ripped seam would end up as three beautifully quilted shopping bags. Biji was too practical to see the artistic skill needed to bring about this transformation. She would quietly lament the loss of shirt and dress. When all the clothes had been mended or Biji had hidden every thing to safety Bhabi Ji would convince her to bring out the old sweaters. These would be unraveled, the wool yarn washed, dried and rewound into balls. Bhabi Ji then knitted it into socks, gloves and scarves for us to use. Even Biji grudgingly admired them. Ofcourse that did not prevent her from commenting that the socks were too rough and itchy. This did not dampen Bhabi Ji’s enthusiasm one bit.
The best time of the day was after dinner. Biji, having finished her days work, would sit down in a different room to rest. Papaji would sit next to Bhabi Ji on the cot and reminisce old days. These old days were peopled by Papaji’s young brother-sisters and grandfather. They all took place in Papaji’s childhood village, Santpura. Other relatives and people of the village walked in and out of the stories effortlessly. They were all fun loving, slightly quirky, often outright comedic characters that became as much my family as the real relatives in our life. Bhabi Ji was a master story teller and all her children inherited this quality. When her other sons and daughters came to visit her while she was in our home, these nightly sessions turned into class acts. Biji would make Chicken Bhuna with pure clarified butter; Papaji would bring some alcohol and serve it to his brothers (women traditionally did not drink alcohol). We would munch on crisp salad while waiting for hot Tandoori roti from nearby tandoor. The conversation would start slowly, like a tabla beat being tested. Soon a Sitar string would join in. One of the uncles would recite a few lines of a poem and other brothers would complete it. They knew a lot of Urdu poetry. If they could not remember some lines, alcohol helped them fill in the blanks. It also transported them to Santpura and their life there. They often visited some key people and places and we learnt to enjoy the visit with them. They were very fond of Chacha Ram Lal and his attention to them. They often remembered their maternal grandfather who was a great miser and their paternal grandmother, Bebbe, who lived with them and was the unwitting heroine of many of their stories. Their laughter was so infectious that we kids laughed with them whether we understood anything or not. Biji worried about the neighbors complaining about the loud laughter, but the uncles by that time were too relaxed, aided by the alcohol, and could not be contained. We kids were not much help either, putting in requests for favorite stories. Bhabi Ji looked like the queen with her entourage. Vadhe Bhuaji and Kailash Bhuaji, Papaji's sisters, would sit with the group but stay out of it. Kailash Bhuaji was the youngest and mostly listened. Vadhe Bhuaji was older than everyone except Manohar Babaji and knew about everything that the brothers were talking about. She often interjected some key memories into the conversation and spiced it up even more. She had the Bedi talent for telling stories, a sharp wit and voice and language to match our uncles. These she would sometimes employ to run a parallel critical commentary on state of affairs in the Bedi family. The brothers effectively ignored or wove it into their revelry. We kids, cousins and all, enjoyed the show like a riveting drama in which we were being allowed to be minor actors. Our home was the envy of many of our neighbors during that time. Ofcourse alcohol would soon show its ugly side and the brothers would get into arguments; these revolved around current division of ancestral property or some long lost imagined slights. Our mothers would drag us away and tuck us in beds. In the morning we would find our uncles sleeping in various stages of inebriation, sometimes under and sometimes over the bed. I would often, unsuccessfully, try to hide alcohol bottles before the get-together to prevent this sad ending.
For a few days after that the house would be quiet. But we Bedis cannot stay subdued for long. Soon the natural rhythm would reestablish and our life would continue as before. Towards the end of second month Bhabiji would have exhausted all the ways she could feel useful in. We kids would get busy with our school work and friends and start taking her presence for granted. Papaji would tire of entertaining her. Biji would finally get used to Bhabi Ji and get comfortable with her new routine. Then Bhabi Ji would call her next son and ask him to come pick her up. There she would praise our home to high heavens, goading them to match their hospitality to ours.
Bhabi Ji was a high maintenance guest. First of all she did not consider herself as guest. When she came to visit she instantly installed herself as the lady of the house returning from a long journey. She would walk in, carrying her cloth bundle that held her precious essentials, and accept Biji’s paripana; In return blessing Biji with many sons and wish a long life for Biji’s husband. Then she would scout the house for the best place to enthrone her cot. She liked it placed where she could have a modicum of privacy but also be able to see all the going ons in the house. She also liked to be able to see the front of the house to monitor all entries and exits. Out of necessity, she needed to be close to the bathroom, to make it there without having an accident. But not so close that she could smell it. This invariably turned out to be in the middle of our corridor between the kitchen and the sitting room, a place we had to pass on way to everywhere. This became the first pet peeve of Biji. She would hit her knees on the corners of the cot twenty times a day. She bore it like a martyr.
The cot was Bhabi Ji’s domain while she was there. It was made of woven jute stretched on a wooden frame. The firmness could be controlled by the amount of tension in the binding rope at one end. We had to adjust it to her specifications. This took a few days since she was not sure what her specifications were. She would agree to try a setting for one night. After adjusting the tension Biji would cover the jute with a durrie and then a soft quilt called talai. She would then cover these with a clean white bed sheet and tuck the ends in. The two pillows would be covered in odd pillowcases because the matching ones would suddenly become lost. A heavy comforter and a kambal (heavy woolen blanket) would be neatly folded at the foot of the bed no matter the season. Bhabi Ji would then get busy unpacking. She would open her cloth bundle and take out various articles and tuck them under one corner or the other. Her clothes would be nicely folded and spread under the talai. Her bag with datoon, a tree bark she used to clean her teeth with, would be tucked under the right pillow; her bag with a diary of addresses, some money, sugar crystals to calm her cough and few homeopathic medicines for her many ailments would be under the other pillow. There would be articles tucked in the folds of the kambal and the quilt too. Then she would sit down heavily on the cot and lay her walking stick, a polished branch from the kikar tree in our village, by the side of the bed. Then she would discover that the tension of the cot is not exactly right. The whole night she would toss and turn, complaining of body ache, but bare it all till next morning when the whole bed would be stripped bare and the process started all over again after correcting the tension to her specifications. This would be repeated every morning for a few days and many other times during her stay. The perfect tension always eluded her.
Bhabi Ji was easy to feed. She liked everything with a large dose of ghee (clarified butter). If she did not like what Biji had cooked, all you had to do was add sugar to the ghee, wrap it in a parantha (leavened flat bread) and mash it by hand to her specifications to make choori, and she was satisfied. Biji knew all the dishes Bhabi Ji did not like. They suddenly came into season during Bhabi Ji’s visit. Bhabi Ji opted for choori often. When Biji was ready to make the choori Bhabi Ji would send me to go check and make sure Biji was not substituting pure ghee with dalda (a vegetable product). Biji never did that. She was too honest.
Bhabi Ji, in her old age, was slowly loosing her taste buds. She liked to alternate salty, sweet, tart and spicy foods to keep her taste buds from becoming dull. She also liked them in small quantities so as not to over whelm the satiety center. We had to serve her in the smallest dishes we could find. The water had to be served in baby glasses. As she progressed in age it became a small tea cup then a small (very small) bowl. Finally when she requested it in a spoon Biji threw in the towel and walked out of the kitchen. Not to worry though. Bhabi Ji, mother-in-law to five daughter-in-laws, has weathered all sorts of storms. She refused to notice anything amiss and Biji ultimately gave in.
If anyone ever happened to inquire about Bhabi Ji’s health they got a long list of ailments starting from her ever present joint pain to that pesky night cough and everything in between. She spent the day giving voice to her suffering in the form of short expletives and long sighs. Any time we sat near her she would slowly guide our hands to her joints that needed to be massaged. Bablee, my little sister was a regular recruit for this joint therapy. She was too little to be effective with her hands so she had to get up and walk on Bhabi ji’s legs. To keep balance she held Bhabi Ji’s stick that walked along with her on the floor next to the cot. Bablee did not like this at all. She escaped from it by spending as little time at home as possible; visiting all the neighborhood homes that did not have old visiting grandmothers. When at home she diligently spent the time doing schoolwork. However, there was still time left that she could not fill with anything. That is when Bhabi Ji would catch her. Bablee performed this duty morosely. Bhabi Ji sensed this and resented it. Bablee thought five to ten minutes of kneading Bhabi Ji’s body more than enough. Bhabi Ji liked the activity to go on for hours. Bablee was too timid to say no or to end it without permission. Bhabi Ji saw her as too puny to give any notice to her bored expression. Biji usually had to rescue her by calling her for some chore in the kitchen. Bablee was Biji’s ‘damsel-in-distress’. Biji had not outgrown babying her yet. That was one big strike against Bablee in Bhabi Ji’s book. In addition she was convinced that Bablee, out of spite, did not put all the weight on Bhabi Ji’s legs during massaging. When Biji heard this she was livid. When Papaji heard it (from Biji) he could not speak for good ten minutes due to the fit of laughter that burst out of him. With tears of mirth flowing down his eyes he tried, without success, to explain to Bhabi Ji that it is not possible to hold one’s weight back while standing on something. But Bhabi Ji was no scholar of physics and remained convinced that Bablee was somehow cheating her of the benefit of the full weight. She called her ‘khhachree’ - a conniving mule.
Bhabi Ji did not like to sit idle. Her favorite activity was telling stories and chatting with us while we sat on or around her cot. She hated it when we were busy or left her to go to school or office. Biji was not much company as far as Bhabi Ji was concerned. Biji liked to do her house chores quietly and did not indulge in innocent gossip. Biji’s sense of scruples mildly annoyed and bemused Bhabi Ji. When left alone Bhabi Ji would make Biji gather all the clothes that needed repair and do the mending. Bhabi ji was really adept at sewing. Her work was neat and professional. The problem was she abhorred tedium. She would soon tire of mending and get creative. A slightly torn shirt and a dress with ripped seam would end up as three beautifully quilted shopping bags. Biji was too practical to see the artistic skill needed to bring about this transformation. She would quietly lament the loss of shirt and dress. When all the clothes had been mended or Biji had hidden every thing to safety Bhabi Ji would convince her to bring out the old sweaters. These would be unraveled, the wool yarn washed, dried and rewound into balls. Bhabi Ji then knitted it into socks, gloves and scarves for us to use. Even Biji grudgingly admired them. Ofcourse that did not prevent her from commenting that the socks were too rough and itchy. This did not dampen Bhabi Ji’s enthusiasm one bit.
The best time of the day was after dinner. Biji, having finished her days work, would sit down in a different room to rest. Papaji would sit next to Bhabi Ji on the cot and reminisce old days. These old days were peopled by Papaji’s young brother-sisters and grandfather. They all took place in Papaji’s childhood village, Santpura. Other relatives and people of the village walked in and out of the stories effortlessly. They were all fun loving, slightly quirky, often outright comedic characters that became as much my family as the real relatives in our life. Bhabi Ji was a master story teller and all her children inherited this quality. When her other sons and daughters came to visit her while she was in our home, these nightly sessions turned into class acts. Biji would make Chicken Bhuna with pure clarified butter; Papaji would bring some alcohol and serve it to his brothers (women traditionally did not drink alcohol). We would munch on crisp salad while waiting for hot Tandoori roti from nearby tandoor. The conversation would start slowly, like a tabla beat being tested. Soon a Sitar string would join in. One of the uncles would recite a few lines of a poem and other brothers would complete it. They knew a lot of Urdu poetry. If they could not remember some lines, alcohol helped them fill in the blanks. It also transported them to Santpura and their life there. They often visited some key people and places and we learnt to enjoy the visit with them. They were very fond of Chacha Ram Lal and his attention to them. They often remembered their maternal grandfather who was a great miser and their paternal grandmother, Bebbe, who lived with them and was the unwitting heroine of many of their stories. Their laughter was so infectious that we kids laughed with them whether we understood anything or not. Biji worried about the neighbors complaining about the loud laughter, but the uncles by that time were too relaxed, aided by the alcohol, and could not be contained. We kids were not much help either, putting in requests for favorite stories. Bhabi Ji looked like the queen with her entourage. Vadhe Bhuaji and Kailash Bhuaji, Papaji's sisters, would sit with the group but stay out of it. Kailash Bhuaji was the youngest and mostly listened. Vadhe Bhuaji was older than everyone except Manohar Babaji and knew about everything that the brothers were talking about. She often interjected some key memories into the conversation and spiced it up even more. She had the Bedi talent for telling stories, a sharp wit and voice and language to match our uncles. These she would sometimes employ to run a parallel critical commentary on state of affairs in the Bedi family. The brothers effectively ignored or wove it into their revelry. We kids, cousins and all, enjoyed the show like a riveting drama in which we were being allowed to be minor actors. Our home was the envy of many of our neighbors during that time. Ofcourse alcohol would soon show its ugly side and the brothers would get into arguments; these revolved around current division of ancestral property or some long lost imagined slights. Our mothers would drag us away and tuck us in beds. In the morning we would find our uncles sleeping in various stages of inebriation, sometimes under and sometimes over the bed. I would often, unsuccessfully, try to hide alcohol bottles before the get-together to prevent this sad ending.
For a few days after that the house would be quiet. But we Bedis cannot stay subdued for long. Soon the natural rhythm would reestablish and our life would continue as before. Towards the end of second month Bhabiji would have exhausted all the ways she could feel useful in. We kids would get busy with our school work and friends and start taking her presence for granted. Papaji would tire of entertaining her. Biji would finally get used to Bhabi Ji and get comfortable with her new routine. Then Bhabi Ji would call her next son and ask him to come pick her up. There she would praise our home to high heavens, goading them to match their hospitality to ours.
I have a Phulkari, a traditional embroidered shawl from Punjab, hand made by Bhabi Ji. She gave this beautiful piece to Biji and Papaji. They gave it to me. It is a rust colored cotton cloth with golden embroidery in silk thread that completely covers it. I take it out on special occassions for good luck and her blessings. She passed away in 1995 at the age of 92 years (I think) but lives in our hearts for ever.
PAPA JI, TODAY IS FATHER'S DAY AND THIS IS MY GIFT TO YOU. HAPPY FATHER'S DAY. I FEEL BLESSED THAT YOU ARE MY PAPA JI. WITH LOTS OF LOVE....AMBI.
