Paati aka Amma

Who is a hero to you? Are heroes only those who exhort you to achieve greater things in life, push you to climb that extra step on the ladder? Can there exist a different kind of a hero? A person who through the show of emotions, in fact through a lack of it, implore you to become a better person? Well, I certainly do believe that kind of a hero exists. Where, you may ask? Right in my home, in the form of my Paati (grandmother), or Amma, as my sister and I fondly address her.

I have consistently seen people eloquently express the relationships they shared with their grandparents, but most of it is after they pass away like here and here.  It’s a perilous task to deify someone who is alive and someone whom you meet and greet every day of your life. This thought has always gnawed my mind though, why not write about a person close to you, a person whom you have grown to respect and admire considerably over a period of time, during their lifetime itself? If you are a cousin, a relative, a friend, even a stranger, who meets my Paati sometime, wouldn't it be nice if you can go and tell her that you read really nice things about her? It is with this strand that I piece my thoughts together about Paati.

When I was in school, I used to wait with anticipatory glee for the monthly edition of Gokulam. It was one of the little liberties my father afforded us as a way of entertainment. The stories in Gokulam that I relished in particular were the ones where children used to visit their grandparents during summer holidays and were treated by them with utmost care, affection, dotage, and of course, an enormous amount of sweets (Paati still insists on making sweets for us including her patented '7 Cake' during festive occasions, much to our dismay). And I am glad that whenever I visited Paati (she didn’t live with us back then), all of these and more turned out to be exactly the way in which I read about grandmothers in those imagined stories. 

Paati, like any stereotypical TamBrahm, was born in Mylapore, in 1929. She received reasonable education including learning music at the Music Academy. By 1949, life had taken her to New Delhi. Uprooted from familiar surroundings, faced with a new and fairly paternalistic environment, she was someone who never sullied or moaned about the responsibilities she had to face. This may not be the most unusual thing in the world, but then considering that to this day in 2014, I have never found her grumpy when asked to do something, even at the age of 85, it does acquire superhuman abilities. It is a trait I forever wish to imbibe, the art of gently accepting responsibilities and going about it in the most unobtrusive manner possible.

I don’t know if the term glass ceiling existed back then. But, Paati despite having to take care of family, including her mother-in-law, found time to teach Carnatic music and tailor clothes, and also became the first treasurer of the Delhi Tamil Sangam (co-founded by my Thaatha, looks at self and wonders where the genes took a wrong turn). I have repeatedly asked her about how she managed all of this and the only response I have gotten is a shrug of a shoulder. I don’t even think she is being modest, I think she is just being who she is, a person who is performing her duties with utmost sincerity. Unknowingly, she might just be following the Bhagavad Gita's dictum of Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana.

I ask if going places fascinates her, seeing the country, the world. Has she ever had a bucket list that needed ticking off? And she says no. Those thoughts apparently don’t even occur to her.  All she says is she wants us to be happy, the people around her to be happy. And there lies the limit of her ambitions. Isn’t that sufficient sometimes, I wonder. The generation that we are part of maybe doesn’t allow us to encourage such thoughts. But it still lurks somewhere. The things we can learn from those who have seen life a lot more than us.

Here’s to my beautiful, lovely and super awesome Paati. Deliberate denture-less picture to enhance cuteness quotient J