My Grandmother Taught Me Sanity In An Insane World 

by Tulika Jha

My uncle, your eldest son presses the button and you move slowly in a wooden box. The curtains close on the show of your life. We all stand holding hands on a hill from where we watch you evaporate into smoke. No one mentions your madness because I have told them in no uncertain terms that you were the sanest member of the family. As the only psychiatrist in the family, I play the expert card, unapologetically. After all, I did study for years to solve this dilemma and I am not bidding you a final farewell wrapped in the burden of madness to carry in death as you did in life. 

 Now, when I miss you, Naniji, I pray for you to meet me in my dreams: 

I am in your kitchen doing what you did best- cooking. This is no ordinary task. It is the banquet for your wake. Picture me, alone, as you mostly were. 

 I am smiling now as I hold the bottle labelled ‘Extra Virgin Olive Oil’ but we both know that it carries KTC Mustard Oil for ‘external’ use only.  

Once, when we had just arrived from India, you explained that this doesn’t matter. I had never, since questioned its use for ‘internal’ purposes. However much they made fun of you, saying that you knew nothing, I always believed you. They were all busy with their jobs, Mummy, Papa and Nanaji. It was you, whose silhouette I would see through the kitchen window every day after school. Your bangle laden wrists stirring the pot into a love language that meant home. It was you who asked how my day at school was. You, without any academic qualifications or jobs. How could I not trust you? Not trusting you, would be not trusting my own survival. 

Automatically, I am tracing your footsteps to the deep chest freezer.  

The first thing I bought when I rented my own flat as a junior doctor. Why? I have no idea. Perhaps, it represented security and abundance in the face of scarcity everywhere.  

Firstly, I am greeted by the Wall’s soft scoop tub which always held anything but ice-cream-maybe mince ginger or garlic cubes, but today it contains exactly what the label indicates. Another sign that you have gone. It’s not until I am holding the Sacla pesto glass jar with the panchpuran, mainstay of most of your recipes, that I begin to feel weak in my knees. The pungent and signature fragrance when added to the hot mustard oil with a sleek dried crimson chili, makes me sneeze and with tears in my eyes, grief chases me out of the kitchen into the corridors of what seems to be a hotel, looking for you. I open door after door convinced, I will find you. My need for you is so viscerally urgent that it drives away any denial (even of death). 

When I find you, you are in bed. I run up to you, touching your arm and face. You sit up, your sari falling off to show the mole on your upper chest and your mangalsutra with its black beads sewn into gold chains which pulsates gently with your heartbeat. No bindi as you stick it onto the mirror every bedtime. I hug you, cup your face in my hands repeatedly to establish you are alive. Your Charlie perfume mixed with the fragrance of Avon face cream as definite evidence of this.  

‘I can’t do this without you’, I sob, holding you tight, burying my head in your lap. By this, I don’t just mean ‘cooking’. I mean living and more importantly, loving.  

You have appeared in many of my dreams looking serene. I have noticed you never utter a word despite my childish display of affection and careful examination to ensure you are not a ghost. I feel like a ghost, if anything, unseen and unheard.  

You, who has lived as a ghost, desiring but never receiving, seeking validation whilst being told you are worthless, now deserves to live a fulfilled life in death. You look calm and satiated. I am filled with compassion to see you fulfilled with self- worth. 

Once I asked you how you manage to live like this and you had replied,  

‘Hathi chale bazaar, kutte bhooke hazaar’. 

 ‘The elephant strides along the market uninterrupted by the barks of a thousand dogs.’ 

‘Have you ever seen a majestic elephant dressed up and paraded around the market like a view to behold? Have you seen the little dogs who chase it, barking relentlessly? What does the elephant care ? If it started to get bothered by these little dogs, it wouldn’t be able to live its own beautiful life now, would it?’ 

You can find out more about Tulika’s work here and on their writing account here.