With grandpa, it was the opposite. He didn’t have stories—he had anecdotes. Funny, mischievous anecdotes with no morals. He had anecdotes of adventures, whether true or not I can’t tell; people never seemed to grant him much credibility, but they were very interesting all the same. He was called a megalomaniac by some. He was selfish, loved money, pretty things, pretty people and made no secret about it. Whether right or wrong, I was always the winner when he was the judge.
Dad and grandpa never got along. Dad’s waste-not-want-not attitude always clashed with grandpa’s extravagance. Grandpa was never rich but he was a thorough hedonist. His house had bird cages the size of the main gate outside with makeshift swings and clay pots and bowls with water and grains. Kids from all over the neighborhood would come to see the birds as grandpa proudly watched from the window upstairs. A retired forest ranger, he was extremely fond of animals.
His house had more animals than it had people. Dogs, cats, fish, turtles and rabbits are what I have seen; mom has stories of having peacocks and deer and boars in the garden. He loved animals, but ironically, he also had horns and mounted animals and birds in the living room. He couldn’t afford the kinds the Shahs and the Ranas keep, just mediocre versions of them. He had to live the life somehow. And he did.
Grandpa’s post-lunch nap time was not to be messed with – make so much as a squeak around him and you were dead. His lunch of which half would remain in the plate always left me puzzled. This was not what I was taught at home. Throwing away food was bad. Doing the same at home and citing his example was useless because rules were only made for lesser beings like us. Grandpa was beyond them.
I remember when in boarding school, he would come and pick me up every weekend. This was against the rules of the school; no one was allowed to go home every weekend. But the charming old man always made the hostel matron yield. There was seat for only two on his Honda motorbike so we never picked my brother from the boys’ hostel. I could tell he liked me better than he liked my brother. It wasn’t even like we took turns, every weekend I was the one to go home. I was a selfish kid, so was grandpa.
Grandpa’s image is now hazy in my memories but I’m starting to see him in my face. In the pale pasty skin, the prominent frontal tuberosities, the far from perfect nose that’s a little too big for the face and the eyes that are always hidden behind glasses. I’m reminded of him every time I look in the mirror.
At home, I’m not sure if this was because he was god-fearing or just out of an old habit, he would pray this long scary mantra every night before going to bed. I only remember a mumble, a whisper loud enough for me to hear but so indistinct I could never make anything of it.
I never saw him work a job. He had already retired by the time I was born and lived on what seemed to be a generous pension. Grandpa never worked, he only had hobbies. He was larger than life and lived beyond his means. A good looking man, he got preferential treatment ever since he was a kid. Dad says he always had things the easy way. It seems like he really did. A lot of things just came to him. Because he believed he was king, he was.
It was a Newar community in which he lived and my mother and her sisters grew up. We were one of the very few not-100 percent-Newars living there. Jatras, bhojs, birthdays, anniversaries, promotions, welcomes, farewells, shraaddhas were all celebrated at grandpa’s. Dashain, the biggest of all occasions had to be there too. Every Dashain, all of his five daughters and their families were invited. Friends came over to play cards but he never played with them. Like a king, he only watched over his progeny and at his friends like subjugates there for his entertainment.
When he died a few years back, it was the first day of Dashain. I didn’t cry on the day he passed away. I don’t even know why I didn’t visit him in his absolute last days. He had been in hospitals plenty of times, supposedly terminally ill but had come back all healthy and happy. Maybe I wanted everyone to not make a big deal that time too because I made my naive self believe that if we did, he would go and if we treated it like nothing was going to happen, he would stay.
Always making, fixing, prettifying things, he never sat still for a minute. Even at that old age, he had a meticulously maintained garden in which he worked all by himself. I’ve been to aquariums all over Kathmandu to buy fish with him. Peering through his thick glasses, he would be constantly oiling and fixing this old grandfather clock he had. I could never picture him dead - silent and not fidgeting.
This year’s Dashain is almost here. But nobody’s invited, there are no plans of big gatherings and bickering over bills, the turtles and fish are no more there and the swings in the cages are still. His image is now hazy in my memories but I’m starting to see him in my face. In the pale pasty skin, the prominent frontal tuberosities, the far from perfect nose that’s a little too big for the face and the eyes that are always hidden behind glasses.
I’m reminded of him every time I look in the mirror. Maybe this is his way of keeping himself in my memories forever, because with grandpa, I was the favorite.
samragyee@hotmail.com
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