Have you seen the heart shaped leaves and the firm, strong aerial roots hanging on the fig tree enlightening the world like the Mahabodhi tree with the right amount of light and shadow, warmth and sunshine percolating from the rightly balanced leaves? Symmetry and strength creates such harmony that the tired ,drenched and lonely soul of the passer bye’s truly gets rejuvenated!

 Nowadays some schools have started celebrating grandparents Day to felicitate the integral part of the family who have become a rather mute entity in the supersonic world today . Professional- nuclear families sometime fail to acknowledge the importance of grandparents due to which children are forced to harbinger stress, insecurity, lacksidal, whimsical fancies and all the inputs that could lead to various form of depressions in later stages of life. I don’t understand why do we fail to trust the old hands who once nurtured us and our counterparts with their maximum ability? 

My both the grandmas – Nani maa and Dadi maa were from the same place and were like friends who used to share many things together despite the fact that Nani maa was an introvert , disciplined, peaceful soul while my Dadi maa was a chirpy social butterfly who could befriend even our friends in a matter of minutes .  She not only knew and went to my neighborhood friend house without any conviction , but also would see me off to school , talk to bus driver and even parents of the kids on the bus stoppage while we went to school .

Her intrusion in our daily routine ranged from forcing us to eat something immediately after brushing teeth in the morning to forcibly making us sleep in the afternoon by narrating same stories everyday( she used to bring variety to the stories by secretly reading our magazines like Champak and changing characters name, which of course we caught later and have a jovial facepalm moment ) . Sometimes in the evening she used to switch off the tube-light suddenly while I would be studying much to my irritation and lie on the adjoin cot and sing songs for my future marriage . I would get plainly irritated and say ‘can I please complete my schooling first ?’ Although later on I made a notebook jotting down all the bhajans and folklores that she used to sing. Who knew that we would bear her demise just couple of months before my marriage ! May be she had already sung all the songs to her heart’s content and may be that is why there is no existing regret as such. 

On the another note when my Mom teaches me to understand my daughter’s sign language , papa makes her sit on his shoulder and have  a 100 m morning walk or when I see her matching steps like a train and strolling with her Dadu post dinner or playfully swinging on her dadi’s arm I feel she is blessed , we are blessed . howsoever ideological differences we might have ,  Grandparents are like photographic filter who add different colors and effects without hampering the original picture – instead enhancing the glow ! 

May be Fig tree and photographic filters should also be felicitated for just – being there! 

©Shivangi #preciouspicture #gemstone #dadinanima