Grandfather

By Zubaida Ifshan

Grandparents often narrate stories of an imaginative past to their grandchildren. They tweak, adjust and often embellish the story of their lives to amuse their grandchildren,who have no access to their lives and use the freedom of manipulating the past to achieve their desired ends and give meaning to the small moments and the lives that they have led.

My grandfather, who was a historian by profession, never gave me a historical account of his life. He presented his life in a linear manner; with a beginning and an end. His story resembles and mirrors the story of the world; from genesis to apocalypse and he always situated himself in the middle of the two.

He often leafed through his memory, on top of it his childhood swirled,he seemed to see it most distinctly. His story begins in a dim lit room, which he has described to me so many times and with such clarity that it has entered my memory and for some reason, when I imagine myself giving an account of my life, I inadvertently imagine my life to begin from that room. He used to study in that room but he never told me what he studied.Later his father sent him away to study history but his father soon died of an unfamiliar pain that crawled in his blood and only he knew the secret of his death; last stage of Leukaemia. He didn’t tell his father about his illness because he wanted him to die peacefully. So, my grandfather returned home to bear the burden of his home and of history. He demolished his home and found his ancestral memory,he stitched it on the manuscript and wrote our history. Now, in his old age, he wishes for eternity and proclaims that when I am gone- I shall be everywhere;

Missing me one place search another,

I stop somewhere waiting for you, he often seems to say.(Song of Myself, Whitman)

My grandmother never told me her story, any story.She used to sit on her bed,her past frozen like her limbs. She was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and was forever tethered to her bed. It seemed that her story never began or ended,it cycled.Everyone in my family told me about how she worked,dressed and lived.These versions of her life,sometimes linked to one another and fell into place but mostly their descriptions of events varied, the endings and beginnings of her life intermingled.

She mostly remained quiet and her face like the rest of her body remained stiff, she barely had any wrinkles for her age because her facial muscles rarely moved.So I often looked into her eyes; the only moving thing, to seek an entrance into her life. Sometimes, when her mind slipped, her eyes traced and sliced the space around her.Her hand moved to reach for the box of spices,she began to cook.I plunged into it and asked: Ammi ji, what have you cooked today? Before she answered, my grandfather said that she cooked delicious food, her Rogan Josh was especially loved by everyone.

I rebelled and asked him,when shall I know her story,when would you let her speak?

He said that I have told you her story,Parkinson’s has erased her memory.

Those who forget too have a history and grandfather what you told me about her was your story, your history.

By Zubaida Ifshan