Five Generations

That's for sure a precious picture. Back then, I didn't realize how precious...... it's the only picture that exists of all five of us.

Today is my ammamma's birthday. Every single birthday of her's till I can remember, we visited her with a birthday cake, and she never lost the enthusiasm of blowing the candles. On the eighty fifth I think, I even tried putting in as many candles.

This is a tribute to her spirit...... and more fundamentally, to her value of Independence. I now know where the gene came from, and I'm most most grateful.

A couple of things which come to mind at a flash:

She lived alone all her life, literally....seventy years of it. She lost her husband when she was still expecting my mother, and she was nineteen. Life became difficult. She was sent back from her in laws house to her fathers. Like she said, 'if I hadn't started working, I would have spent all my life making chapathis'. Her job gave her the first taste of independence, and there was no looking back.

Even when she was eighty, and we asked if she'd come and stay with us, she'd say with a smile 'sweet of you to ask..but I don't want to be even witness to domestic squabbles, I'm happy by myself'. A standing joke in the family was...she lived long and healthy ( not a single day in hospital) because she lived single :)

That's the deepest inspiration she gave me.

When I lived in Bangalore on my IDBI stint, she visited me with two of her friends. When I picked them up at the station, I still remember thinking that their suitcases looked like antiques :). Holidaying with friends at eighty!

Surely another inspiration.

One more anecdote that deserves mention.

A few months, or maybe years, before she died, she wrote a note..... a note with instructions on how she wanted her funeral done. Apparently, she kept telling my mom about it, and my mom was like, 'you've told me so many times, but no ones going to listen to me. If you really want it like that, write it', and that's how the note came about on a small scrap of paper. And after she died, we realized how much clarity and farsightedness her thinking had. Sure enough, there were elders in the family who brushed aside what my mother said, and wanted to do what tradition enforced. That's when my mother remembered the note, dug it out, and it's with that note that we were able to stand up to any opposition, and carry out funeral rites in accordance with what she wanted.

Even in her death she had her way.

Love you and miss you ammamma. But above even that, a deep thank you for all the teachings and inspirations. You taught and inspired by just being you.