Yes, I have shifted base. From the ageing beauty of Hyderabad to the mystic, temple-bespeckled, jasmine bedecked, sambar-chutney city of Chennai. From Hyderabad House to Saravana Bhavan... so to say!
My first impression of Chennai was one of blandness. I was searching for something. I realized soon that I was searching for the Madras of my childhood, the Madras of the 1990s, when it was still Madras. We spent our summers here, when grandmom and grandpa were alive, living in their one-room pigeon hole, stuffed with all the wonders of the world. To my childish imagination, the cluttered bedroom-cum-living room-cum-store room was a treasure trove full of surprises. Antique radio on an antique wooden table with an old mirror from which my childish face gazed back at me. Antique wooden almirah with carved doors, which was covered with eons of dust, and where my grandfather kept his more important papers, locked and mysterious... A print reproduction of a painting of a semi nude lady (or maybe she was completely nude, I don't remember, but I remember being baffled by how beautiful her skin was, and how red her lips were)...the painting was probably a cheap memento my grandfather may have bought/collected in his bachelor days, but he not only let it stay, but actually gave it a prominent position in the living room, defying all the sanctimonious glances and whispered disapprovals of relatives and neighbors. Looking back, I think it was probably a sign of his deep-rooted disapproval of his own self. A picture of self mockery. Or who knows, maybe it was the remainder of a torturous romance during his army past, with some white-skinned beauty he met somewhere...
Hardly likely. But it was there, and very soon, it was forgotten by all except my green eyes. I still remember looking at it with some kind of a sacred dread, not able to tear my gaze away from such an outrageous piece of profanity, not able to look at it due to the indecorousness it called for. But the fact of the matter is, I remember it. Or at least, the essence of it, her ruby lips and milky skin and the pale translucence of the fabric that was draped around her thighs.
So yeah, she was not completely nude after all! Fancy recalling that last detail...
The room was a veritable junkyard of tools, working and non working electrical appliances, cans of oil and grease, and funny mechanical and electrical gadgets that my grandpa made during his spare time - lamps that spun on a wooden disc, a wooden merry go round that did something that I do not know, red colored lights and green colored lights mounted on fancy holders. And most of all, several boxes - big boxes, small pouches, tall biscuit tins, imported toffee boxes, flat plastic boxes. So many boxes that one could spend several afternoons just opening and sifting through one or two.
I was to find out when I was older that these boxes were all full of junk. Nuts, bolts, screws, rusted pins, little pieces of copper wire twisted and knotted beyond salvage, funny shaped iron ingots, small pieces of magnet to which all the rest were stuck and had to be pulled out, little bulbs with their fuses blown... none of these items could be of any use whatsoever! When I was older and the mystery of the boxes was finally solved, I wondered why he collected and stored all this junk. Just these boxes amounted to 8 of the ten odd shelves in the room. Not to mention the drawers of the tables, and the little chests stored under grandpa's bed. Stored for emergencies that never came. Stored for little theiving hands that pilfered and grabbed and made off with whatever was of any worth at all, when my grandma was dead and my grandpa dying on his bed, alone.
And not only did I find what lay in those eternal boxes, but I also found the cobwebs, the loose knobs on the radio, the switches that did not work... I found that the photo of the naked lady was frayed and discolored in patches, and the lady wasn't really as good looking as I thought. I found dead rats and roaches, little pieces of chalk which my grandfather taught me drawing with, and more and more nuts and screws scattered everywhere, in every corner and crevice, in every drawer and chest. I found that my grandpa's mattress smelled so musty I could not sleep on it without tossing. I found that I was growing ashamed of the little decrepit treasure trove that I had spent hours and hours playing in. And I was ashamed that I had been ashamed.
I found that my grandpa had eaten so much paan and tobacco that he had developed cancer. I found that all my favorite items, items that he had sworn to give me when I grew up, all were gone. Stolen, written off to relatives when he was only semi concscious, broken, lost.
And all that was left of the gaunt man, who my mom said, once made her friend pee in his pants, the man who fed 6 cats sitting in a circle around his plate of food, the man whose grey hair I pulled, in whose musty bed I slept peacefully, hugging him, the man who danced for me, to make me laugh, the man who taught me how to paint my first watercolor portrait, the man who played games with me on lonely afternoons, and the same man who could bring hot tears to my eyes with one disapproving look of his... all that was left of him was a frail man who could not remember, and could not see out of his rheum clogged eyes that his granddaughter had come to visit him.
My grandfather resisted our attempts to bring him to Calcutta with us, where we were staying at that time. He would always give an excuse. One of his best ones were, "Yes, I'll come to Calcutta soon, but I'm not coming by train. I'm taking an ox-cart to Calcutta. I'll pack my stuff and tie them in the cart, and I'll take your paati and we both will set off to Calcutta by road. It will take me long to reach, but I'll reach, nevertheless." I'd snigger and tell him I knew he'd never come. And he never did.
I reason his unwillingness to come with the thought that he was scared. The giant was actually scared within, scared of his old age, scared that he'd be so helpless that his own children will mock him and consider him a burden. He was so scared that he preferred to die alone, surrounded by strangers and scoundrels. And ironically, he did die among people who thought he was a burden, and his bedsores were a bother, and probably waited to see him go. He died frail and unloved. Except by his older daughter my mother, who cried for his helplessness and his pain, and cried for all the love and all the hate she bore him in her heart.
Mom tells me that when grandpa was young, he was ruthless and cruel. Harsh by nature, not a kind word escaped his lips in general, neither for his neighbors and friends, nor for his family. And in his vindictiveness, he used to curse his father-in-law, old and frail then, who stayed at their house having nowhere else to go. Mom tells me how her granddad bore the insults with a smiling face, and yet, I can imagine what he would have felt, old, unwanted, unloved...
Probably this is what they mean when they say it comes full circle, you reap what you sow, etc. etc. But nothing can prepare you for eventuality, whether it be death, or even old age.
I'm not able to come to terms with old age, let alone death. Somehow, for me, it is as if my grandparents are still living in the Madras of my childhood, and I have but to close my eyes to see my grandfather's gaunt frame silhouetting the door post of the old, old house, where he was wont to stand with his arms akimbo, balanced on the wooden pillars on each side. Or smell the delicious yet simple rasam and rice that my grandmother prepared, blended to perfection with ghee and fed to us (my sister and I) as we sat on the terrace on so many starlit nights...
Nothing can alter those memories, no matter how many cobwebs there may be in the dark corners, and how many nuts and screws come tumbling out, rusty, and useless.
And I realized that that was the Madras I was searching for, in this new city of Thai and Euromexican restaurants, crazy traffic lights snaking the roads till late hours, FM stations blaring foot tapping and gut wrenching westernized dappankuththu music, dancing divas P3Ps, french and german citizens singing Carnatic classical music at global margazhi concerts, and rich, fat ladies in kanjeevarams and diamonds glittering their way into halls and malls and music academies of fame...
As I walk to my modern, 2 bedroom, airy and spacious flat in Anna Nagar, I'm reminded of the dusty sand-strewn lane leading to my grandparents' little abode, and I believe that the cats must still be yawning on the porch there, the well still teeming with little wild fry after the rains, kittens still being saved from drowning in them by little boys with buckets and ropes, my grandmother still plucking scented jasmine from the creeper in the backyard, growing amidst rubble and the broken well, and gathering them into long garlands that she puts in my hair as I run out to play with my friends on summer evenings...
Oh, city, city.
