Granny Tales 101: Chapter 4

So the reason I said I knew what was coming up in this chapter was because I knew there was going to be an article of mine coming out in the newspaper soon. It was a piece I wrote on Tamil poetry for The Times of India, Chennai. I mention this because a lot of my interest in writing developed because of dadi.

Dadi was an English teacher and she would sit for hours teaching me poems, grammar and narrating granny tales when I was in school. Before exams, she would sit with me and listen as I read out lessons loudly and interjected only if she wanted to add a point. Even at 90, she knew what gerunds and clauses were better than anyone else. I owe a lot of my knowledge in the language to her. She loved reading my English answer papers to see if the teaching sessions paid off. But my humble sweetheart that she was, she never took credit for it, simply praised me for being talented. 

Granny Tales 101: Chapter 2

Home isn’t home without dadi around. Everything reminds me of her. We all have our own ways of coping. In my case, I’m coping on varying scales with different things, so I finally channelised my energy into writing when it came to dadi dearest.

After her passing, I wrote a very short poem which aptly described what I was feeling. So I’m sharing that poem with you here.

Why did you just disappear?

When you know you’re

Our dadi dear,

But you’re so strong,

We have nothing to fear,

You’re always with us

Even if you’re not here.
A big hello to my rockstar up there who is watching over me, being my guardian angel like she always was.

Granny Tales 101: Chapter 1

I thought a lot about what could go up as the first anecdote. The problem is, you can never pick just one incident that is close to your heart. So I’m just going ahead with the first one that popped up when I began writing this.

When I was a little child, I was always excited about excursions. My school used to plan day-long picnics to amusement parks in the city. I wasn’t, and I’m still not, a huge fan of these parks because I get dizzy on rides. The only thing I enjoyed about the outing was munching on snacks and being with my small group of friends, who fortunately never made fun of my fears and still chose me as their ‘excursion partner’.

GRANNY TALES 101

The last few weeks have been quite tough. I lost my grandmother and death is seldom a welcome visitor or shall I say, never a welcome visitor. Dadi, as my sister and I fondly called her, was very close to me (and the whole family, but I’m going to stick to my personal account here). She’s seen me grow from a baby who could barely mouth words to a journalist and designer who runs her own company. And she had a huge role to play in it all. Her absence has created a void that can never be filled – not in my home, not in my heart.