Tag Archives: Memories

Memories: Grandmother Tales – 2

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I am the first grandchild in both my paternal and maternal families and hence have been quite pampered, atleast until my sister was born, around 18 months later.

They say children don’t really have memories until they are around 2 years old, and I am also not very sure if this is a genuine memory or the following memory is something that is there because it was told to me by people. This memory is of the time when my sister was born. I had an aunt who used to stay in New Delhi at that point in time as her husband was in the armed services and lived in a defence colony. My paternal grandparents took me with them when they went to visit her. I was, as I mentioned, around 18 months old at that time. I was extremely close to my paternal grandmother so it should not have been an issue for me to be away from my parents for a couple of months. My grandparents took me with them so my mother who was recruperating the birth of my sister at her mum’s place need not have the hassle of looking after an active toddler too.

It’s important in this story to note that the then Indian Prime Minister had declared a state of emergancy in the country during that period. Since we were living in a defence area, that place was highly regulated and strict. I have memories of Indira Gandhi coming on television nightly, probably talking about the situation in the country. For some reason I was very scared of her and this was excabated by them telling me that if I did something naughty, she will come and take me away! Imagine how terrified I was then, an 18-month old toddler, away from my parents for the very first time in my life. And I was in a situation where I could not even get to my mum if I wanted to until and unless I was taken back to Bombay.

This aunt of mine did not have any children and perhaps the way things worked back then was like this. But if something like this happened today, all hell would have broken loose. I also think women at that time were more conditioned to just accept what their elders tell them. I don’t condemn anyone in a similar situation, but it has to be a very excruciating situation before I would allow something like that to happen with me and my children.

My relationship with my paternal grandmother was very special. In tamil families, the oldest grandchild is given the paternal parent’s name (depending on gender), the next oldest, the maternal grandparents name, if of the same gender and so on. So by this naming convention, my grandmother’s name was bestowed upon me. But so that the younger generation don’t call a child by the same name as that of an elder, this was usually the formal name with another name being used at home and in casual settings. In mine and my sister’s case, though our grandmother’s names are mentioned in our birth certificates, it also includes our other name, which then became our formal name.

So in the light of the above paragraph, like I said, I had a very special connection with my paternal grandmother. She lived with us till I was around 6-7 years old, then moved to be with my paternal uncle who moved to another state for work as he was still unmarried then. I still remember all the stories she used to tell us and the yummy dishes she made for us. And when they would visit us during holidays, or we visited them when they decided to make Bangalore their retirement home, I would snuggle with her at night, because I missed her so much!

She passed away suddenly when I was 16 and I think I cried almost a week thinking about her. In fact, I had made plans to go alone to Bangalore after my grade 12 exams to stay an extra month with her before the rest of the family came, but that plan just remained that.

I really enjoyed writing this post, so much that I will share more childhood memories in the coming months. I should do this before I forget them, after all, oral memories much be written down before they are forgotten.

In case you want to know more about my paternal grandmother, here’s another post I wrote a few years back.

What are your memories about your grandmother? Do you have a favourite one?

Memories: My First Day of School

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I was struggling for something to write today when I came upon this prompt – the first school memory. I have a really rich memory of my first day in school and thought of writing it down before I get real old and forget it!

This is also apt as this India trip, I am going to take my kids down and show them my school, which I have never done before – shame on me right!

In Mumbai, we start school either in Nursery (age 3) or Junior KG at age 4. When I was three years old, my sister was an infant and so I was not sent to school then. However, I remember pestering my family to be sent to school and probably thinking my mum will have some peace with me away for a couple of hours a day, I was sent to the school next to my house for a ear. This school put me in a class one year above my age which worked to my favour later. My father studied in another school which was literally 50 steps away from our home, but my mum was adamant that she wanted to send us to my school, which was a girls school and which other children in my building went. This was against my grand parents wishes who wanted us to go to the school my dad, uncle, aunt and assorted cousins went to, especially as the school was a Tamil school and the school my mum had zoomed on in was a Parsi school! Anyway, my mum got her way and I was soon taken to the school for an interview. I don’t really have any memory about the interview, but according to my parents I aced it and got admission not only in my school, but in another convent girls school nearby. Usually for Junior KG, the children are interviewed with things like name, what is this (insert object), alphabets, numbers etc. Since I had already done a year of this class, it was a breeze for me!

Also, when we were studying, we’d enter the school in kindergarten (Nursery or Jr. KG) and only leave after grade 10 which is the equivalent of the O levels. So most of my classmates have known each other from the time we were 3 or 4 years old, which make for very old friendships!

The first day of school in my memory is noisy! Some of the children came in from the nursery, but most joined with me. I remember a particular friend who cried non-stop for almost a week before she settled down. I also remember my neighbour who was in grade one when I started school would come down during recess to make sure I ate what was in my snack box! I mostly remember my teacher – Mrs S. She was already old at that time, maybe close to retirement (really and not from the perspective of a four year old! She had white hair) but was such a gentle and sweet lady! She made sure all the children learnt their three R’s and was so soft spoken that we still remember her, so so many years later!

School used to be half day for the kindergarten class and we would be dismissed at lunch for the primary and secondary sections and I remember queuing up for the bus, holding the bottom part of the uniform of the girl in front of me!

My school changed the kindergarten or the Infant department as it used to be called uniform some years back. When I was there, everyone, from the littlest infant to the school head girl, all wore the same uniform – the only difference being the shirt collar. In kindergarten and primary, it used to be a peter pan collar while secondary used to be shirt collar. Oh and the Friday uniform too – in my school in term 2 or the term after the Diwali holidays, we wore a special uniform on Fridays. Infant and Primary students used to wear something like a dress or frock and Secondary students wear their school uniform shirt with a white skirt. We didn’t wear it in term 1 as that term coincided with the monsoons in Mumbai and imagine wearing white and getting wet and dirty in the rains!

I am getting real nostalgic about my alma mater while writing this post and am really eager to meet her as well as my friends from school! I am super excited to introduce her to BB, GG and my sister’s kids next week!

I hope you liked reading this post as much as I did writing it!! More from India….