Pritha Banerjee gives her take on the role elders play in her life.
Grandparents are our best friends when we experience the realm of childhood. It’s undeniable. Grandparents make us aware of the real apprehension and consciousness through their vast terra firma of wisdom and experience. My grandparents are unique in their own ways, and their stories are what made me master the management of little things like family, friends and neighbours. There are ample materialistic views prevailing in the society today, but the real affection can only be unveiled if we disburse some precious time to these souls, without whom we may not have learnt to walk, talk or sleep.
My grandparents are coming from a rich background of history, music, art and culture. My great great grandfather is Kshirode Prasad Vidyabinod, evergreen for Alibaba. The story endures, abides in our hearts and are accentuated various times. But, the actual taste of Alibaba can only be heard in the nooks and corners of the vintage Nandalal Bose Lane in Bagbazar, where my grandma opens up her heart to the songs and my grandpa nods along merrily. Our family, being one full of heritage, is simply divine with music, and obviously retro. Rabindrasangeet from my grandmom is something that can never leave my spirit, it remains everlasting with the voice sweeter than honey even at the age of seventy.
My grandpa is a doctor, an Army physician, a soul churner, a music enthusiast, a lover of food and huge family adda parties. Nothing makes him smack his lips more than the taste of Bati Chochori, Shukto, Chingri Bhape, Kosha Mangsho and Macher Jhal from my grandma. And believe me, they are absolutely blissful. Energetic and vivacious as ever, he used to return from his clinic and tell me to sing. He helped me pass in Mathematics and gave me the inspiration needed to build an intellect as strong and redundant as him.
Here’s a glimpse of all the privileges I get as their granddaughter:-
History – The mere glimpse of our ancient Harmonium, several Gitobitans, a graduate certificate of Rabindrabharati and photos of my grandmother singing give me a feel of eternity. It is as if the songs are freshly written every day, the books are newly bind and the song is just sung. The old radio, the cassettes and those huge gramophones where we patiently sat to listen to Aurangzeb. God! My grandfather’s certificates of honour from the army, his beautiful coat which is carefully kept and the photos of his young times, really brings along a feeling undefinable. The fact that 1932 was his birth year and he experienced the independence first hand, is something I will always cherish.
Skills – Well, unfortunately I never learnt sewing from my grandmom ( I don’t want to, right now at least!) but yes, cooking, baking, farming, all I owe to that lady! The various times I cheated on my school assignments just so she would do it for me and in return I would give her a new book to read. The give and take was never equal but she didn’t mind and I didn’t pester. Cleaning, using old tools, reusing things and careful storage are all the generous gifts of that old lady. My grandpa cannot help but make me an enhanced academian. Mathematics, physics and songs! Thanks for that!
Adda and Torko – A part of my everyday routine, a day without the jukti -torkobagish nature oozing out of my mouth, is a day wasted. My grandpa was the sole participant here along with me, but he patiently listened to my opinions as well. He never ever complained, never once became impatient. Just he would keep saying (and still does!) ” Amar shathe boshle tor porashona ar hobe ne bole dilum”. Well, who wants studies to disrupt when there is so much to express your opinions about and listen more to!
Family History – The pandemonium of old age! The family history is a bonus along with your package with this family. Every time a new subject comes up my grandma goes “Amar ma na …” “Janish to tor shejdadu o kintu erokom chilo” “Organ ta bajiye ei gan amake omuk shale ma omuk dine shiniyechilen” and the scornful look from my grandpa follows.
Food!!! – Endless! My personal favorite – everything along with pulao and mangsho, payesh. Chingrir malaikari, echorer torkari, kochu, murighonto, oler poshto, aluposto, telebhaja, alu kabli! And so many! My grandpa was a step behind. He specialised in all the “chops” – Mangsher chop, mangsher shingara, alur chop, macher chop, dimer chop and his signature scrambled egg, french fries and omelette! Delectable.
Books – God! The libraries of my city will hide their faces in shame if our collection of books is ever laid out! Classics, Rabindranath, Shankha Ghosh, Troilokkonath, Satyajit, Sukumar, Upendrokishor, Shorodindu to all those with almost no strength left in them. Still they are all readable, and they still pass the hands of this generation. Nobody should challenge us in the field of books!
Emotional Support – Broke down after school? Had a fight with friends? Had a fight with parents? Had a fight with yourself?Losing the morality of life? Can’t figure out what to do? Don’t know what to eat? Don’t know where the key is? Weather too gloomy? Come to the humble abode of your grandparents and see all the problems fade away!
The best part is when I listen to their random talks and seek to know more from what they have seen life as. Although, most of the times I get too impatient, careless and amateurish with them, but I know I understand them like no one ever did. Yes, teaching them to use a mobile is next to impossible, making them understand the usage of internet, skype and Facebook is impossible but there’s no harm in trying! After all, they taught you how to use a spoon for god’s sake!
They always gave what felt right, they shared everything, they were unbiased, they were unprecedented, they saved from habits that harm, they taught me to work hard, they saved me from my mother’s beatings and father’s scoldings, they provided all the money whenever I had a secret guilt-free wish!
Now,since it’s my time to reflect on what I can give them. There’s nothing much that I can do in this aspect but yes, I am young enough to say that love is the ultimate gift to all those grey-haired people who are near and dear to you. Spend your best time with them, get them the endearment they so deserve, teach them to be patient with new gadgets, cook with them, read with them. But, please, don’t put them in a home! It is the biggest mistake depriving both the grandparents and their grandkids to savor the time that parents fail to provide. Only 15 years of friendship has given me so much to be proud of. Just because they are old it doesn’t mean they aren’t our parents. Namma Dadu, you are god given and a well wisher for life. You know I won’t take a step if you don’t approve of it. You know I can’t get enough of your tenderness, disposition and discernment. You are vital for my life, you are always young. There is nothing abnormal in spending more time with your grandparents than your parents purposefully.
We live in a society that opposes aging, in spite of the evidence that each of us is, in fact, are aging. This anti-aging bias has prevented us from thinking about old age in a way that feels good or that will create a good elderhood.
Go say that you love them, because I tell them every day! For me, it’s quite unimaginable to see them being ill-treated. Any person who is outside wandering about helplessly should be taken in. My grandparents will always be my responsibility, it can never get neglected. It should never occur that a child is brought in this world to enable a new exploiting personality to increase in this already contaminated globe. There should be no sad memories till the last breath for people so special and priceless. We give them so less yet we regret all the times we lost. So, act now. Go speak up. Because:-
To me – old age is always ten years younger than I am. – Bernard Baruch

Aparajita Dutta, who describes herself as “an author by passion”, writes about how her uncle shaped her creativity and even the person she is today.
He smiled at me, rays of love, emanating from his phlegmatic face, a love which inspired me to paint my words in different languages. Like every Bengali child, I was acquainted with the book, Thakumar Jhuli, a collection of Bangla fairy tales. But for me, jyatha’s stories were much more interesting than the princes, Lal Kamal and Nil Kamal. He too had such princes, but I at that time, was too naive to understand the source of attraction. Later, as I look back, I find my own fantasies, embedded in them, as he coloured my childhood with imagination, embedding fables in my subconscious heart.
A bearded man, a smiling face, and a soul full of stories … that’s how I remember him, sitting on his chair, always going through one dictionary or the other. As I look at the dedication page of my own M.Phil thesis, I ponder: is this at all a worthy dedication to the man who shaped my childhood, who taught me to struggle in his most creative of ways and above all, who taught me to be passionate and shower love upon everyone? Perhaps, not. Perhaps it’s just a beginning to help him live when he left his physical body eight years back. I would not call it a luck but a blessing to have someone like my jyatha ( uncle) in my life who treated me like his own daughter, his ebullience, still wiping away my tears whenever I miss his presence. A hedgling in her sweet sixteen, I was too young when he left me alone in his books and creations for childhood memories are all I have now.
A poetry for an occasion, a story with characters who became my friends and role models… he would weave my childhood fantasies with values he wanted to imbibe in me, and carry forward when it would be time for him to leave this world. A translator and a writer, jyatha was just like another normal human being to me, always greeting me with a smile, an act I learnt as I grew up. The smile would be like his constant companion as I watched him working in the night before the publication of his books. The joy of working allured me, the mesmerising beauty of living the passion, to give the readers the best of oneself brightened his weary face as I looked with awe, hoping someday too, I will become a human being like him, and a writer perhaps. I don’t remember using the exact term ‘writer’, ‘translator’ or a ‘human being’ as a child. I would rather say, ‘ ami jyathar moto hote chai’ ( I want to be like jyatha). For me, he embodied a human being, a passionate translator and a writer.,br> Looking at the theories of translation in my M.Phil course work, I felt like I knew their essence a long ago, I understood what they meant even before I became aware of the existence of a whole field called ‘Translation Studies’. Often as I would crawl up to him and demand to tell me what he was doing, jyatha would tell me about the mysteries of languages he was working on, as he translated, instilling a love for knowing them and while I saw many of my convent educated snobbish friends bragging about not understanding Bangla, I read Bangla and English books extensively. Jyatha would allow me to discover the books by myself, letting me freely explore his collection, as if they were just mine. Not for a single moment did he complain against the sorry state of translators and writers in India, not for a second did he make me feel that the struggle is futile; these are the things which I later learned, after I decided to find him in his works, in translation studies.
Growing up would have been different had it not been for the man who waved his wand of creativity and made even the hardest of philosophies easy to understand, from my love for pets which he nurtured by telling me stories of Joy Adamson and her pet lion, Elsa, to becoming a diligent woman, jyatha gave hues to my wings. Losing my way in the lanes of memories, I am reminded of a few beggars who would visit our house regularly and jyatha would offer them help, in cash or kind. Sufficing my curiosity, he would tell me about the abject poverty they live in, something which I still remember, something which inspired me to devote my free time in social work.
My life would have been different had he still been alive to see me following his path, with his ideals as weapons to fight against the odds. But am I too late to do anything for him? My M.Phil thesis looks at me and strikes off the dilemma. Working on translation, fighting for translator’s rights, helping out people in whatever ways I can would have made him happy and perhaps he would have wanted this too… a better future for writers, translators and everyone, perhaps he would have wanted to see smiling faces of everyone around him. It’s not too late, after all. I look forward to my translation projects and the events of my NGOs. And when darkness falls, I look at the sky and find a smiling star. I know, he is there, watching. I know, a day will come when hundreds of people will say that I am his worthy niece. He’s alive, in his works, in my tributes!!