My Dadi (Maa)

My Dadi (Grandmother) is 76 years old. We call her ‘Maa’. Today evening, she came back from hospital after her routine check-up. She has many health issues like high blood pressure, Diabetes, Asthma. She sat on the chair in front of me all tired, stressed and worried. She was worried about her health. She was upset due to recurring health issues.

I looked at her, offered her water. I fed her 'Khichdi' I made for her and with it I served 'Punjabi Chhole'. The taste of 'Chhole' proved to be stress reliever for her. She forgot all her problems for some moments and all her worries vanished as her taste buds completely immersed in Chhole. I was glad I could do something to lighten up her mood.

As she got distracted from her health worries, soon we started talking about other things. As we talked, she was telling me how she got married. That she saw my Dadaji (Grandfather) only after they got married. This was the ‘blind date’ of those times where you get to see your partner only after marriage!!! Her face lit up as she went down the memory lane. She shared many stories of her with me that day.

My Dadi has never been like a typical Indian home maker who would toil in Kitchen every day. She is not someone who wants to live in the closed walls of a house waiting to die. My Dadi has always loved to socialize. We come from a very small town where we don’t get to socialize much. She loves to meet new people, talk to them and make friends what we call in today’s world as making ‘connections’. She doesn’t care what others think. She has always been fond of dressing well and keeping herself up to date.

The other family members including me have often gotten irritated over her for her wanting to go to every party, get-together, visit relatives or calling randomly to some relatives even if it was an international number. She loves getting her pictures clicked. We laughed at her but today whole world is doing this, taking selfies, making reels, posting stories.

She would fight to get a family photo clicked. We are a family of 22 members and my Dadi would force everyone to get ready for a family photo every Diwali. We all would reluctantly gather for the family photo.

At that time, there were no smartphone and clicking pictures was not a ‘trend’. Everything becomes normal when it is a ‘trend’. But my Dadi is way ahead of times. It is because of her today we have so many beautiful memories in the form of photo frames and not just stored on some ‘cloud’.

We have judged her, mis-understood her many times. We have called her childish for her behaviour. Our generation does not want to be judged but we did that to her. My Dadi is a liberal and freedom loving lady and we don’t have the habit of seeing such women in our families. A lady, especially of my Dadi’s age, in a typical Indian family setup is someone who does not have dreams, aspirations, interests and purpose. She is what her husband wants to be. She is there for everyone but not for herself.

No matter how progressive we claim ourselves to be, we all want our mothers first to live for family and then for herself. I am no less.

My Dadi has been trying to break that stigma and change the mind-set from years. She lives for herself. She has proven that ‘age’ is just a number.

She is child-like whereas we have grown too ‘Old’.

She has that ‘YOLO’ attitude. She is a ‘millennial’ of her generation.