Some grandparents are truly magical

Grandparents’ Day will be celebrated in some parts of the world on September 13th. For grandparents and grandchildren, this is an opportunity to enjoy the closeness that exists despite the gap in years that separates them.

In our childhood, we had just one living grandmother and she passed away when we were fairly young, so we have very few memories of good times with the generation once removed from us.

However, as a huge compensation for us and our children, our parents lived long and healthy lives and were excellent raconteurs who made time to interact and have an influence on their grandchildren and give all of us an insight into the times in which they had grown up.

Our parents were the kind of grandparents that make storybook characters appear staid — and I wonder: Where did they get that spark from and is it a part of our inheritance, one day to appear magically in us?

- Cheryl Rao

Their tales didn’t appear in any history books but were a part of the history they lived, and thus gave us an idea of what it was like to live under British rule although all of us were born after India won its independence.

Dad/Grandpa was in the Navy during World War II and thereafter his love for botany found him employment as silviculturist, Sind. It was a dream come true for him and his eyes sparkled, even as Mother/Grandma shuddered, as he recounted tales of camelback trips through the desert.

Sadly for him and his dream job, with Partition, Sind became a part of Pakistan, and he had to make his way back to India and start again, this time in the Indian Forest Service.

Many are the stories we heard of travels through the jungles and close encounters of the four-legged kind. While Dad/Grandpa slept deeply at night in little forest bungalows, Mother/Grandma stayed wide-awake beside the open window with a thick lathi (stick) beside her, wondering if the occasional sparkles she could see in the darkness were fireflies or the gleam of a leopard’s eyes …

After some years of jungle life, Dad/Grandpa joined the Indian Police Service where again, there was challenge and excitement.

Of the many cases he dealt with in his decades of police service, the one that stands out in the memories of three generations of the family was when he was on the trail of a notorious dacoit in the 1950s.

He disappeared for weeks on end and then clumped back into our lives, terrifying us in an almost unrecognisable bearded, topi-ed and dhoti-clad avatar: the disguise he had adopted while on the trail!

Outmanoeuvred dacoit

Later, we heard how the outmanoeuvred dacoit had finally surrendered, insistent that he should be met across a creek by Dad/Grandpa alone.

Our intrepid policeman, eschewing backup and body armour, stripped down to his underwear and swam across, knowing full well as he did so that the meeting place had been planned to ensure that he would be in full view, literally, and without a weapon!

There was never a dull moment for our family with such a well-matched pair: Dad/Grandpa indulged his love of animal and plant life in every way he could — and dragged Mother/Grandma into his plans willy-nilly. Turkeys, ducks, geese, chickens, guinea fowl, rabbits, calves, dogs, cats: it was usually mayhem in our menagerie!

To make matters worse, the fruit and vegetables in our garden grew to unheard of sizes — to be pickled or preserved as creatively as possible — and we could never guess what gave that extra tang to a curry or pudding!

As we wondered what mystery ingredients Mother/Grandma had used, Dad/Grandpa would divert everyone’s attention with a wild search for something he had mislaid, and true to form, it would eventually emerge from his pocket!

Our parents were the kind of grandparents that make storybook characters appear staid — and I wonder: Where did they get that spark from and is it a part of our inheritance, one day to appear magically in us?

Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India