Wisdom of the ages

Grandma wasn't trying to hide her annoyance that day. There was a frown on her face and suspicion and anxiety in her eyes. Her chin seemed closer to her nose sans the dentures and the wrinkled face was unusually taut.

Finally, with her hands on her hips, she demanded to know, "So, what is this cholesterol business the doctor was talking about? I am 83 and may be less educated than you are but mind you I am not illiterate. Even at this age I can recall the alphabet, the days of the week and the months. So tell the doctor not to treat me like a cabbage and frighten me with all kinds of big names."

"That clever fellow tells you," she continued, "that I have high cholesterol, a diabetes problem, hypertension, depression and blah, blah, blah. I never heard of such ailments nor ever saw anyone suffer or die of them in my time. Your grandfather died because his heart stopped beating. He was not subjected to an attack, as that liar of a doctor claims."

"Never bring that fool of a physician to this house again. He is uncouth. Tell that rascal to put on some weight and look less like a stick and more like a broom rather than advising me to shed some of mine.

Even your grandpa never objected to my putting on weight. In fact it was my stout and sturdy body that attracted him. He realised from my very appearance that I belonged to a well-off and well-fed family.

"And, mind you," she continued, "I may not be a doctor, but I am not ignorant about diseases."

She shot off a list of ailments with an air of pride and wisdom: "Fever, high fever, low fever, fever that makes you shiver and fever that makes you sweat. You have coughs and colds, sore throat and the running or constipated bowels. You have the badi mata [small pox] and chooti mata [chicken pox]..." and on she went. My hands were rather tired by then, holding her breakfast tray, but grandma stood in front of the table like a rock - not budging physically and not ready to accept explanations.

"And now there you are," she continued, as if accusing me of being the perpetrator of all that the doctor had diagnosed, "with a bowl of sugarless porridge, bread with hardly any butter on it and a glass of skimmed milk ... God, such cream-less insipid milk was not given even to the sick in my village. And here you and your dad and your mom and the entire household have been taken for a ride by that shrewd doctor who has a nose for making money".

"I remember the hakeem [village doctor] who had once diagnosed me with all kinds of ailments when I was a child," she continued. "In fact, had my father not shooed him away, he would have had everyone believe I was plagued with all the physical disorders known to him.

"What we learned under the light of the kerosene lamp is a knowledge that you pampered souls will never know. We had a medicine for all ailments. If it did not work, it was because it was your time, as marked in God's calendar."

I was still holding the tray, dazed as a result of granny's verbal salvo. It was the clatter of the spoon that jolted me back into consciousness. And there was granny at the dining table, liberally helping herself to all the forbidden foods on my plate. It was only when she had finished that I realised that there was nothing left for me to eat except for the sugar-free porridge and butter-free bread.

The writer is a journalist based in India.