As I was searching vehemently through her pile of books, I found some sheets of folded paper. Intrigued, I started unfolding those all the while worrying about getting caught. Poems! There were handwritten poems in those pages. I had never imagined her as a writer. It was so hard to imagine a lady like her involved in poetry, when all I knew she did was to manage the affairs of the house day and night.
The first was Mo Pravu, a small poem written in Odiya about Lord Jagannath. I knew she was an avid devotee, she would wake up early in the morning and start the rituals of the day, I would wake up to the sound of her anklets as she passed by my room to the veranda.
I had known her only for a short time. I remember a few such moments with her but seeing that she actually captured those in a poem made me nostalgic. I moved onto the second poem Drushya. It was about the beautiful morning views in front of our house: the sun waking up to the chirps of the birds above the Bindusagar pond, the famous Lingaraj temple, the flower vendors going from house to house requesting them to take the extra flowers that bloomed in our garden, the Vividh Bharati FM channel with its relatable and enchanting tunes. All of this written into those pieces of paper. She had never showed this side of her to anyone; the soft and creative side.
From the stories that I had heard from my mom, dad and aunts, my grandma seemed to be very strict and rigid, a person with difficult emotions. But then what are these poems supposed to mean? It’s true that we can never know a person. She might seem hard on the outside but might be tender on the inside. I started reading the next one, written about her six children. I found the lines meant for my dad. Those were adorable. She had described my father in a very sweet manner,wrote about his mischief and also the compassion he had for everyone.
Midway through this poem I heard the sound of my mom’s approaching anklets. I hurriedly assembled the pages, stashed those into the book, pushed the pile under the bed and ran out of the room. Phew! Such a narrow escape. But I did forget the main purpose of my rendezvous. I wanted to get the `10 notes that were hidden in those books, but I knew that it wasn’t the last time I would be seeing those books. I had just started to get to know the real her, my wonderful yet secretive grandma.
Email: ankitapanda04@gmail.com