My grandfather crossed the century mark in longevity before he kicked the bucket, as if he were waiting to touch that milestone. Like a Test batsman in his nervous 90s, he became slow in movement and lost his appetite for everything. His health was his sturdy partner as he never failed to take good care of his physical conditioning. He had a regimen of his own. It covered exercise, bath, diet and reading, which he followed religiously.
At his age he could do only light exercises, mainly pranayama. It was his bathing technique that was unique. He would immerse himself up to his stomach in cold water in an aluminium tub and remain immersed in it for more than an hour! He would rub himself vigorously with a cloth to get rid of skin-deep dirt, getting rid of a layer or two of skin in the process as ‘collateral damage’. He called it hydro-therapy, which included chanting slokas with eyes closed, unruffled by the noisy household. Meditation knew no impatience, he would say, while we children ran around mimicking his slokas! If his bathing method was eccentric, his diet was nothing but idiosyncratic. None of his dishes had added salt—none at all. Salt is a deadly enemy of long life, he would argue. He cooked his two meals a day in a steam cooker placed over charcoal cinders. Nothing can be healthier, he claimed. His completion of a century proved him right.
My grandfather’s eccentricity was not limited to habits, as I discovered from my mother much after he had passed away. A vicious dispute on parental property erupted between two cousins, with neither prepared to ‘yield an inch’. Both the cousins went around peddling their own side of the quarrel to family members. But the case inevitably went to court. My mother was sad when she came to know of her cousins’ avarice. “Mercifully your grandfather is not alive to see this day,” she said. “His heart would have been broken. You know, he was so large-hearted that he gifted a large portion of his landed property to his brother who had a number of children.”
“What?” I exclaimed, “Just like that?”
“Yes. But we never mention it for fear of embarrassing our uncle.”
My respect for his peculiarity went up a few notches.
Ishwar Pati
Email: ishwarpati@gmail.com