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Anirudh Dhanda
To every man, the greatest storyteller is his grandmother. For me, too, it was my Ammi. The family had migrated from Lahore in 1947 and settled down at a nondescript town in Punjab because she belonged to that place and her father had left behind landed property in her name. Having familiar faces around in those times of strife and loss must also have been a reason to settle there. Coming from Lahore to Bassi Pathana was a huge cultural loss. Her resilience and strong sense of belongingness to the town made the family settle down fast with whatever meagre means they could muster.
I was born over 10 years after Partition and my memory of Ammi is that of a short lady who smelled love and was all love for us. She had leucoderma spots all over her body and would fumble doing routine activities due to poor sight. She was not literate but had wisdom greater than many of the lettered. People were in awe of her temper, but for us, she was Ammi, who would narrate stories in the evening, transporting us to the land of wonders.
There were two wooden sandook in the house, which always had homemade pinni, matthi, laddoo and freshly baked biscuits from a local bakery. I remember carrying a tin with flour, sugar and eggs to the bakery and spending the entire day waiting for my turn, and then the delicious outcome.
Ammi would be sitting on her charpoy that must have been specially crafted for her small stature. It was right in the middle of the room, directly under the ceiling fan. It faced the front door that was always open. The floor was made of sirhindi bricks. During the day women from the town would throng her and tell her about all the happenings. Many a time they would be cracking jokes and laughing aloud.
Shelling muskmelon seeds was her favourite pastime. Peeling each seed with a hair-plucker and later winnowing the chaff with a chhajj. Despite her failing sight, she would do it deftly. The seeds would be used to make chikki for my father, her eldest son.
She would get up early and make tea for Baaji, my grandfather. My brother and I would also sit around the kerosene stove. We would get pieces of bread dipped in freshly removed cream from milk boiled the previous evening. That used to be a real treat. We would take turns in grinding almonds, some other seeds soaked overnight and cardamom in a kundi-sota. Ammi would put this material in ghee in the pan over a fire and add milk to it. A fistful of sugar would also go into the pan. We would leave only after partaking this along with Baaji. I don’t remember if there was any milk left for Ammi, or if she ever looked for any leftover in the pan.
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