Thathu, my grandfather, has been ready to “pack off and go” for decades, his morbid fascination with death just part of his 92-year-old charm.
Back when he was healthy enough to make the days-long flight from India to the US, he would sit on the sofa with our mutt beside him, pondering which of the two would “win the race.” Not sure what exactly he meant, but our dog died 11 years ago.
He likes to wrap up in a blanket and moan, “Yenna mo pandra da.” (“Something is happening to me.”)
His children describe him as a crafty old man who always gets his way. He has no qualms resorting to blackmail.
When he came to Minnesota to meet his youngest grandchild in 1991, he spent a few hours alone with the crying baby before threatening to jump in the lake.
He once screamed, “You’ve given me AIDS” in the middle of the hospital ward, as terrified patients wondered what the fuck was going on. My grandfather didn’t/doesn’t have AIDS.
He hates all religion and thinks Islam is a scam. Upon being introduced to his daughter’s pious Pakistani friends, he offered some unorthodox advice: “I tell my children, ‘You’ve left behind a shit place.’ But you’ve left behind a shittier place. Now that you’re in America, forget all this non-alcoholic nonsense you learned in Karachi.”
Thathu could toss ’em back.
My grandfather is, perhaps, the most brilliant man in a family full of doctors, lawyers, researchers, engineers and scholars. He once spent an entire summer writing a novel. Fluent in four languages, he can speak on any subject with impressive authority—physics, literature, history, politics.
He is also a man with zero ambition. He’s only ever wanted a good education for his children, though it was his wife who found the good schools and enrolled the kids.
An engineer for All-India Radio, he traveled across the country, finding cheap shitholes to rent wherever he went. The worst was probably 1 Ek Dalia in Calcutta. The grey paint peeling off the exterior served as an omen to the slum within, where a bandicoot rat one emerged from the toilet to traumatize my then 11-year-old aunt.
My grandmother Pamma was appalled, but her first order of business was to find quality schools for my father (Don Bosco) and aunt (St. Theresa’s), and then a teaching job for herself, before finally relocating the family to 20-C Ballygunge Terrace.
Thathu’s cup was always less than half full, and Pamma spent most of her life making up for it.
She once remarked, “We have nothing in common, but 60 years of marriage,” to which someone responded, “That’s quite a bit in common.”
My grandmother is brilliant and social and active. She makes friends with everyone and plans things down to the smallest detail. On her first trip to the US, she asked the lady at the ticket counter to double check her airline reservation because something on the boarding pass looked off. Sure enough, the woman at the counter had flubbed the reservations.
“Appa and Amma are marvelous,” my uncle says of his in-laws, my grandparents.
“Appa is a nightmare,” retorts my aunt. “He annoys my mother terribly.”
“Hmmm. It’s his only defect, really.”
“It’s no excuse.”
Thathu would have turned 93 this month, but he packed off and went this morning.
I hope he’s at peace now. He was the best storyteller. I bet he’ll have some good ones to tell when we meet someday on the other side.