Ask more questions. Always.
When a grandparent or parent passes away, knowing you have their life in your heart will help ease the pain
Ifelt an emptiness the first time I went to her house following her death in 2014. As our car approached the gate, a realisation gripped me: this time my grandmother—Dadima—wouldn’t be standing behind it to welcome us. I would never again have that sandalwood smell envelop me as she wrapped me in a hug that embodied her love, as much as it did her strong protective hold. The kitchen would no longer be stocked with the biscuits she’d have made a special trip for to the grocery shop in the nearby town, because her grandchildren were visiting. The aroma of the cardamom tea that permeated the house was missing. She had been singularly responsible for every brick in the walls of that house, the first brick house in the village, complete with a Western toilet for her city-bred grandchildren.
Dadima had spent nearly 44 years in that house, in a village named after her late husband, a commander in the Indian Air Force. She had moved there with her two sons, a nine-year-old and a nine-month-old, just after he’d passed away when his airplane malfunctioned.
This September marked my grandfather’s 50th death anniversary. To others, his legacy is about his gallantry: he’d shot down a Sabre jet and carried out the first dead-stick landing in a Gnat aircraft, been awarded the Vir Chakra and Vayu Sena medals. But for me, his legacy is just as much about how his death had impacted Dadima, a dutiful woman who had barely attended high school.
I’ve usually been wary about claiming my grandfather’s legacy. I technically don’t know him at all. But Dadima’s legacy is a critical part of my history.
Survival instincts
Immediately after her husband’s death, Dadima moved from New Delhi to her husband’s family home in a village called Moriwala, on the outskirts of Sirsa, Haryana. Sensing her vulnerability, her late husband’s imperious brother tried to cut her off from the family property. She remained undaunted by his verbal abuse as she slowly built her confidence, realising that she had the moral support of some of her family and her late husband’s friends.
But “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” as my father told me, was a moment when her brother-in-law used his local networks to intimidate her. Provoked by the threat of violence, “she grabbed him by his beard and resolutely told him to stay away,” my father said.
“How did you do that?” I once asked Dadima. She’d shrugged. “What else could I have done?”
Her survival instinct had morphed into something more profound by the time I was growing up. In a setting where most older women were relegated to a charpoy in the corner, Dadima was always in charge—managing contractors and government officials, contributing to the local school and organising an annual sports festival for village youth. Women would congregate in her courtyard and share their problems as she counselled them. Swathes of people showed up at her funeral, and shared stories about how she had helped them address financial woes, intervened in abusive marriages, and made sure adolescents made it through school.
Innately feminist
I’m certain Dadima had never heard the term “feminism,” but in her actions, she had personified its spirit every day. Her fierce independence was visible in her most quotidian choices. At 75, after a hip-replacement surgery, we had expected her to be bed-ridden for at least a few months. But true to her nature, within a month, she had paced up and down our apartment in Delhi, ready to go back to her own house. Her quiet dignity would never let her be a burden.
My parents often joke that I’ve inherited her stubbornness. Until the very end, she’d
“I'M CERTAIN DADIMA HAD NEVER HEARD THE TERM “FEMINISM,” BUT SHE HAD PERSONIFIED ITS SPIRIT EVERY DAY” —ROHAN SANDHU
travel on intercity buses to visit friends and start her mornings with a run along a National Highway. Our repeated pleas that she consider her age had remained unheeded. All she had needed to do to win an argument was silently show us her hand.
One of her biggest accomplishments, I believe, was raising her two sons to be empathetic and sensitive, and to value their mother. While their cousins could be openly dismissive of their own ageing mothers, I cannot recall a single moment my father or uncle took Dadima for granted.
My father once urged Dadima to share stories about her life with my brother and me.
“Only if they ask,” she responded with her typical brevity.
I wish I had pestered her with more questions..