Rao Saab

On the eve of this new year, our entire family lost the most loving person ever born among us...my grandfather. My tata.
I used to lovingly call him Rao saab.
It is with still some shock and disbelief that I write this. We all seem to be going through the motions of what comes after but time hasn't really ticked for us. Our hearts are stuck in those few hours and set on memories we last shared with him.
Tata's last social gathering was at our place, when we had the pujo at home on 29th December, 2017. That was when I last physically saw him, fed him, spoke to him, and Subhash and I took his blessings. Little did we know or possibly imagine in our wildest dreams that that would be our last. Strangely enough, like at my ammama's time, I was travelling when it happened. What fate this is, I haven't understood yet. The two people I love most, left me when I wasn't next to them.
It all seems impossible and unreal, even as I type this. It's incredibly difficult and too soon for me. But I write as it dawns on me that my grandfather wasn't just 'my' most favourite person. He was loved by so many of us and so deeply and we have so many souls to thank. He was a scholar, a thinker, a grammarist, a published poet, a singer, a musician, a drama artist, a brilliant chess player. Specially reserved for the family was his deep knowledge of Carnatic and Hindustani music - he knew each corresponding raagas in the two schools of music - I'm yet to come across others who specialize in this. So many evenings spent singing for hours and we never had enough of him. Not once through the years do I remember thinking, 'Oh yes, I have heard this bit before'. Such was his knowledge.
He could also sleep talk perfectly about Yeats and Keats and Shakespeare and recite many a sonnet in entirety. That's where my love for English probably started. I wasn't blessed with his brilliant memory but I was the luckiest possible child to walk on this planet to have been brought up by him in my super young years. Someone had correctly said, children don't learn from what they are told, they only follow what they see. My language fails me today to describe how perfect a parent he was to me.
My tata loved company. And the company loved him. He has lived in a number of cities throughout the country and he had countless friends everywhere and of all ages, from 5 years to 50, 90 or more. Some of them, I remember from some twenty-five years ago, were his 'freedom-fighter friends' at Delhi's Baba Kharak Singh Marg. Yes, the 'Azaadi ki ladai ladne vaale' elders. I have no idea how he found them but I was taken along on these visits regularly. They used to look so old that I would be scared of them. But tata insisted I come along on every visit. They spoke for hours and I used to play on the porch. God knows if I ever picked up anything intelligent from such rare company. But they loved me, fed me, remembered my birthday and bought me clothes. When one of the 'freedom-fighter' tatas passed away, my grandfather was grieved! Tata would tell me about their great struggles for the country. I absorbed some of it at an age that was too young to entirely comprehend it but my childhood was certainly shaped by it. By my tata.
To no one's surprise, I turned out to be a most possessive grandchild in the years to come, and I used to think nobody, absolutely nobody could love my tata more than I did. But I'm humbled today. As friends and family have started calling and posting messages, to hear them speak of the time they spent with him, particularly of their conversations, how he kept up correspondence we didn't even know of, their favourite song of his, the letters he wrote or the poetry he posted, and most of all, the love he had for them - people who met him twenty years ago, spoke of him as they met him only two days back and each one spoke to us of the 'special bond' they had with him - we are trying to gather ourselves enough to respond to all the love but we don't seem to be enough people to do that. The grief in the voices we hear has nothing to do with common courtesy. It is much more real and comes from a very loving place. To be perfectly underrated, tata was much larger than the life he posed and had a much bigger heart than I knew of. Strangely enough, we are not surprised at all at this. We knew it all along but just as the dust settles even on the brightest diamond, we let it, in our daily lives. But with each person who calls or writes to us, a facet is getting polished and we remember anew his life and his brilliance and bask in the afterglow.
The biggest legacy my grandfather leaves, is the legacy of love. For there were long years of struggle. He served my grandmother for many years in sickness and took care of her lovingly. It wasn't even easy for the younger ones to tend to her. But he did. Day and night. The couple had five children and eight grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and a tightly-knit extended family and close friends. But before my grandfather's strength for her, we all were nothing.
The other, I realize, is the simplicity with which he lived his life. He demanded nothing. He was a man par brilliance but never procrastinated on the mundaneness of life. He was a religious person who followed the madhwa ways of life. He was lovingly called ‘appa’ by most thanks to our kannadiga ancestry. He gave strength to his children when they needed it the most and was proud of all our achievements. He was happiest when we visited him and blessed us from afar when we couldn’t. Humanly, if he ever faltered from his good nature, one would be unhappy only because he himself instilled high values in us. He enjoyed austerity in life: he read and blogged and solved scholarly puzzles everyday. If I was around, he would read me options and asked me which one I liked better to post. His food was simple. His attire, even more so. He had a harmonium, a walking stick, a pair of glasses that hung from his neck, books, and a lifelong photographic memory of sorts. He looked for no special service. The things appa didn’t have, he didn’t complain about.
As everything happened in a daze, I reflected later on the peaceful look on his face when he left us. I believe that it is only possible for a man who forgave us all for our shortcomings, which would have been many and left us only with love in his heart. I like, many others, feel guilty now of the time not spent with him. But what's the use in that. I shall write for him though, as much as I can. I will thank our friends to remember him, as deeply as possible. And I'll try to be his granddaughter till I meet him again, in this world or another.
Pinky.