05/02/2025
“When was I born, grandma?” I used to ask my grandmother. She would not answer me. She never answered because she didn’t know my birth date and the other things the villagers in the old days wouldn’t care much about. When I would insist on her again and again she would get tired and say that I was born in the early morning at the rice field on the hay.
“Really?”
“Yes, like a goat.”
“Like a goat?”
“Yes, like a goat.” She would repeat. “That’s why your voice is not sweet.”
I would glare at her angrily and hug her again; my loveliest grandmother; my first ever philosopher in life who told me thousands of strange, mysterious, and dark stories; the stories that would motivate and inspire me; the stories that made me pee on the bed.
“Grandmother! What’s that on the sky?”
“The moon.”
“What’s that in the middle of the moon?”
“That’s a rabbit.”
“A rabbit?”
“Yes.”
In summer we would sleep outside of our house. The mosquitoes would bite us but sleeping outside in the compound was like going on camping. Sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night and look at the big tree that was a little far from our house. The villagers used to say there was a ghost possessed in that tree, and the children were not allowed to go nearby. I don’t know whether you are going to believe me but once I, my brother-in-law, and a friend were coming home from the other village after seeing the wedding ceremony. When we reached the tree we felt that someone was throwing the stone at us. At first, we didn’t care; when the stones started making sounds one after the other we decided to run. We ran until we reached our houses. My grandmother was still awake and drinking jaad (homemade alcohol). I sat and narrated the whole incident. She just kept saying it was you just felt. There is nothing like that.
I don’t know why I’m writing these all things in my diary. I guess I am missing my grandmother.
Maybe it was my off day today and I read Drishya’s letter to Palpas’s grandmother in Palpasa Cafe. That made me miss my grandmother.
I also phone called and spoke with my mother about my grandmother and she shared so many things about her after I went to Sri Lanka, and couldn’t see her when she was sick and on her deathbed. I didn’t know about it. My mother didn’t tell me because she thought it would disturb me and my studies.
“Is my grandson coming home?” She would ask my mother. My mother would keep quiet.
Three years later, my mother wrote me a letter saying that my grandmother was sick and had left us all. I was a little monk, and I remember I went to the top of the mountain near my temple and cried a lot. After that, my grandmother started coming into my dreams daily. She would look sad. I talked and shared with my master, and he said she is asking for merits. He also helped me to arrange to make merits on her. I offered nine robes and food to the monks. Since that day on my grandmother stopped coming into my dreams.
There are so many things I can write about my grandmother. She was such a wise woman; such a strong woman who struggled to bring her five children up after my grandfather died.
Rest in peace grandmother.
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