Episode: Medchal (Family Life & Granny)
Due to certain unexpected situations, I had to postpone the episode. (Most of you know what I'm talking about.)
Hii readers! You must be eagerly waiting for this episode to read more about granny. I’ve got it all ready for you. J
So when they shifted to Medchal baby V was around a year old. Grandpa says she was a quiet child and there were no funny incidents he can tell us about her. Bad luck! ;)
As you’ve read in the earlier episode, they lived in a large bungalow and like every old building it had a lot of open lands. Well, you must have guessed the next part. Grandma got it weeded, plowed and leveled. Then she divided it into sections and planted to her heart’s content. She had a mini-farm of Sunflowers, Zenia, Chrysanthemums, and other flowers. She harvested, saved the seeds for future plantings, season after season.
And bingo! We have baby P in July 1965. Now granny had two kids to manage. And, also a bunch of relatives for months. Yeah! They lived near to Secunderabad and had a steady stream of relatives visiting them. The big bungalow was so comfortable that the relatives stayed back to enjoy the hospitality.
There was a time when grandpa’s all three sisters, with their children, his two brothers, who were ready to get into engineering course (waiting for grandpa to pay the fees), grandpa’s mother, father, and brother’s wife all stayed with them for quite a while.
Imagine catering to so many people! They needed money and grandpa earned around Rs. 170/- or so. “It was the first and the last time I took a loan. We pledged your grandma’s chain for Rs.500/-. It was tough for us to handle the entire burden she managed beautifully. Since then we have been the center point of the family whenever they needed financial assistance, even now.” Grandpa said.
Anything more about grandma?
“Oh yes! She had some good friends here and there was a library. That’s it. She read every single book that was available in that library. We used to buy second hands books in Secunderabad, she read all those as well. She was an avid reader, apart from being a garden enthusiast. We frequently went to Sec’bad for shopping, movies, and fun. We would catch the last train and head back home at night.” He replied.
And yeah! Grandma had a mini-farm in her backyard. She grew pumpkins, bottle gourds, eggplants, ivy gourd, ladyfinger, and many more. She had her yard full of colorful flowers which she tended with love and care.
What about kids?
“Baby V was around three and she liked her younger sister, P a lot. She took very good care of her. We don’t have any funny incidents but there was one thing that happened.” Grandpa paused.
What? When? Where?
“Well you know S, right? Granny’s younger brother and V’s hubby; he came to visit us once. He was in his early teens back then. One day we went to Sec’bad to watch a movie. It’s a horror film, Ankhee. Since the last train would leave in a few minutes, we headed to the railway station without watching the climax of the movie. When we reached home, he began to act strange. He spoke a weird language and could not sleep well. We were scared when he did not become normal the next day. I asked my friends for help and we took him to a good doctor in Sec’bad. The doctor after listening to the entire story gave medicines and assured us that he would be fine. It took 10 days of medication for him to come back to his original state.” Grandpa replied and added. “We did not inform anybody about this incident. They would have gotten scared or blamed us for it. Thank god that he wasn’t affected permanently. Years later we showed him the same film, this time with the ending and he was normal. I think he could not bear the suspense of not knowing who then killer was and thought too much about it.”
Now this is what I call an interesting story. J Sorry uncle S, I had to put this in. ;)
So our dear grandparents went to Sailu for the next four years. Baby S, V & K were born in there. All that and more coming up in the next episode. Till then, be happy, be kind. J
P.S: The image is not from granny's garden!
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