Do I have something to say-Nah...I am too busy trying to live my life.
The Sikkim government has just announced the vaccines.I finished watching the movie 'Seven years in
Tibet'.
Strngely nostalgic and a sad movie.
Watched it from a distance even as I tried to find a small part of my root in those closed forbidden
terrains,although Pharidjong where my paternal grandmother came from was lower down near the
Bhutanese kingdom I understand.
I try to look at my grandmother through my mother's eyes.
I asked her questions gallore.My mother a young bride from a christian and a mixed background
marrying into a family with a matriach who was a tibetain nobility from a very rich budhist culture.
I wondered how they got on woman to woman.My mother does not have any bad memories of her
mother-in-law. I get the picture of a very classy woman who never had a harsh word to say about her
and loved her and vice versa.My mother talks about the last days when her mother-in law came over to
stay with her when my dad was posted in Gangtok .Even as my uncle came over to take her back
home she remembers how she shed so many tears after she had left.
She did not realise that it was the last time she was to see her.
She spent most of her married life with her so the picture I paint of that lady is a beautiful woman
indeed.
She left Tibet for two reasons according to my mother.She wanted to go to a land where oranges grew.
Secondly she hated the divide between the rich and the poor ,The rich had the best of everything but the
poor got bowls of champa and old meat as payment for the hardwork they put in.She would often slip
in the better bits for the underprivellaged whenever she could.
In our growing up years it was fascinating to watch my dad interact with his siblings.They treated each
other like royalties and expected us to treat them as such.We were all over our father when we were
children but when his siblings visited we had to behave.
We could not talk loudly,stomp around,and had to stay put neatly on the couches while the seniors were
around without our opinions all over the place.
My aunt did her best to grrom us into genteel ladies and dare I say she succeeded only with the oldest
and I happen to be the youngest.
Comments