In July 1982, we moved to my hometown, Yamunanagar. I have given the background to the move in my piece titled ‘Happy Birthday’ that is on this blog.
One of the good parts of the shift to Yamunanagar was that I really got to know my grandparents. For instance, I saw that our grandmother whom we called ‘Jhaiji’, was by nature a giver. She also had a soft heart and found it very difficult to refuse any one anything. She always took the side of the underdog. Her view of the world and people, and her deeds thus spoke.
It is said that when refrigerators became common and Pitaji got a refrigerator home, Jhaiji was not very happy with it. She named it ਗਰੀਬਮਾਰ (Garib Mar) – Something that took away what belonged to one not with the means. Before refrigerators became the norm, it was common practice to give away the food that was left over after the meal in the afternoon or in the evening to the less fortunate around – and there were a lot around. Refrigerators came and habits slowly changed and people started keeping the food in the refrigerator for the next meal. It was the less fortunate who lost out.
Jhaiji was a simple person with very simple tastes. Other than the couple of years around the partition of the country, she had seen a life of affluence. It is said that her father was the largest landholder and the ਲੰਬੜਦਾਰ (lamberdar)[i] in our village in West Panjab. As a teenager, she had her own Pony and a small buggy. My grandfather whom we all called Pitaji also did rather well for himself. He was commissioned in the Indian Army in 1942, when few Indians became officers and soon became a Major. After retirement, besides having a pension, he ran a successful 30-acre farm in the hay days of the green revolution. Yet Jhaiji remained very simple – she was simple in dressing and simple in eating.
One habit of her’s struck me as odd. She would have the last roti or half a roti of the meal with onion and salt. I would ask why? Why don’t you take subzi or dal with the roti instead of only onions and salt, I would question? She would simply respond that she liked it. Then she would educate me – the majority of the not so fortunate working class in the country have their meal with roti and only salt or onion or maybe pickle so it was ok and I should not get too bothered about it.
And she would leave it at that.
She would NOT sermonize me on being grateful to God for the food I have.
As an eleven-year-old, I could not readily accept or even fathom the thought behind the roti, onion and salt, and would pester her to take dal or subzi. Then she would tell me that onions are good, and onions were the favorite of Baba Budha. Now Baba Budha is an iconic figure in Sikh tradition. I knew that even as an eleven-year-old. He had met Guru Nanak as a child and started asking question about life and spirituality much beyond what a child would be interested in. So Guru Nanak named him Baba Budha. Legend has it that Baba Budha lived to be 120 years. Baba Budda had seen the first six Gurus, from Guru Nanak Dev Ji to Guru Hargobind Dev Ji and had performed the Gurgaddi ceremony of the five Gurus after Guru Nanak. He was the first granthi of the Darbar Sahibafter Guru Arjan composed the Shri Guru Granth Sahib.
How did Jhaiji know that Baba Budha liked onions? I did not ask her for we as children were used to being told ‘sakhis’ (stories of the Gurus and great people) by Jhaiji. I was later to learn that this is what is known as oral histories – history that is handed down from one generation to another by word of mouth.
Another facet of Jhaiji’s personality was that she was not attached to money. If she had any, she would gladly give it away. And then some more would come her way and she would give that away again.
My school was closeby and it had a hostel. The boys in the hostel would have mandatory games in the afternoon. It was open to the day scholars to join if they so wished. I started going back to school in the afternoons after finishing my homework. I was eleven years old and was in the 6 th Standard.
One afternoon I asked Jhaiji if she would give me some money to buy toffees. Without asking any questions she gave me eight annas[ii]. And thereafter very often when I would be leaving for games in the afternoon, she would on her own give me eight annas for buying stuff like toffees. I would go and buy myself some kind of candy or toffee with it, without much thought.
One evening in the beginning of October 1983, I accompanied my mother to buy vegetables from the nearby market known as SarniChownk. Winter was setting in and there was a nip in the air. We had started using light woollens. The vegetable vendor had set up his shop on the road using the wall of another shop as the boundary. The vegetables were displayed and stocked in bamboo baskets placed on small stools. The sun had set and it was dark all around.
The vegetable vendor had suspended a naked 60 W bulb by the wire in a manner that his vegetables worn a shine. He had a pile of big brinjals placed right under the light. They were shining bright in the light. While my mother was buying vegetables, I was holding the bags and generally looking around. A man walked up and started to pick up some onions. He looked like not too skilled a worker, the kind employed during road building. Despite it having turned cold he was only wearing a kurta and dhoti, which were dirty and his jooti was caked in mud. He was shivering slightly.
He had bought his onions and as he was about to leave, he gazed at the shining brinjals. One of the reasons I remember this story after all these years is because the brinjals were really looking nice in the light. He picked up one brinjal, looked at it for some time and then put it down. He just stood there and kept looking at the brinjal. After some time, the shopkeeper asked him if he wanted something. The man picked up the brinjal and asked the shopkeeper for the price. The shopkeeper replied ‘eight annas’. The man again held the brinjal for some time and then reached into his pocket and brought out a coin. It looked like an eight anna coin. The man again thought for some time, turned and left without buying the brinjal.
The dinner at his home that night would be of roti and onion, and not brinjal. He probably neededthe eight annas for more important things than to splurge on a dinner of brinjals.
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1. Lambardar in a village had wide ranging powers including maintaining land records and revenue records. Due to the nature of powers given to the Lambardar, the Lambardar and his family had an exalted status in the village.
2. The country had moved to the decimal system and One Rupee was of 100 naya paise. Yet in common parlance the equivalent of the old annas were used. One Rupee = 16 annas = 100 naya paise. Four Annas was equivalent to 25 paisa and 8 annas was equivalent to 50 paise. Coins of 1, 2, 5 and 10 paisa were frequently used in the market, in as much as there was stuff to be bought for even 1 or 2 paisa.