Nana, Remember Please

“Don’t you remember, Nana?” Her face was shining with hope and perspiration. Her mad multi-coloured glasses just managed to stay on her nose as she rested her little body across her grandfather’s twitching stomach. 

“Oh, oh, oh! Beti, the pain, Nana’s tummy–” said Nani in panicked Hindi. 

Samara leaned back very slightly. Her grandfather’s hand had flailed and latched onto her wrist. His eyes were shut. He couldn’t see that he’d bent her fingers back uncomfortably. Samara’s eyes watered. She held them resolutely wide. She inhaled deliberately, long, deep, bared her teeth again, fixed her face into the determined smile she’d been wearing. “Nana,” she insisted again. “Tell me!”

Nani sat by the window and resolutely knitted on. Her body was a stolid in the stiff saree she wore like armour. And Mayank clutched Samara’s leg with his right arm, furiously trying to get her attention, waving his toy truck above his head in Samara’s face with his left arm. Samara ignored him. She doggedly kept on. “Nana,” she said. “Look at me!” She would make Nana remember. 

The room was beautiful, filled with Nani’s baskets and cream linen, the maroon window seat and the embroidered curtains that had hung there since Samara’s grandparents had moved to Bangalore six years ago. The sun arced across the room in one continuous sweep. The air was light, the space was comforting, her grandfather was dying on his bed, and by god, she would make him stop and remember. 

Mayank had wrapped himself around her like a wine. Without looking away from her grandpa, she reached down and looped her fingers through his. 

Years later, she would wonder if Mayank had known what was happening in that room, if it was too much for him. She would relive the afternoon in excruciating detail and she would try and recall how Mayank had looked, what he’d said, what he’d done. She knew he’d been there, present, but she couldn’t remember how he’d reacted to the worst parts of that bizarre day. She didn’t know what he’d done when Nana was carried off his bed and down the apartment steps, when Nani suddenly had a fit of comprehension, about her husband’s health, and howled hysterically. She didn’t know if Mayank had seen the black holes in Nana’s head as his eyes rolled back, when they tried to haul him over the doorstep. She didn’t know if Mayank had felt the same determined resolve that she had, to make Nana okay, had felt the same terrible certainty that Nana wouldn’t in fact, be okay. 

Samara had known Nana was dying. She knew before Mama arrived and saw him and knew. She knew before Nani had truly imagined it. She thinks she knew before everybody but Nana himself. He had muttered once during family breakfast, “the first day of the year, nighttime”. He’d worn the strangest expression. But Nani had come in with a fresh batch of mathris and nobody had thought anything of his odd proclamation. But he could sometimes see the future. His clairvoyant bouts had become a family legend that they bandied about; Mama teased him; Samara and Mayank asked for stories about his predictions again and again, and listened in horrified fascination. 

“Nana,” said Samara again. “Remember, when you knew Shah Rukh Khan would be a star?” 

His head convulsed under the hand he’d thrown over his eyes. “Nana. Look at me.” He didn’t look.

She tried again. “Nana, you saw him on the TV, for only two minutes. You said that boy will be a star? Nana!”

He was muttering something now. Nani looked at his face. “Samara, Beti… leave–” 

Samara held her hand up, with uncommon authority, bringing Mayank’s hand up with her’s when he refused to stop clutching her fingers. Nani turned back to the brown sweater in her hand. She had made the neck almost as long as a sleeve. 

“Shah–” Nana’s voice. “Shah Rukh–”

“Haan, haan, Shah Rukh Khan.” Samara’s voice was excited. “You saw him on TV.” 

“Football–” Nana coughed. “Shah Rukh in the colony–” He coughed again. 

“Yes! He played football in the colony. Did you know then also, Nana?”

He was in pain, his arms and legs twitching. He tried to lick his lips. “Mama–” 

Samara looked at her brother, stricken. Mayank touched her stomach gently with his truck. Comfort. 

“No, Nana.” Her voice was gentle. “I’m Samara.” 

“Mama…Yours–” he coughed. “When is she–where?”

“Oh,” said Samara. Some strange mixture of relief and panic clouded her voice. He recognized her, he wanted her mother, she wondered wildly if she should call Mama and tell her to come now, right this minute, and not at lunch time like she usually did on Saturdays. She didn’t want to worry Mayank, who held her like a lifeline, or Nani whose needles had clicked in mad rhythmic counterpoint to the broken conversation Samara had managed to have with her grandfather. 

 She tried a different tactic. “Nana…” His body had stilled somewhat. “Tell me about The Jungle Book. Did you like it?” 

She knew he was listening to her. “Rikki… Tikki…” He mumbled.

“Haan, the snake”. 

“Scary,” he said. 

“Yes, the chapter is so scary. But I like Rikki Tikki. You like the book, Nana, remember?” 

He seemed to nod. Or at least the hand on his head quivered slightly. 

“And the book you’re writing, Nana, about the grandmother and the rose? What’s that about, Nana?” 

He was mumbling about flowers. His hand fell from his eyes. His eyelids were still screwed tight, shut.

“I can’t wait to read it Nana, when you finish. We read your poems in school yesterday, remember you gave me the book?”

She was entreating him now. The knitting needs clicked steadily in the background but she knew Nani was listening. Samara put her face by Nana's ear. Mayank leaned with her. 

“Nana…” she said. “Remember, your book? Let’s write a book together, okay?” 

She shoved Mayank closer toward their grandfather now. “Mayank had your special breakfast today, right? Tell Nana, what you had.” 

Mayank looked at her somewhat incredulously, and Samara nodded at him resolutely. “Nana, I had scramble egg,” He said. His voice was high, and plaintive. 

“Mayu..” Nana’s voice. “Eggs… strong”. 

“I had two,” Mayank said. Proud. 

“And I had nagri tikki,” inserted Samara. “Mama made it and she told us about when your father fell off his horse, and you told everyone he would fall, but no one believed you and then he did fall. Remember Nana? You tell us when we eat breakfast? You predicted it” 

“Samara…” he said. “Mama… where?” 

Samara looked at the Popeye watch she’d bought with her winnings from the Harry Potter bookstore quiz. Only fifteen minutes now. And Mama would be here. 

“She’s coming, Nana. Fifteen minutes.”  

He seemed to nod and calm momentarily. 

“Samara, Mayu,” he said. “Proud..” 

Mayank had let go of his little truck. One hand was still entangled in Samara’s clothes. He’d laid his other hand gently on Nana’s side. Samara’s face was shining with sweat as she blinked at Nana now. Her glasses glinted in the sunlight. 

“Nana,” her voice was tender. “I’ll tell you the ghost story also. You were in that cow cart, na? And then you saw someone. But when you went closer, there was no one there. The person vanished. Remember? And one time you told Nani not to open the door in the Delhi house? There was a bad woman on the other side? She said she was a Malika but she wasn't a queen. She only wanted to steal. So Nani didn’t open the door. And remember when you and Mayank killed mosquitoes? Mayank remembers”–“we called fifteen” he said earnestly to his grandfather now– “and your Sukhdev Vihar house in Delhi. When I fell in the toilet? And then remember when we saw the cow together?” 

For a moment her face filled with unholy satisfaction and childlike glee. “I touched its tail! And its stomach!”

“Even I did, Samara.” Mayank’s voice. Braver now. 

“No you didn't, you were a baby.”

“Yes I did. Nana took me also–” 

“No-"

“Yes-"

“Nana, did you take Mayank also? To touch the cow on the road?” Samara’s voice was sceptical. 

“He did,” Mayank insisted before turning back to his grandfather. “And, Nana, remember Tom and Jerry?” 

Samara looked mutinous, but Nana’s eyes were fluttering now. And if he wanted to talk about dumb old Tom and mean old Jerry, she would talk about dumb old Tom and mean old Jerry. “Remember when they became friends, Nana? It was the same night, you killed mosquitoes, and then we read that Enid Blyton book. And then Jerry’s nephew came, and they fell off the spoon–” 

Mayank was laughing joyfully now, as he remembered whatever Jerry had done with the soup spoon. Nana seemed a tad more serene. Nani was smiling, sadly, softly. Samara also laughed, short and triumphant. “And Nana,” she continued delightedly, “Remember the story? When you told us you ate twenty mangoes in one day? And Nana–”

When Samara’s mother stepped over the door a few minutes later, and saw her father’s body shaking in obvious agony, her mother sitting there either unable or unwilling to read her husband’s condition, and her children regaling their grandfather with the same stories he used to tell them, she gave them only a moment more together. Then the day changed very quickly. 

Even years into her adulthood, Samara saw images from that afternoon in startling flashes of clarity. The sun and home, unaccountably cheerful. Nana, loaded into a straight-backed chair, and carried–in small ten step increments–down from his apartment and into the car. Ambulances took too long and Samara’s mother was going to drive to the hospital like a maniac. Even sitting upright in a chair proved too much for Nana. His eyes rolled backwards into his head, and his sockets became cold holes. Suddenly Nani was in hysterics. Mama was crying quietly. The neighbours, carrying the legs of his chair at waist level, swayed and Nana nearly toppled off. His mouth became one big gaping hole of black. A voiceless cry. Or an attempt to breathe. Air. Nana, packed into the front seat, making sure his limbs stayed tucked inside the car. Nani, throwing herself into the back–a berserk display of spasmodic grief. Mama, driving. The car, reversing as smoothly as possible on the choppy dirt road that Bangalore’s board had been promising to re-make and tar for six years now. Samara knew how much her grandfather worried about the road. She wished they had fixed it up before his death.

When the car had sped away, Samara stood on the road outside with Mayank. His hand in hers, his truck vrooming across her thigh in urgent furious motions. She clutched him to her, and made polite adult conversation with the neighbours who waited with them. The whole street had been drawn out by Nani’s hysterics and the long painful process of putting Nana on the seat, checking that he was still alive. Mama had turned suddenly, her voice strong and low, thank you, she had said, to the people watching with pitying curiosity, before she had climbed into the driver’s seat with unerring dignity and driven away.

The people remained on the street till Papa arrived. “Come,” he said. Gentle-faced, calm. It didn’t occur to him to thank the neighbours. He put his children in his car. Mayank sat in front. Samara told him about everything that had happened in rational adult sentences. “Papa,” she said, “Where are we going now? Should we come to the hospital to see him”.

“I’ll drop you both home,” he said placidly. “I’ll go. You don’t have to come right now.” 

“But you’ll tell us?” she said, earnest, grown-up eyes behind her glasses. “If we have to come? When we can see him?” She desperately hoped they wouldn’t have to go see him. She didn’t want to see her grandfather clipped to tubes or to a chemo machine. She didn’t want to smell the hospital walls, or see the bedpan he’d used when he’d first been diagnosed, or experience whatever else happened in hospitals when Nana was dying. 

Her father laid a hand on head for a moment, “I’ll let you know.” he promised. “But right now there’s no need. Lunch will be on the table. Both of you go eat.”

Samara nodded and opened the car door. She clutched The Jungle Book she had leant to Nana, for the tenth time last week, and the adult paint set that she hadn’t had any time to use. She exited the car with remarkable dignity–a picture of her mother–and waited for Mayank to come out. When he’d rolled into the house ahead of her, she stepped through the door, closed it and leaned against it. Nobody had said it out loud. But she was certain that Nana was dying and would die soon. And she was certain they all knew now.

She tried to talk herself out of feeling like he was gone. She paced their chipped wooden living room all afternoon, talking to herself. Mayank didn’t want to leave her. He sat on the little diwan next to where she walked and didn’t speak. She didn’t want to go to the hospital. She didn’t want Mayank to go, because that meant she would have to go with him. She couldn't watch him visit Nana, without her. She wanted Nana to know that she existed. She wanted Nana to know Mayank existed. She wanted to talk to Nana on the phone. She wanted his voice to sound normal when they talked on the phone. She wanted to do something for him. She wanted him to know her, she wanted him to remember everything they’d done together. She wanted him to become the wise quiet presence he’d been, who’d indulged Mrigank’s eye for trucks and planes. Nana and Mayank had laughed affectionately together and had watched Tom and Jerry and Bob the Builder, and tried new egg recipes. She wanted him to become the man who had talked to her about his writing, about her own writing like she was an intelligent adult. He’d explained cancer to her rationally, without trying to uncomplicate it, when she’d asked him. He’d asked her what she thought he should do in the years he had left. He’d treated his grandchildren like real people. He had told them stories, and he’d read them poetry and he’d been fiercely proud of the family his daughter had built. 

Samara copied four lines of poetry on a large dry leaf. Harivansh Rai Bachchan. Nana’s friend. Nir ka Nirman. It looked artistic, she decided. 

Mayank drew Nana, himself, Samara on the leaf. He also added a small silver storm cloud and a golden sun with the glittery pens Samara had given him. 

Samara coloured a paper orange with some crayons and cut out a large mango-shape. She wrote about his ghost, his TV-star predictions, his books, his poems, about the roads outside his home, about his house in Delhi. Mayank made him another drawing–planes and a cat and a mouse, and cheese, and little messy replicas of encyclopaedias they’d read together. 

He asked if Nana was going to die. And she said no, of course not. He’ll be home you’ll see. And then a little later, she edged closer to him. “Mayank? Can I tell you a secret? I think Nana might die.” 

She heard things. His lungs had filled with water. “Can we speak to him on the phone? Also we made him art,” she said later that day when Mama called. “Beta, Nana can’t speak,” said Mama. 

And the next day, Samara called her mother again. “We made him a poem, and a drawing. Can you give it to him?” 

“I did,” said Mama. “I took it when I left for the hospital this morning.”

“What did he think?” 

“Beta, Nana can’t see. But I read it to him. 

“But Mayank’s drawing…”, Over the last day, the adult rationale in Samara’s voice had cracked a little. It had become watery and childlike. 

“I described it to him,” said Mama. And then she added, “He liked it very much.” 

Samara was near tears. “But if he can’t see and can’t speak, how do you know?”

“I know.” Mama’s voice was low and quiet in the phone. 

“But–” Samara’s voice was nearing a cry. She hated being lied to.

“He can speak a little bit. He misses you.” 

“We miss him too.” Samara paused. “Did he remember?”

“I read it to him,” repeated Mama. “And I think he did.”