Last village trip

My father still has deep rooted connections with our native village. My grandmother is there and my father yearns to be with her. As a doting mother she also loves his company. My father is now not as regular as he was in visiting the native place because of his own health constraints through the eyes.

He was there last week and he had a long chat with his mother who is in her nineties. He had called his sister too who is settled some villages away from our village. Together with my uncle who stays with my grandmother, the two brothers and one sister chatted long about the old times. My father did not describe the details of their discussions but he mentioned one facet which touched me. The underlying fact was that nowadays its very rare that she gets to speak with any of her 4 kids excepting for my younger uncle who stays with her.

I am aware of the difficult times which my father, his 3 siblings and his mother went through post the death of his father. They were so rich that there used to be one room for the 4 kids and the mother (in the name of makan), clothes were luxury; leave aside new clothes (in the name of kapda) and 2 meals a day was a luxury for only counted days in a year (in the name of roti).

In those days my father recollected that he would find his mother sitting erect well past midnight in the darkness when all his siblings would be snoring. Upon asking, she used to persuade him to sleep and mention that she was wondering what her 4 kids would eat the next day as there was absolutely nothing.

Today, the situation has changed; she has everything around but no one to share a talk or spare some casual moments with her.