| |
-- and she was so hungry that she ate before my father.
This weight she had been carrying -- that for the whole of her life she never ate before my father, and on the last day she did. As she finished, my father came in and she brought his food: he took one bite and said, "My body doesn't feel to take anything." Within half an hour he was gone; his body came home that night -- he came home in that car that Laxmi had been trying to bring.
But my mother just said the other day, "Relieve me of this pain because this hurts. That last day I completely forgot that he has to eat first."
I said, "Perhaps he could see better, that now you will be eating alone; it will not be possible any longer to give him food first and then eat. So just out of compassion he told you,'You eat, don't be worried. There is nothing in it -- who eats first, and who eats later. It is all the same.'
"My feeling is that he was also feeling that there was not much time left, and then you would have to eat afterwards without giving food to him. He must have been happy to see that you had eaten, that you would not be in the same position as my mother's mother was."
For almost ten or twelve days my grandmother didn't eat. First it was difficult to prevent her from going on the funeral pyre. Finally they all, my whole family, told me, "Only you can persuade her; you have been with her for seven years." And certainly I succeeded. All that I had to do -- I said to her, "You are saying constantly,'For what do I have to live?' Not for me? Just tell me: you don't want to live for me? Then I will tell the whole family that we both are going on the funeral pyre."
She said, "What!"
I said, "Then why am I going to be here? For what? It is good we both go."
She said, "Stop this nonsense. Who has ever heard of a boy, seven years old...? It is not for you, it is for a woman whose husband has died."
I said, "Your husband has died, my Nana has died, and my Nani is going to die -- it is enough reason for me. And anyway, any day I will have to die, so why wait so long? Finish it quickly."
She said, "I know you are mischievous and even though your
|
|
|