Grandpa had the kind of smile that reached his crinkled eyes;
Grandma on the other hand, had a pout that would sometimes hint at dissolving
into a smile. But she was the one us kids crowded around, each outdoing the
other in poking her chubby arms watching our stubby fingers sink into her
butter-soft flesh.
Grandma never grudged us these juvenile pleasures. Perhaps
she enjoyed the tactile pressure of tender fingers that connected her to her
grandchildren without using too many words.
Because her words got used up in stories that she told us every
afternoon in the sun-dappled porch that mysteriously segued into the shadowy
woods where none of us were allowed to walk in unchaperoned.
Even back then I got the distinct feeling that Grandma’s
story telling was somehow just another ruse the adults cooked up to keep us off
the woods where we spent most of our supervised time shooing away red faced
macaques that wanted a bite of our home-grown
succulent mangoes.
At such times the woods
buzzed with the collective effervescence of
about 15 kids come home for their summer holidays each wanting to show
off how much taller/ stronger/ smarter they had grown since the last summer.
But Grandma usually hit the pause button on her
story-telling when Grandpa brought in her medication. Except to my childish
eyes the tablets looked more like M & Ms. When I saw the red beauties spread
on Grandma’s chubby palm I couldn’t resist asking her to allow me to share one.
Of course she refused, it was medicine after all.
But that particular summer, all of five, the only joy I
coveted was a lick of those magical red buttons. I imagined how one of those
would transport me to a place of sweet adventure. And so one day I sneaked out
of the story telling circle under the pretext of using the bathroom just as I
sensed the pause button coming on and followed Grandpa on my quest of the red M
& Ms.
He made his way to the room he shared with Grandma and
walked straight to the built-in cabinet behind their humongous bed as I lurked
in the shadow of the doorway. And as he tore off two tablets from a strip the
foil casing flashed brightly while catching the faint glow of the petromax
lamp.
It was an old sprawling house and on some summer evenings
when the clouds threatened to burst with cool lashes of rain the lamps were lit
early especially in the upstairs rooms where Grandpa’s failing eyesight often
led him to stumble into hilarious accidents. Why one time he went in to change
into his nightclothes and came out wearing Grandma’s skirt! But I digress. Soon
as he turned around Grandpa spotted my tousled head and he knew by the way I
peered into his hand that I had followed my yearning to his room.
“This is awful,” he said conversationally, “you think it
might be sweet but it knocks you out for the rest of the night. I don’t know
how Grandma has been having it all these years – the bitterest thing there ever
was.”
“So you tasted this?” I asked him, I still remember my eyes
wide with unalloyed curiosity. “Oh I wouldn’t do that, it’s what Grandma says. Don’t go by how delicious it looks, it’s the
invisible thing you should really worry about,” he said with finality.
And that absolutely decided it for me. Hmm so what was this
invisible thing, what did it taste like, how did it feel? More important could
anyone tell if I actually ate some of this invisible stuff?
And so one evening after Grandpa had made his usual sortie
into his room for picking up the tablets I quickly snuck in, clumsily tore open
the strip and grabbed a few in my slightly sweaty palm and scooted out. And
then I casually walked towards the forbidden woods where the shadows were
already lengthening.
There I found a sheltered place and then slowly popped the
red sweets into my mouth, one at a time. Sweet heaven I finally had in my mouth
what I had coveted the whole long summer and was it delicious? Not exactly like
M & Ms but syrupy sweet and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I almost
spat it out, no, I actually spat it out. Perhaps the second one would turn out
to be better. Or the third one.
No matter, I made myself comfortable on the ground
and went through I don’t know how many, taking my sweet time over tasting each
one before it turned bitter.
When I was done I slowly ambled out of woods not really
caring if anyone saw me now. As it happened nobody did.
But it was the ones that got away that actually did me in.
At bed time when Grandpa walked into his room his foot crunched on something
red. He quickly checked in the medicine cabinet. A whole strip had tablets
missing and he definitely remembered picking out just two from a brand new
strip. So where were the rest and surely he hadn’t dropped any down. So what
had happened here?
The next thing I remember is being swooped up by Grandpa and
asked in the gentlest of tones if I had taken any of those red tablets. I also
have a distinct memory of me sitting on his arm with my lips pursed. Slowly a
small crowd gathered around us – the whole
shebang of cousins was joined by some uncles and aunts as well. Each asking me
in their most persuasive tone to share a confidence about a crime I showed no
sign of admitting. And I continued sitting there with my lips pursed.
Until an older cousin grabbed me by the hand and walked me
briskly into the woods with the whole entourage following behind with
flashlights.
In a small clearing
between two trees shown the visible evidence of my insatiable curiosity. Expecting
the worst, I tried to make myself as small as possible hoping I could escape
unnoticed. But Grandpa just let out an audible sigh and hugged me close. The
older cousin giving me an unmistakable “we’ll talk about this later” look.
Of course I had a conversation with Grandpa who continued to
nurse the fond hope that my innocence was to blame for my misadventure.
As
to how do I remember this whole episode as if it happened yesterday? It just
became more real with repeated retelling every summer.
But all these years later I’m still wondering why the call of the invisible is so much stronger than what I can see, touch and smell.
