Strange Remembrance and Memory's Grief

When I remember my grandfather's stories of childhood, his words form shapes, colours and memories in my mind like ancient history. He was only a teenager when he landed upon the soils of West Bengal. He was an alien here, he belonged to the East. His home where he came from wasn't home anymore. He needed a new home, the government said so. His father was a priest, mother known in town, and their house had a lawn and his school had strict masters. He was the oldest of many. He appeared at his relative's home after the Partition, studied by night, worked by day, brought all his family, one by one, and shared his fruits fruitfully among all till he finally met my grandmother and bore his fruits sweeter. 

When I think of my grandmother's stories of childhood, they remind me of nothing. No acquaintance, no remembrance. Does she make it so purposely? Is she devoid of memories? Or does she find no vocab to remember? Her childhood had been struck with poverty and a very early mother's death. Of her father, I could tell nothing. Second last among five sisters and one elder brother, she was not the best kept. All she had talked to me about was their hungry meals, her brother's unending duties, her love for geometry, and her quiet acceptance of a married life. The transition from a failing Bachelor's degree in college to being the eldest son's wife must have been jarring. Her dutiful brother matched them, and to him, she remained a dutiful sister, to my grandfather and his family, a dutiful wife. 

If I had to talk about my grandfather, I could think at great lengths. At the age of fifteen, I read Sunil Gangopadhyay's poem "Jodi nirbashon dao" describing Bangladesh as a country of green, enveloped in white clouds and morning dew, where a domestic crane rests peacefully on the edge of a river bank. I found it strange how deep I could place myself in that poem. I would always wonder what made me feel so nostalgic reading about a green Bengal, as if it was my home too, and as if I had lost it too. I lived through strict masters and autumn clad lawns through my grandfather's words, his tears and smiles. I could always watch him play in the golden sun every evening, and his father coming home from temples, his mother in a vegetarian kitchen cooking plum fritters and eggless curries. He was small in shape, took great interest in art, struggled in math, and always remained honest. 

My grandmother though had left her East Bengal home as an infant. She remembers nothing I could trace my nostalgia back into. Even when I sat by her during my dissertation months to source my ethnographic findings in bangal food, she could not offer me much about her Mymensingh roots, and spoke strongly about her detest towards shuntki. Everything she spoke to me about her childhood was against memory, against remembrance, against nostalgia. She remembers her Khardaha home, her Raiganj home, and her Birati home. She remembers her silent migration from home to home to home, and she remembers some faces she loved, some she hated. 

She fondly remembers her one year in Andaman. My mother was a child, and my uncle younger. My grandmother had made friends at the office quarters my grandfather moved into; she lived by the sea and collected sea shells and conch shells alive. She could have lived longer by the blue, but life had other plans. A call from home forced them to return to the West of Bengal. My grandmother finds no words to describe the sadness and pain she endured through that singular decision of return from the islands. She bears no anger. She smiles mostly, remains nonchalant, and occasionally cusses my grandfather when he goes adrift recounting his old days. She remembers not much but never forgets to remind him what she let go of as a child. She remembers not much but reminds him of all that she sacrificed to remain his wife. On the stove, as a mother of three, and the eldest son's wife, she cooked food for a family of ten, breathed through charcoal smoke, and ate last - cold rice in salt water that fell from eyes of her own. 

When I think of my grandmother, I truly remember nothing but her face. Her quiet eyes watering at the corners, her small forehead, a mid-sized red bindi in the middle, her white roots and jet black hair, her low bun wrapped in a bagru scrunchie I gifted, her small straight nose with a tiny gold stud, her cheeks with dark brown freckles, her thin lips asking for nothing much, her crinkled eyebrows curious to the brim. When I am around her, I use no towel but her saree's helm - her cotton saree, soft as a feather, smelling just like her. She would never pry on me but let her presence know through her jingling wrists, her careful walk, her silent hums and her soft taps on my back when I am asleep. As a child, I remained in her lap more than my mother's. She fed me, bathed me, played with me and slept by my side. 

My grandmother brings me my childhood. She tells me not much about hers but she tells me of mine. She tells me how my cheeks went red in winter, how I could never eat without stories, and how my grandfather would spend morning, noon and evening telling me stories from around the world. Maybe that's why when I think of my grandfather, I remember his words; when I think of my grandmother, I can only remember her.