Always here, with us!

 Holi always used to be special for us. It was Aai's birthday, tithi wise. Very difficult to write the "was" bit, but it is an inescapable fact, a bitter reality.  She succumbed to a major heart attack on March 26 last year, while her official date of birth is March 19, and Papa's is March 18. Incidentally, Aai's Aai, too, expired of a heart attack after a longish illness on 26th.  

I know cynics would say that all this is  sheer coincidence, but there remains hidden deep within a daughter's  heart a young girl's simple faith that tries to find symbolic patterns in such rather obvious parallelism.

For sure she symbolised, and actually practised, many qualities one can associate with 'holi', the fire principle. She was bright. There was a fiery spunk to her. She had immense warmth in her. She was self respecting, like the proud flame. But what I genuinely found in her that is truly similar to the Holi/holy flame was her ability to burn down all that is dross.

I have never heard her carp about and criticise viciously  people truly responsible for making her early marital life in her in-laws' place horribly difficult. She sure felt hurt due to the injustice, but she was never bitter. On the contrary, she had that fiery determination, that brilliant resilience to shine back burnished despite every setback.

In fact, she was so averse to any dross that she rarely indulged in any gossip mongering.  She would never go visit the neighbouring auntie's house gossiping galore after the "husband goes to office, children to school" routine.

 She would spend the afternoons reading, stitching, sewing, knitting, embroidering. She was very good at many handicrafts, too. She designed so many types of different curtains made of delicate, fragile glass pipes and dainty, small bottles with different coloured water, and beads, for each separate door. Each one would have a unique design, peacock, flowers, and what have you. She could make fabulous flowers out of all sorts of material. Her rangoli patterns used to be divine. 

She was great at cooking, too. Of course, she marvelled at special Marathi dishes, and  the unique  Maharashtrian pickles and papad's, for sure. What was real special, however, was that  her simple dishes for the daily lunch/dinner regime were of the lip smacking variety. That, in my opinion, is unique because it is routine, hence tough, especially because she never used  generous dollops of onions, garlic, coriander, and tomatoes!  Her preparations were truly healthy, and proportionate. Never even once did her fridge overflow with left-over's. 

She excelled in learning, and later teaching,  the "sant vangmay",  the writings of Saint Dnyaneshwar, Tukaram and Samarth Ramdas. She learnt the Geeta in depth, too. Many more such qualities and abilities she had that I shall write about later.

Basically her life had a subtle but sure discipline to it.  It had a silent but systematic regimen to it, and she stuck to it even in her early eighties! In brief, she led a good, happy, worthy life. Hence the title of the blog today. She stays. Always, here, with us.

Pratima@ One never really understands the meaning of 'I miss you' until one tries to reach out to the fragile old wisened hand of one's parent, and realises it is not there.