Grandma's tales. The image these words bring to mind is that of a fond grandmother, sitting surrounded by a host of grandchildren, listening with rapt attention to stories handed down thru the ages. True. Of any other grandma. Also mine. Only her tales were of a different class altogether. How so, you may ask. Well.
" I was playing with my friends. And it was the dead of night," Here her voice would lower dramatically. Head bent, eyes piercingly holding our gaze, she would continue, " Hide and seek. In the lanes of our mohalla." Stopping for effect, even as we kids hung onto every word, she carried on, " I was the den, i had to find all my friends. I darted back and forth, listening intently, my hands held out in front. Pitch dark the night, like i was blind, i felt my way. I found three of them and was hunting for the last one. Suddenly i heard her a small stifled giggle. I stretched out my hand towards the deserted house, and cried " Got you! " Triumphantly, i held her by the hand and dragged her out. I pulled her towards the others. Then stopped, as we neared the lighted courtyard where my friends stood. The shrieks stopped me in my tracks. My friends, standing and talking one moment, turned tail and fled the next. Gone all of them. Perplexed, scared, i turned to look at what they were pointing, with trembling fingers, before they fled." Here she would stop. "Go and have your milk. Then I'll finish my story." Turning a deaf ear to our pleas, she would wait as every one of us, gulped down our night caps and raced back. Grimly she would start, " I turned and what i saw made my blood run cold. I was holding a hand. Just that. A hand." Chuckling at our spell bound faces, she continued. " The body, stood behind. A blood soaked face, a body covered from head to toe in white. "Do give me a hand (here her voice turned gruff) it said, "The voice passing thru my body like an electric current. As i bolted from there, the ghostly laugh rang in my ears, as it does to this very day. Never again have i played hide and seek. Ever. " The story ended here with the kids begging, beseeching her to tell them it was not true.
Or this one.
"I was only seventeen. It was my first visit to Ahmedabad. I was strolling wide eyed, thru the streets, when i heard the commotion. A bull, big and black was running amok, down the street. People were scattering all over, trying to save themselves from its menacing horns. As it charged down the street towards me, i stood rooted with fear, the mad gleam in its eyes hypnotising me. The spell was broken, as a young man burst upon the scene. "Run !" he commanded me. Galvanised i took to my heels. The three of us charged down the lane, myself, the young man and the bull. As we neared the corner, the man, turned to face the bull, grabbed it by its horns and propelled it round the bend, then jumped out of the way. As i collapsed panting on the kerb, he bent over me, helped me up and asked, " Are you all right ?" As her audience of little girls sighed, clasped their hands and asked "What happened then ? " Coyly she would reply, " I fell in love! Wouldn't you? I married him. Ask him. there he is. " As the audience turned, entranced towards grandpa, trying in vain to hide behind his book, he would hotly deny the whole thing, protesting indignantly, while grandma, eyes twinkling, would egg them on to get his version of the incident.
Had enough ? No ? then try this one for size:
"Get me the rosewood box from my drawer," she would command. From within it she withdrew an empty packet of chips, worn and old, then held it up, carefully for us to see. " This empty wrapper saved my life." As we settled in to hear and savor yet another of Grandma's gems, she continued. " I was standing under a tree near Chowpatty, twenty years ago. It was a hot summer evening, a very windy one and we had gone for a drive, your mother and I. After a stroll and a yummy 'baraf gola', i was waiting by the side of the kerb, for your mum, who had gone to get the car from the car park. I was looking around when a youngster threw this packet on the street. I asked him to pick it up and throw it in the dustbin, nearby. Defiantly, he refused. As a gasp of disbelief arose from us, she carried on, "So i went to pick it up. As i moved away and bent towards it, i heard a thud behind me. Hearing cries from behind me, i turned around to see the boy, who had been sitting on the kerb, lying flat on the street, unconscious, his friends milling around him, a crowd gathering swiftly to see what had happened. On the exact spot where i had been standing, a big branch of a tree had fallen. The youngster who had defied me had taken the full impact of the branch on his shoulders and was flattened. Had i been there i would have surely been killed. To this day, i don't know what happened to that poor boy." As we rose to hug her goodnight, she sighed and put the packet back into the box.
Believe her ? I did, then. It taught me a valuable lesson on saving the environment. One i never forgot.
" I was playing with my friends. And it was the dead of night," Here her voice would lower dramatically. Head bent, eyes piercingly holding our gaze, she would continue, " Hide and seek. In the lanes of our mohalla." Stopping for effect, even as we kids hung onto every word, she carried on, " I was the den, i had to find all my friends. I darted back and forth, listening intently, my hands held out in front. Pitch dark the night, like i was blind, i felt my way. I found three of them and was hunting for the last one. Suddenly i heard her a small stifled giggle. I stretched out my hand towards the deserted house, and cried " Got you! " Triumphantly, i held her by the hand and dragged her out. I pulled her towards the others. Then stopped, as we neared the lighted courtyard where my friends stood. The shrieks stopped me in my tracks. My friends, standing and talking one moment, turned tail and fled the next. Gone all of them. Perplexed, scared, i turned to look at what they were pointing, with trembling fingers, before they fled." Here she would stop. "Go and have your milk. Then I'll finish my story." Turning a deaf ear to our pleas, she would wait as every one of us, gulped down our night caps and raced back. Grimly she would start, " I turned and what i saw made my blood run cold. I was holding a hand. Just that. A hand." Chuckling at our spell bound faces, she continued. " The body, stood behind. A blood soaked face, a body covered from head to toe in white. "Do give me a hand (here her voice turned gruff) it said, "The voice passing thru my body like an electric current. As i bolted from there, the ghostly laugh rang in my ears, as it does to this very day. Never again have i played hide and seek. Ever. " The story ended here with the kids begging, beseeching her to tell them it was not true.
Or this one.
"I was only seventeen. It was my first visit to Ahmedabad. I was strolling wide eyed, thru the streets, when i heard the commotion. A bull, big and black was running amok, down the street. People were scattering all over, trying to save themselves from its menacing horns. As it charged down the street towards me, i stood rooted with fear, the mad gleam in its eyes hypnotising me. The spell was broken, as a young man burst upon the scene. "Run !" he commanded me. Galvanised i took to my heels. The three of us charged down the lane, myself, the young man and the bull. As we neared the corner, the man, turned to face the bull, grabbed it by its horns and propelled it round the bend, then jumped out of the way. As i collapsed panting on the kerb, he bent over me, helped me up and asked, " Are you all right ?" As her audience of little girls sighed, clasped their hands and asked "What happened then ? " Coyly she would reply, " I fell in love! Wouldn't you? I married him. Ask him. there he is. " As the audience turned, entranced towards grandpa, trying in vain to hide behind his book, he would hotly deny the whole thing, protesting indignantly, while grandma, eyes twinkling, would egg them on to get his version of the incident.
Had enough ? No ? then try this one for size:
"Get me the rosewood box from my drawer," she would command. From within it she withdrew an empty packet of chips, worn and old, then held it up, carefully for us to see. " This empty wrapper saved my life." As we settled in to hear and savor yet another of Grandma's gems, she continued. " I was standing under a tree near Chowpatty, twenty years ago. It was a hot summer evening, a very windy one and we had gone for a drive, your mother and I. After a stroll and a yummy 'baraf gola', i was waiting by the side of the kerb, for your mum, who had gone to get the car from the car park. I was looking around when a youngster threw this packet on the street. I asked him to pick it up and throw it in the dustbin, nearby. Defiantly, he refused. As a gasp of disbelief arose from us, she carried on, "So i went to pick it up. As i moved away and bent towards it, i heard a thud behind me. Hearing cries from behind me, i turned around to see the boy, who had been sitting on the kerb, lying flat on the street, unconscious, his friends milling around him, a crowd gathering swiftly to see what had happened. On the exact spot where i had been standing, a big branch of a tree had fallen. The youngster who had defied me had taken the full impact of the branch on his shoulders and was flattened. Had i been there i would have surely been killed. To this day, i don't know what happened to that poor boy." As we rose to hug her goodnight, she sighed and put the packet back into the box.
Believe her ? I did, then. It taught me a valuable lesson on saving the environment. One i never forgot.
are they all true?!
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