A grandfather's blessings

We have important guests in the house today. They are rich, nutritious, blood red in colour and aplenty. Neatly packed in two cartons, they seem to be ready to serve a purpose. The one thing missing though are the loving hands that got them transported home year after year.

Blessings

A few years back, Dad asked me to recieve my grandfather at the South district taxi stand. As jeep after jeep arrived, dropped passengers and drivers left for their lunch breaks, my old man was nowhere to be seen. He could have left for home without waiting for me at the stand. It was a panicky situation because going home alone implied a good scolding with reference to punctuality from my father. Scared of the obvious, I had no option but to return solo some twenty minutes later. On the steep downward slope that leads towards the stadium, I noticed my somewhere-in-his-eighties grandfather, physically fit and strong, carrying a heavy sack on his back and heading home. That moment was one of disbelief. To see an elder pull off a stunt you couldn’t well imagine doing in your twenties was an eye-opener. We got in the car and saved myself a good hearing. Ajo had travelled all the way to the capital to deliver his annual offering to his grandchildren- PLUMS.

We had two plum trees in the village and every year, without fail, my grandfather saved the best of the produce for us. School children would walk up and down the trail, some of them trying their best to aim at the plums with a stone or a twig, hoping that at least one would fall and they would be able to taste the sweetness, but Ajo was always around. He made sure none got to them first, not before the little devils in the capital. As the years passed, he got frail and weak and wasn’t able to guard them with the kind of intensity he would have otherwise preferred, nonetheless come June and the plums miraculously made their way to Gangtok. We took it as a given then. If the plums didn’t arrive on time, we wondered why there had been a delay?

Today they’ve made it to Kewzing Home again. My mother and father are lovingly sorting them out, while a cousin is distributing it among the neighbours. For us, these are not just a fruit anymore.

Every piece carries the blessings of my late Ajo.

Every plum is a reminder of the kindness bestowed on us.

In every bite resides a tiny memory of the old man who walked down the slope with a sack of plums on his back.

Indeed for us, a fruit becomes a memory. A memory becomes a fruit.