Planting Roots

 

My granddaughter arrived yesterday. ‘To see you,’ she said. 

The last time I saw her, twenty years back, she was a new-born baby for me and my wife to baby-sit. I should blame my son for the long absence, but I don’t. It stopped bothering me long back.

The granddaughter came to the point quickly, ‘I am a writer.’

I nodded.

She added, ‘I want to write about you.’

I kept on nodding.

She said, ‘I want to write about your village life. How you met and married Grandma. How it was to love in those days.’

I thought to myself, ‘I met her the day after the wedding. Anyway… since your Grandma is dead, I could tell you about our love, I guess.’

She was going through a list, ‘The oppression you faced. Caste, language, region, religion, why you made Dad leave.’

‘Why I made your father leave?’ I wondered.

‘Can’t you write about your Dad’s struggles there?’ I asked.

‘It’s been written,’ she replied.

‘People have written about your Dad?’ I tried not to sound incredulous.

‘No. I meant, others have written such stuff.’

‘But, haven’t people written about my stuff, too?

‘They have. But I am trying a new angle.’

‘Ah,’ I thought. I could not think of anything better.

‘I plan to start the book with your life in Mumbai,’ she informed.

‘Why? What happened in Bombay?’ I was curious.

‘Books on India usually start there.’

‘Ah.’

‘So, when shall we start?’ she sounded like my son when he wanted me to play football with him. When was that? Eighty years back? I am quite sure he won’t remember that. ‘Football, you mean soccer?’ he will probably say now.

‘Let’s start tomorrow,’ I told my granddaughter. ‘I am tired today.’ I am old. I am supposed to feel tired.

‘Cool.’ She looked happy, as if she had already finished her novel.

I didn’t sleep last night. I think I have enough stories for her novel. That’s all I can give her. Let that be her roots.