A Correspondence

(added a voiceover, in case you want to just close your eyes and listen!)

Name Kanta Arora, Kanta Rallan, Kanta Vij

Date of Birth 25th September 1929

Date of Death 24th August 2016

I spent most of my adolescence watching my grandmother slowly deteriorate. Suffering from several chronic illnesses, including depression and later dementia, my grandmother, as far as I can remember, was always on medication, always visiting doctors, always being hospitalised. Until one day, about nine years ago, when she simply disappeared. My grandfather was at his friend’s house playing rummy, my father was at work, my mother was taking a walk, my brother was out eating somewhere and I was at a play’s rehearsal.

Laying on her bed, where she spent the better part of the past ten years, my grandmother stopped existing.

At the time of passing, my grandmother had only the sound of the ceiling fan to accompany her.

I have barely scratched the surface of what it means to me ‘Muruzabal’ by Shari Pratt, Acrylic on handmade paper

I did not really know her. We never really talked. I do have multiple photographs with her though, from when I was really young. There is one of my grandmother offering me a biscuit and me eating the plate instead. There’s another of me inside a bucket and my grandmother pouring a mug of water on my head. I think I am crying in that one. I do remember her spectacles- square with round edges, thick glass. She had two of them- one for reading and one for everything else. Oh, I remember her dentures- what a marvellous, magical, face changing device they were! And the mug that she used to keep them in- a small plastic one, light brown in colour, with two rings attached to one side for holding it. I remember the smell that her room had, that of ghee and Iodex and urine. I also remember being sick with dengue, and my grandmother sitting next to my hospital bed, narrating tales from Ramayan and Mahabharat.

If I go further back, I remember sitting with her on her balcony, in the afternoons. reading and replying to the letters that she used to write to her sister - Pushpa Dadi. I would have been in class three or four then. I think it was during those afternoons that she started telling me the story of how she and my grandfather ended up together.

My grandparents were neighbours, back when they were young, way back in Lahore. At our beginning, Dadi ma was preparing for her metric exams. Dada ji happened to have a friend who was preparing for the same. Through this friend, he was able to procure a book with exam practice papers, which he shared with Dadi. While returning them, she inserted a “thank you note” in the sleeve of the book. Next day, she received another book from him, with a reply to her note, tucked in its sleeve! And so the returning and the borrowing and the hiding began. And with it began, love.

(Dada ji, “हमारा मकान एक opposite side पर था। मेरी window और उनकी window आपस में देख सकते थे। दिन में शायद एक बार हम - , window देखते थे या नहीं देखते थे, पर रात को एक particular time था, वो पढ़ाई के बाद, सोने से पहले, दूध पीने आती थी, तब हमारी मुलाकात होती थी।”)

For about eight months, my grandparents wrote furiously to each other, developed sophisticated methods of letter delivery and slept with their hearts in their throats. Soon after that, partition happened. Dadi’s family had moved to Shimla in May 1947, owing to her younger brother’s poor health. Initially for just a couple of months. However, as the circumstances soon worsened, they could never go back to Lahore.

Dada ji’s family stayed in Lahore for as long as they could, and then made the harrowing journey from Lahore to Jind and finally, to Delhi. They didn’t see each other for about two years, but the letters continued. It was this “correspondence” (their word) that kept the memory of each other alive.

Eventually, Dadi’s family moved to Delhi. Eventually, their parents discovered this paper trail. And as it happens in many love stories, they were vehemently opposed. It took several fights, multiple arguments and one broken engagement, for them to finally give in.

(Dada ji, “मेरे father - in - law को पसंद नहीं था के मैं अपनी बेटी businessman के घर में दूँ। और मेरी mother को ये पसंद नहीं था उन दिनों के मैं बिरादरी के बाहर बेटे की शादी करूँ। ये चलता रहा। कान्ता की engagement कहीं और हो गयी। घर में सामान आ गया engagement का देने के लिए। उनके घर में mishappening हो गयी। In the meantime, श्री बरकतराम जी, retired court master Lahore, उनकी बेटी ने समझाया, बिमला उनका नाम था, बेटी का, के इनका जो मामला है वो सच्चाई पर है, और आपको उसकी मदद करनी चाहिए। तो मेरे, पंडित बरकतराम जी, मेरे father - in - law से मिले और वो बात करने पे उनको convince कर लिया जब परिवार अच्छा है, ब-बच्चा अच्छा है, तो ये बातें माईने नहीं रखतीं। मेरे father - in - law मान गए और जो सामान कान्ता के घर में उनके लिए आया था , वो सामान हमारे घर में आ गया और हमारी engagement हो गयी।”)

My grandparents got married on 13th December 1952.

Fast forward to several decades later. After Dadi passed away, as we were cleaning her cupboard, what should we discover? A small bundle of letters - some written by my Dada and some written by my Dadi, some which were actually sent and a few with just the intent of sending - the entire seven years worth of conversation, in my trembling hands. Along with it, we found Dadi ma’s diary- which she kept through the years of falling in love, through the bitter separation, the eventual marriage, the discovery of her own infertility and through the depression that she finally succumbed to.

Over the next five years, Dada ji pieced together her past for me. From merely a frail body ridden with bed sores, Dadi ma now became a clever young woman passionately in love, full dramebaaz, oozing vitality. This was also the time when I discovered my own ways of being with my grandfather, how many times I found myself listening to him as he painted the story of his life again.

(Dada ji, “ ये जो गाना मैं गा रहा हूँ, ये 1945 का है। I was 19 at that time. [sings]

बहे अखियों से धार, जिया मेरा बेक़रार। सुनो सुनो दिलदार, जाओगे कहाँ दिल तोड़के, जिया तोड़के।

ऐ साथी मेरी तकदीर के, तुझे कैसे दिखाऊं दिल चीर के।

मेरा पहला पहला प्यार, मेरी पहली मुलाक़ात, सुनो सुनो दिलदार, जाओगे कहाँ दिल तोड़के, जिया तोड़के।)

And again, and again, and again.

लाहौर, बाल माता की गली, लस्सीवाला, घी, एक आना, नंबर आठ और नंबर दस, जन संघ, ट्रेन की छत, गली का गुंडा, correspondence, picture hall, कान्ता.

कान्ता और मै.

मैं और कान्ता.

I don’t remember much of my Dadi. We never really talked. Her passing, although poignant, wasn’t a difficult time in my life. So it is hard for me to understand what these letters and this diary is doing to me. I don’t know how much of her is in the words that she has left behind. I don’t know who I am meeting when I read them.

(Dada ji [sings],

“ज़िन्दगी के सफर में गुज़र जाते हैं जो मुक़ाम, वो फिर नहीं आते, वो फिर नहीं आते।

लोग मिलते हैं, फूल खिलते हैं मगर,

पतझर में जो फूल मुरझाते हैं, वो बहारों के आने पे खिलते नहीं।

एक रोज़ जो अपनों से बिछड़ जाते हैं, वो हज़ारों के आने पे मिलते नहीं।

उम्रभर चाहे कोई पुकारा करे उनका नाम, वो फिर नहीं आते, वो फिर नहीं आते।

[Stops singing ] एक line आगे और है, मेरे को याद नहीं है बस।”)

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When I asked Dada ji if I could take these stories, these letters and create something from them - I didn’t know what exactly - a response of some kind. He said yes, but as long as I only shared it with strangers.

I don’t know why he said that. I didn’t ask.

So from this year, I am going to attempt…something. I will share these letters, in bits and parts and scratches, here in my newsletter.

I will not do it alone.

I will create responses to the letters with all the wonderful people I know.

At least once every month.

I have more than sixty individual letters.

So this will take a while.

But I will do it.

Maybe it will all make sense then.

(Dada ji, “[Sings] तुझे आप बिताना है अपना जीवन। चाहे रो के बिता, चाहे हंस के बिता।

[stops singing ]

एक और record कर ले। मैं गाना बोलता था,

[sings] भुलाना ना याद करो ना करो।

[stops singing]

कितना बढ़िया meaning है इसका !”

Me, “बहुत सुन्दर, बहुत सुन्दर।”)

END OF PART ONE OF MANY