My paternal grandmother is a very strong lady and to be truthful, I attribute my stubbornness to her. I always point at my genetic makeup whenever my parents question me about my decisions. Well , I feel it is a blessing that I can always vouch that I am not the odd one in my family - all thanks to her. She is a couple of years closer to completing century with pure grey- whitish hair and a toothless smile.
As a kid, when mom used to go for work on Saturdays, she used to send us to our ancestral home( just 200 m behind our house) where our granny lived. I have grown up listening to the countless stories that she has told from Ramayana and Mahabharatha. In fact, I was madly in love with Lord Krishna and had firmly believed till the age of 10 that I will eventually get married to him. I used to pray so hard like the ladies in those stories so that he will appear in front of me and ask me to marry him.
When my pa was a kid, she had taken all her children and her sisters to some temple for a festival at night and they had to cross many fields to reach the temple. There was hardly any light and they were carrying kerosene lamps. Somewhere along the way, some drunkards were coming from the other side. So she tied her dress like a dhoti and walked so that in what little light was there, people would assume that there was a man with the kids and the ladies.
I can write about lots of instances like these. The crux of it is: To this day , she has remained strong and unafraid of anything, always has held up her head high and spoke her mind. She has seen the death of her four kids , grandson, husband and her sibling; still she has managed to overcome her sorrow with her typical " never will break apart" attitude.
That is what I try hard to become, to " never break apart" no matter what the situation is; and to always speak my mind !!
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