Wednesday, February 01, 2006

my favourite story about me.


My grandparents have been here for about a month now. I love it when I get to sit with my dadu and dadin and my Mom and sis and talk about the past. Much of what we speak is the oft repeated past. The more number of times I hear these stories, the more I want to hear them. Of course my favourite story is about me. This incident, completely true, happened about 8 to 9 months before I was born. My great grand mom (my ttham-amma, my mom’s paternal grand mom) was staying with her younger son in Benaras (now Varanasi). One night, or may be sometime at dawn, she had a dream about her husband who had then passed away 2-3 years ago. She dreamt that her husband is asking her why she is away from home (the home in khardah) “let’s go” he said, “why are taking so much time to get dressed? We have been away for so long a time, now I can’t wait”. My ttham-amma perhaps was taking some time to dress, so he tells her that he is going to wait at the pond near the house. My ttham-amma asks which pond, to which he says the one at the end of this road, to the right.

As far as I know today the dream ended with my ttham-amma following her husband and not able to catch up with him as he walked really fast and kept saying how he wanted to go to his granddaughter (my mother).

Ttham-amma wakes up and immediately asks her son if there is a pond anywhere close to the house. My chhoto dadu (my granddad’s younger brother) says, that if one takes the road in front of the house, and turns right, there is a little pond.
My ttham-amma is now certain that her dead husband is coming back (it sounds so dramatic and scary when I say this in English but in Bengali it sounds so possible).

So within few days she comes back to Calcutta and my dadin opens the door for her and the first thing ttham-amma asks dadin is if my mother is pregnant. Dadin is shocked because my mom had missed her periods that month. Dadin says may be she is but they are not sure, they hadn’t gone to the doctor yet. My ttham-amma jubilant and all-knowingly tells my dadin that she has had a premonition, and that of course Bulu (my mom’s pet name) is pregnant and of course its going to be a daughter and of course it will be her husband reborn. Because she had been visited by him in her dreams and this was what she had interpreted of that dream.

Within a few weeks they knew for sure that my mom was pregnant, within a few months everyone in the ‘parra’ felt that it was going to be a daughter, and ttham-amma knew who was coming.

I was born on 25th July 1982, about exactly three years after my great granddad had died.

As soon as she was able to, my ttham-amma bundled me up in a white-orange towel and took me around the room which she had shared with her husband, “see everything is exactly how it is, the same bed, the same cup-board, only now I have bought a radio, you never knew how to relax, I am now going to”.

Today my mom tells me for about the 1237th time how her grand dad had always wanted to be born a woman as he had had to take care of the whole family when he was young (he meant that women always had someone to take care of them….ah..Well) and had said a lot of times how he wanted to be my mom’s kid as she really pampered him.

So karma is to be blamed for the fact that I am really lazy and that I let my mom do everything she can to ‘pamper’ me.

9 comments:

Lil Mizfit said...

stories? i believe it's a fact. there's a story i wud tell about my birth in my blog. do read.

@UG~it gives us a lot of insight about why we are the way we are.

uglygirl said...

dreamy eyes: exactly.

mizfit: i do read your blog you know, all of it alllll of it, though meeting in the backyard would be nice.

sol: i dont get the birhday bit, "the only thing i wonder bout is the timeline?

cause, its kinda close to when you are born yerself.."
it is me. i thought it was clear...its not?

but yes lets boycott valentines day

concerned citizen said...

Am reading your story for the first time.
Very nice to have people love you so much they tell wonderful fairy tales for you, or is it real?

concerned citizen said...

Am reading your story for the first time.
Very nice to have people love you so much they tell wonderful fairy tales for you, or is it real?

Unknown said...

UglyGirl--This is a beautiful, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL story! Thank you SO much for inviting me to come over here and read it.

Your grandmother must be SO happy to have you around (is she still alive?). What a blessing it is to know that you were being thought of and loved even before your mother knew for sure that she was pregnant! :)

Thank you for sharing this beautiful gift of a story.

And, BTW, don't worry about L>T...she's merely a robot who's been brainwashed by Roboshrub, Inc.

concerned citizen said...

U.G., did not mean to offend. Sorry, but that is how I think about these things. I am not one to believe in magic.

But, I love to tell stories to my grandchildren. Nothing religious. I like to start, maybe, 'Hansel & Gretal' & let them ask questions & try to make the story the way I think would please them.

We lay in bed in the dark & drink diet soda out of one glass, & each has their own straw(everyone has a fav. color) & I tell stories. This is what a granny does. No magic, just love.

uglygirl said...

in india it is quite prevalent to have dreams that lead you to something. i and i am sure many others have heard about ppl who dream a certain thing, lets say that a god(as we have so many) tells them something,usually such a person wakes up and goes to temple and offers prayers to that certain deities. of course this "coming in dream" has led to much more serious life changes. like i know of ppl who have quit jobs and have surrendered to a certain spiritual guru because of a dream.

my great grandmom probably believed what she dreamt, and so did others, in a way. well cause believing in her and accepting what she thought would not change anyone's lives.

@ sol: if there is anything i try to imbibe from hinduism it is the concept of karma. and i dont know about the time gap and i have not ever thought about re-incarnation seriously, but i know if there is a death in the family, ppl in the family expect or wishfully think that the newest baby of the family is the returning spirit.

@ l>t: i do not mind what you said at all, cos.......well cos you are you.
i remember telling you once that i would like to believe in reincarnation, it is cos it has nothing to do with god and nothing to really do with religion and i love the drama, supernatural though it is.
is not anything SUPER NATURAL god's way of telling us to believe in him, and thus a direct communication between, god or ...nature and the individual. it never ceases to thrill me.

concerned citizen said...

intuition is the knowing of, or reasoning of something w/out conscious understanding.

I think a lot of magical thinking prehaps is intuition or some instinct maybe we don't realize we have, i.e. the unconscious ability to read body language.

The trouble i find w/anything illogical based on feelings is, it can get people into trouble w/they run across a charismatic leader, for example.

As far as your grannys stories, I think you are safe. :)

My secret as a granny is I make things up. I mean exaggerate. My own grandmother did it, too.

This is an interesting subject. I think I'll continue it on my blog.

Unknown said...

O come on, L>T--You know I was joking!

UG -- I totally believe in the validity of this story. It's quite beautiful.

I still love L>T, too! She's the cat's meow!!