What Goes Around Comes Around!!!!!

Last weekend Gans and I decided to get into a more social mood and make all those long overdue visits to relatives. Part of it came out of constant prodding from Mom and Gans' uncle. Finally, we decided, let’s do it and get over with it!!!! Little did we know that we would come back smiling and with some wisdom in those dense head of ours.

Our First stop was at an aged couple's home, my Granmas' brother. The Grandpa was 84 and his wife probably three to four years younger. We had been postponing our visit for about a year, so it was natural for them to be a lil bit cross with us. We couldn’t avoid the visit this time around coz there was my Granma’s younger sister who was visiting from US, and wanted to meet Gans (da groom her grand-niece had chosen).So we wore our best sober clothes, to visit the octegenarians.Arrived there about one hour late and thought that this would have understandably sparked off displeasure from the "British Raj Generation”. So, there we were, blew it all up from the very start. As we entered we could feel the warmth in their eyes and smiles on those soft wrinkled lips. We were glad to see that our late entry had not irked them a bit, and even if it had, they probably had learnt to deal with the "Laid Back Coke Generation".

The first thing we noticed was that the home was neat, Spartan, huge and uncluttered and happiness seemed to emanate from every corner. It was bright with colorful floral curtains and lots of space. The gracious hostess, who was about 81 or 82 years old, asked if we wanted coffee or tea. Our polite refusal to cause them any kind of inconvenience did not go down well with her "hospitable" instincts. She insisted and we put forth our preferences after which the poor lady smiled and reconfirmed our requests but swapped our preferences.Gans politely smiled and corrected her. Then she rose from her chair, and we noticed she was a complete hunchback owing osteoporosis. That moment guilt pangs had hit the peak and we collectively wished we could have insisted on having nothing and said we were there to see them. Both Gans and me involuntarily rose to help her out, only to receive an "I can handle myself” kind of a look from her. We backed out due to fear of being misunderstood. Then I followed her to the kitchen in the next two minutes, thinking that she could do with a lil bit of company in the neat spacious kitchen. She just ushered me into the living area and asked me to be seated. I obediently took my seat. Then she came in, her weary shaky hands holding the tray that somehow looked bigger than her delicate lil hands. She offered us the beverages (again the wrong ones) and took a deep breath to sink into the Armchair.

Conversations drifted from pleasantries, to sundry enquiries of wellness till we started warming up in our chairs and were comfortable enough to recline ourselves and lend our ears to the enriching experiences of the wise souls. There were talks on how Gramps had carefully steered clear of corruption during his 41 years of holding High bureauracratic positions in the Central Government, how he repelled the those rotten eggs of his dept by being as rude and nasty as possible, how he intimidated the corrupted bureaucrats of other nations during his tour as a UN official in Chile. We were naturally amazed at the experiences and to think that this High level bureaucrat was sitting in front of us wearing simple white cotton Kurtha and Pajamas and perched on this recliner in a Spartan home and treating two youngsters with the glories of the past. One would expect a man of his stature to carry airs and live in a mansion with an army of attendants to wait upon him, but there they were the happy simple couple. Of course our delicate and dainty lil’ hostess added that much needed homely touch to the conversation by mentioning about the comfortable huge houses and abundant house-hold help that was available during those glorious days and how she really hated to see so many people help around and never appreciated the plethora of attendants in the good old days. She looked wistful for such help in today’s date when she actually needs it.

The stay at their home which was initially intended to be 15 minutes, stretched a long two hours. And no we weren’t forced to stay, we enjoyed it.

We learnt too many things that day. We understood how important it is to connect with people (both of us hated socializing), how our mere concern and desire to meet certain people can bring them so much happiness, how honesty may not be able to buy you comfort and luxuries, but may fill your sack with happiness and peace of mind abundantly, and how we must never have preconceived notions about how boring or interesting some meetings might be.

I guess this visit had definitely made us wiser, happier and most of all made us smile.

On our way home, Gans looked at me and said" we'll also grow old together one day and long for a visit from youngsters and would tell them about the good old days, and they would curse us under their breath." Life is a full circle.

PS: The next stop of our visit to be featured in the next blog….watch the space