I consider them family because they are integral part of my memory of home. The list also includes some not so welcome guests like stray dogs (I didn’t mind their intrusion if they weren’t morbid or dirty), cats and, sometimes, hair-raising creatures like mongoose and snakes.
Amid mooing and mewing, chirping and crowing and gentle rustle of leaves, went laughter, gossips, stories from old times about old folks, dead and alive, and nonstop chatters of us siblings and our friends from the neighborhood. Our home, no doubt, was the most happening place in the locality.
With so many people around, you never had to wait for a reason to guffaw at. The way somebody dressed up or did their hairs, the way someone bungled at something or the incessant dose of heady gossips, anything could set off bouts of hysterical laughter.
My father has three siblings, a brother and two sisters, all of them older than him. Of the two sisters, the older one, whom we affectionately call Thuldidi, is jolly, while the younger, Sandidi, is judgmental. Thuldidi is a master storyteller full of gossips and Sandidi, while no less a storyteller herself, is good at summarizing the morals of the stories and, most importantly, passing verdicts.
Thuldidi likes to laugh things away, but Sandidi loves to nail things down – that’s that. For example, if Thuldidi narrated a story of someone’s daughter-in-law who had a laspas (affair) with some man, Sandidi would be quick to say: what would you expect from a woman whose husband is a drunkard and mother-in-law a hardnosed bitch.
Both of them looked cutest when they tried to speak English. “Yo TV kina killor chhaina han?” Thuldidi would say, which Sandidi corrected quickly: Killor hoina ta mori, keeleeor po ta!
Both of them have endured a lot: early marriage, loss of husbands and myriad family crises over the years. But you can tell from their demeanor and the way they go about their everyday lives that they are just as happy-go-lucky as those women who have never had to weather any of the hardships. Their attitude flies in the face of our highfaluting approach to dealing with our lives and its problems.
At home, we celebrated every festival in the calendar and family events in full jest. But no festivities would ever be jubilant in the absence of one of the sisters.
Thuldidi would take charge of the kitchen, toil there for hours and emerge out of it only after everything was done. The number of guests didn’t matter – 20, 50 or 100 – she could handle it all. Sandidi, on the other hand, led the choir of women singing traditional songs. She had extraordinary memory and recalled songs she had heard long, long ago. What was more intriguing was her ability to make impromptu dohori songs that described human feelings or certain situations.
But now age has taken its toll on both of them. Though I have not met them for a long time, I hear that Thuldidi has a back problem, which means she can no longer prepare delicious sel rotis and alu-matarko achar for us. Sandidi, I know, has diabetes which, in her own words, has been eating away her memory and making her head spin. Last time when I met her and asked to sing a song, she struggled to complete the lines, stumbled quite a few times before finally giving up.
Even as age tries to push them to oblivion, I am sure these two ordinary women will never fade away from the memory of all those who were part of the joint family that made up our small universe because their joie de vivre and simple yet remarkable ways have left strong impressions on our minds.
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