aaya

Dedication 

Aaya valliammai aachikku

pethi meena elthikolvathu

Ungallai ennatha naal illai

ungallai ennatha naal illai

ungal anbukku  samarpanam

intha siriya kavithai

pidichirukkannu sollunga?

------

My grandmother is like this tree

spreading her branches out and upwards, 

supporting life, lending shade.

She is sustenance.

Today I feel them –

Stop All The Clocks by Auden

Because I Could Not Stop for Death

by Emily Dickinson.

Life doesn't stop though, does it?

I wish to be drenched in rain now,

drenched in the rain that is my grandmother's love.

She was not a sensible grandmother.

No. She was a fun-loving

life-embracing grandmother.

She relished chocolate ice cream,

pepper chicken, chilli crab.

She loved to travel, and shop.

Her fried fish, so thin so crisp,

I can see it, and yearn to taste it

though I've been vegetarian 10 years now.

Her love extended like the rays of the sun.

She would make podi for me

buy thattai for my son,

order karivadagam for my husband.

She knew each of us and our favourites, 

her children's and their families,

her grandchildren's and their families.

The lines on her face a map of her journey:

As a child pampered till the age of 15,

her father sending her treasures from Singapore, 

earned from their properties 

along Market Street and in Burma;

A shy bride at 16,

full of hope for the future,

married to a man ruled by his family

and their unending greed for her wealth;

A new mother at 18,

tending to the extended family,

taking raised fists, cruel barbs in stride

as she bore baby after baby, nine in all;

A fiercely independent woman,

she left home at 40 with her children,

fearing for her life, the safety of her kids

pawning her jewellery bit by bit to get by;

Her love for her grandchildren

and great-grandchildren

was a diamond, pure, blinding.

All of us turned to her

to pray for us at every hour of need,

from a fear of a miscarriage 

to blessings for PSLE exams.

She had a direct line to God,

and we went through her,

our telephone exchange with Heaven.

She would arrange for a donation 

to Jesus Calls,

Tulabaram at Guruvayur temple,

break a coconut at Mupathamman temple,

and we'd feel reassured,

for what could go wrong 

when our dearest Aaya 

had prayed for us? 

She was our anchor

and now we are adrift. 

Still, I remind myself

her blood runs in me,

an unbroken thread

from her mother to my daughter,

five generations of first daughters.

I see her face in my mother's and daughter's.

I feel her strength in every tree,

her caress in the breeze.

and I know,

I am so loved.