1. A Death that I didn't see
My eyes widened and the shock almost gorged out the eyeballs.
"He is no more!", was Bhaiya's terse statement. Being the elder one in the second generation of the deceased's consanguinity, he was the affectionate one - the so called "apple-of-the-eye" of the previous generation. He was clearly shattered and I could see he was fighting his tears.
Quite dramatically, I lost hold of the bag that I had carried for my unsuccessful errand. Emotions all rolled up but didn't flow down the usual egress. It just conjured up all my memories of him and all my plans that I had stacked up for my future interactions with him.
What followed was retelling of how it happened all of a sudden. Within a span of four days (during which, I was coming to terms with my true introvert personality and the inner struggle), his condition deteriorated. Even doctors failed to confirm the real cause of his death - some said it was a heart failure, some blamed the kidney and multiple organ failure. To me it was a void that had grown into a chasm.
Parents always are the protective ones - chiding and forcing their will on you, while grandparents are the more chilled-out ones, who give you more well-rounded perspective - having seen two generations (and in fact experimented their will on one), they know what exactly is the impact of over-protectionism. The void in me were the missing paternal grandparents, the chasm was the loss of the third one now!
Memories and nostalgia make you travel back in time. While memories are superficial - happy, sad, et al - rarely impacting your present state, nostalgia digs up all sort of things from your past, paints them with the darkest of colors and sucks up your present. So irrespective of you being in a joyous or sad mood, nostalgia gives you an urge, a want to relive the past.
My next few weeks were filled with nostalgia and as is my wont, I was brooding about all the missed opportunities of sitting with him and elaborately discussing life-plans, the swings and the dips - philosophy in general.
They say he had a foresight, yet what I see is a lack of planning on his part for the rainy day. To me, he is an enigma - having carefully handled the entire family (quite a huge one) and was always a guiding force for all important decisions, after the death of his elder brother (who was old enough to be his father) - how did he miss educating his daughters. By education, I mean a formal education because otherwise they are worldly wise - objective, independent and always having an alternate perspective (Obviously, I am being carried away because of the personal bias). Then how did he miss a providence for his wife or was he under the ubiquitous, misconstrued denial, that he will be there for her, always.
2. Grandeur of a bygone era
Shri Babu Saheb Kartiknath Pandey was a zamindar of indisputable repute - a kind, big hearted man and probably the town Lordnagar was named after him. This family of zamindars welcomed the birth of the younger son, after almost twenty five years of the birth of the elder one. He must have been a pampered one, having two fathers (the elder one was almost there, ergo two mothers too!) .
From what I have heard, his baarat was a cavalcade of cars (a luxury in those days), with him perched on top of an elephant - with a howdah (is what I imagine). This was a legendary baarat that was talked about by everyone from Bhagdatpuram to Jagadishpur. And whenever it was retold to us - with an extra addition of some resource, be it cars or animals which were part of that cavalcade - we could see a glint in the eye of the story teller.
The estate owned by this family was known as Karela and from my personal experience even after some twenty years back, the rickshawallahs at Bhagdatpuram railway station would feel privileged to ferry us to "Pandeyji's". The decline, though was gradual initially (for political reasons) and steep in later stages (for both personal, personnel and political reasons).
My earliest memories of the grandeur of the bygone era is that of a beautifully decorated entrance, the majestic "verandah" as it was referred to, with myriads of small colorful bulbs hanging from high above - parapets of the terrace, crowns of confers, thatched roofs et al. This is my memory of one of the marriages in the family (where my memory fails is whose marriage it was - mama or mausi?), where I sipping a cola (quite an affluence those days) and gaping, wide-eyed at the wonderfully decorated house. The huge columns of the verandah were also colorfully painted and decorated supplementing the mythical appeal of the house.
The house, as I remember it, was a palatial one flanked by huge fields on either side and a garden (or Phulwari) at the entrance. Like all majestic palatial houses there was a pathway separating the Phulwari and the verandah.
Date: 1st March, 1956 was the date when this palatial house was inhabited by its residents. The residents would comprise of the two brothers, their wives (one of them pregnant with my mother!), and two sons and a few daughters (this number needs a confirmation) of the elder brother.
Shri Babu Saheb Kartiknath Pandey was a zamindar of indisputable repute - a kind, big hearted man and probably the town Lordnagar was named after him. This family of zamindars welcomed the birth of the younger son, after almost twenty five years of the birth of the elder one. He must have been a pampered one, having two fathers (the elder one was almost there, ergo two mothers too!) .
From what I have heard, his baarat was a cavalcade of cars (a luxury in those days), with him perched on top of an elephant - with a howdah (is what I imagine). This was a legendary baarat that was talked about by everyone from Bhagdatpuram to Jagadishpur. And whenever it was retold to us - with an extra addition of some resource, be it cars or animals which were part of that cavalcade - we could see a glint in the eye of the story teller.
The estate owned by this family was known as Karela and from my personal experience even after some twenty years back, the rickshawallahs at Bhagdatpuram railway station would feel privileged to ferry us to "Pandeyji's". The decline, though was gradual initially (for political reasons) and steep in later stages (for both personal, personnel and political reasons).
My earliest memories of the grandeur of the bygone era is that of a beautifully decorated entrance, the majestic "verandah" as it was referred to, with myriads of small colorful bulbs hanging from high above - parapets of the terrace, crowns of confers, thatched roofs et al. This is my memory of one of the marriages in the family (where my memory fails is whose marriage it was - mama or mausi?), where I sipping a cola (quite an affluence those days) and gaping, wide-eyed at the wonderfully decorated house. The huge columns of the verandah were also colorfully painted and decorated supplementing the mythical appeal of the house.
The house, as I remember it, was a palatial one flanked by huge fields on either side and a garden (or Phulwari) at the entrance. Like all majestic palatial houses there was a pathway separating the Phulwari and the verandah.
Date: 1st March, 1956 was the date when this palatial house was inhabited by its residents. The residents would comprise of the two brothers, their wives (one of them pregnant with my mother!), and two sons and a few daughters (this number needs a confirmation) of the elder brother.
