Natasha and Nikita not only got some great time with the grandparents but also their first and second cousins. Looks like Nikita has picked up quite some Bengali. They seem to be bonding over two very common themes in Bengal – eating food and playing card games!!!

Most who have been lucky enough to grow up with grandparents around them will vouch for their undeniable influence – especially in the early stages of childhood. While the advent of modern economic growth started breaking up joint families in India, kids – in most of the cases – maintained reasonable access to their grandparents.

I was lucky to see mine every year. I had only three of them. My dad lost his dad at his tender age of two and a half. My recollection of my grandparents is still of their incredible kindness and generosity towards us. It was as if, as grandchildren, there was no demand too steep and there was no infraction that were punishable in the least bit.

They were our alibi when we were in trouble with our parents, our go-to when we got scared of our parents, our source for funding when our parents won’t buy us a knick knack and our never ending well of stories.

Nikita and Natasha, having been born in the USA do not have that easy an access to their grandparents in India. There was a time we used to come every year to maintain the routine I had with my grandparents. Then that stopped as they grew up and their life got taken over by…. well, life!

You can only imagine how excited I was that this time when both of them expressed the desire to visit their grandparents. One of the moments I was hoping to create – and that is something that had happened only once in my life time for myself – was to see if I can put both them with both side grandparents together under a roof for a day.

That explains the tiring trip to Durgapur and back (a total of 12 hours of driving – we got stuck in a couple of nasty traffic gnarls on the highway) to get Sharmila’s parents. And then after staying over in Kolkata for the night, we were all in Kalyani at my parents’ place!

The smile on the faces pretty much captures it all!

I hope the kids will retain some spotty memories of this day somewhere in their subconscious long after many of us are gone…

P.S. My dad was thrilled to talk to somebody who is from his old city Durgapur and he had a lot of questions around how the city has fared ever since he left!

I was half expecting this.

My dad, trying to fight back his brains getting scrambled after the stroke, had a hard jolt trying to understand what happened to Natasha’s hair. Tasha, had dyed her hair blonde some time back. Over the last few months as the hair has grown, her strands are natural dark (from the root side) and then after about half length starts becoming blonde.

My dad’s relatively low exposure of dyeing hair entirely comprises of making the hair look dark again (from grey) but never from dark to any thing else.

As you see in the picture, he held her hair in his fingers for quite some time trying to investigate what was going on. He asked quite a few questions – much to Tasha’s merriment – and then gave up trying to understand it!!

Usually, at least in our house, the iPhone is a constant source of irritation when it comes to interpersonal interactions. “Get your nose off the screen”, “Keep your phone down while eating”, “Stop posting those unflattering pictures of mine” 🙂 are part of the day to day vernacular when the four of us are around.

That same mighty piece of electronics has been a hero, bar none, to my parents, the last couple of days.

Natasha has kept up with her word to be with the grandparents. Every day, in Kalyani, she has been quietly sitting around my dad or mom. When everybody else is around, she has been watching all the interactions and when others leave, she has been trying to interact with my parents.

The big challenge is of course, language. As was famously said before, her grandparents and she has been separated by a common language. They speak their own versions of English. If my parents speak at a struggled pace, Natasha’s speeds thru sentences like there is not going to be a tomorrow.

But I have to say, I was superbly impressed how she and the grandparents persisted thru their communication challenges. The lowest common denominator has been the iPhone. My dad has always been a biggest fan of Natasha’s written English. He makes me bring her newspaper publications every time. But he has never understood what an online newspaper is. Once, he came dangerously close to concluding that the newspaper man delivers a computer to every home each morning in America!

Unknowingly though, he experienced it yesterday. Trying to figure out how to keep him engaged, Natasha had an idea! She took her iPhone out, weaved thru the slow speed data connections in Kalyani and made him read some of her online publications. Then she held the phone up for him patiently, as he read each line!

At that point, to give them some time, I left the room. When I came back, Natasha was holding court with her grandmom. My mother is not into written articles. From what I could overhear, Natasha was taking her thru all the pictures in her phone and introducing all her friends!

“This is Avery”, she was explaining.
“O Eta aay-bh-aari”, my mom acknowledged butchering the name’s pronunciation.
“Yes”, Natasha accepted.

I left the room again! The girl has truly grown up!!

The iPhone, unwittingly, was the great uniter yesterday!

The big surprise we got when we walked into my dad’s house is how much he has improved. If you recollect from my pictures from end of October, he was in a pretty bad shape. He could not stay up in his bed without being surrounded by supporting pillows and two attendants. It used to take two of us just to get him off his bed into his wheelchair.

In under sixty days, he has willed himself into almost the impossible. During my daily calls with mom, she did not accurately convey how much he has improved. Apparently, he has been preparing for this day when he was going to be surrounded by all five of his grandkids!

A few weeks back, he could not even realize that his paralyzed right arm had gotten entangled under his body. Today, he tried playing ball with his grandkids. It took all his might to get the arm up (notice the grimace on his face) but lift it he did and even did a fair job of throwing it out of spitting distance.

The greatest surprise was he getting up from the bed while holding on to the walker (needed a little help here) and then taking baby steps all by himself. He labored for about ten minutes but did eventually make it to the other room and sat down there.

That green cap on his head? There are always risks of trying out something new. A few days back, he was so impatient with his progress that he tried to get up and walk by himself without any help (mom and attendant were both sleeping). Promptly fell down and banged his head. Very very thankfully, he got away with a few stitches only. It could have been far worse.

As a last point, during my previous trip, I had written about the pains the caretaker (in this case my mom) has to take when a family member becomes incapacitated . Notice in the picture where he is taking baby steps how she is half a step behind him with a chair in hand absolutely ready in case he falls down again!!!