It was getting very late and impatient. As I was watching out through the grilled window, my eyes resting eagerly at the dimly lit small steel gate of my grandparent’s house. The new stainless steel mailbox my grandfather had installed the previous day shinned brilliantly under the flickering yellow street light. My eyes had begun to slip and I might have dozed off a couple of times before I heard the creaking of its rusty joints. A sudden energy had build up inside me and I dashed downstairs to greet the oil stained brown paper packet my grandfather always bought. I ran to him and hugged his leg. He was not incredibly tall, just an average 5ft 10in, may be 6ft at the maximum, but for me a couple feet and a little bit tall toddler, that was the best I could do. I looked up at him in his eyes with the most beautiful smile I had asked him ‘Appuppa, ennik entha konduvanne?’ (Grandfather what have you brought me?). He would as always hold out the same oil stained brown paper cover out to me, but before letting me have it he would make me jump at it for sometime by holding it just out of reach for my tiny hands. All I had to do was give a fake cry and a sad face 🙂 and he would invariably give it to me with a smile and a light kiss. I could climb up him and settle myself in the cosy corner of his elbow and start unwrapping the package that he had brought me while he engages himself in his daily pre-dinner prayer.

The most memorable of things that has happened during my life with my grandparents were always in the night. From what I have scribbled up so far it’s needless to say that I love my grandfather, but what made me love him so much is definitely worth mentioning. Though it has much to do with the fact that he supports all the mischief that I did and later did the same for my two brothers, but the one thing that was most amiable about my grandfather is the way he tells a story. Every night is a story time, with the characters of Ramayana and Mahabharata and his favourite Vishnu Purana unfolds in all their might and glory in his passionate narration. His stories were not so much a teaching or preaching as a way to get me sleep, yet they were the best of times, cuddled to my grandfather and with periodic humming (to ensure him I was not yet asleep).