A Short Respite

 

Post#29

A Short Respite Between :

A year went by. Though their hearts had not stopped bleeding both my parents picked up their lives and made an earnest effort to smile again, for the sake of us their daughters and grandchildren. 

Mom returned for my sister’s second pregnancy. Advait turned 7 that December( 2000). It was time to plan his munja ( thread ceremony). We went to Pune that holiday season. Aai( MIL) consulted with an astrologer and we decided upon the date for the munja. August 4th 2001. Since it was going to be in Bakersfield not everyone from Pune was going to be able to attend. Nevertheless they did the traditional kelvans ( showers) for the event. The family kelvan was hosted at Shreyas Hotel famous for its traditional thalis. 

For the occasion of Advait’s munja Abhay bought me another dark green with red traditional borders and pallu.  I was gifted another Paithani by my parents. This one was a shirodak (white paithani) with red borders from the family  for the bhikshaval. The most precious and unique gift came from Aai ( MIL). She knew how much the Bhagwad Gita meant to me. So she gave me a big book called the Gita Sagar with an elaborate commentary on the Bhagwad Gita by Shankar Abhyankar.

 I forgot to mention earlier that Aai was an ardent devotee of Swami Ramdas . When I got married she was delighted to find that I am into spiritual literature. Every piece of paper she saved with this literature she passed on to me.

January 2001 my second niece was born. My mom stayed to help her until the time for Advait’s munja . The whole family came from Denver to Bakersfield in August.

Aai ( MIL) and my Baba booked their flights together from Mumbai for June or July 2001. These two vyaahis ( samdhan and samdhi) got along just fantastically. My MIL was almost 10 years older than Baba but had equal energy. They decided a stopover vacation in Hong Kong for two days before coming to Los Angeles. Once they were here they got to work with Munja preparations. Baba had got the invitation cards ( patrika) printed in India. We sat together and put addresses and mailed out these cards to friends and family. Made some personal phone calls.

  Aai (MIL)was seeing our home for the very first time. As soon as she entered she exclaimed with approval “ kaay chhaan mahal ahe” ( it is lovely, palatial ). 

Funnily, within a few days of arriving I took her with me to a housewarming puja at another home in a more upscale neighborhood; when she saw that she was so impressed with the grandeur of that home, she came home and told Abhay  why don’t you get something like that ? .  I reminded her not even a week back you called our home a Mahal 😀. She smiled knowingly. 

 Everything is relative. Neither Abhay nor me ever dreamed of moving to another home. We were happy to see our friends get grander homes. Our happiness and peace remains rooted in our home to this day.

Yeh tera ghar yeh mera ghar 

Kisi ko dekhana ho gar

To aake pehle dekhle

Teri nazar meri nazar

The munja day arrived in August. Some more family ( Sheela tai, nephews, cousins)and friends had come to stay a couple of days earlier. It was feeling like a “ munja ghar”( festive home on occasion of the thread ceremony). With the help of some hired ladies to chop veggies etc Baba cooked the entire feast for the 250 guests. Our friends from Los Angeles and Northern California came . Arunaben, Kammuben all were present to bless the munja boy. Although the temple priest conducted the ceremony officially it was Aai( MIL) who directed him about the Marathi traditions. Everything went as it would have in Pune. Everyone had lunch and I was the last one to eat. Just as I was to start eating a family who had come from LA came to say goodbye. They casually mentioned we would have loved to see your new home. I was on my toes to leave and drive them 15 miles to show the home. But they said they were in a hurry. After they left Aai admonished me and gave me a piece of wisdom ( good heartedly). She said “ when you are at a meal you should not run behind the world. Everyone can wait “.  I nodded in agreement .

 The conclusive event of the munja was the bhikshaval. As per tradition guests gave small token of money to the newly minted Brahmachari (celibate). He was on top of the world that day. 

After the event most people were gone back. Aai ( MIL) stayed for a year or so. While she was here she had a gala time with the grandkids. They would help themselves to sodas in my absence. She and Advait shared a sweet tooth. Everything had to have added sugar. Orange juice, toop poli, dahi, buttermilk everything would get multiple spoons of sugar added. Advait found someone who would let him have anything that I would object to. And they had become very discrete about their indulgent parties that happened while I was at work 😉. If it had not been from the missing sodas from the fridge and empty juice cartons I would have never known 😀.

My bond with Aai that was strengthened with the birth of my two kids began to be challenged with the growing up of the same kids. We started to have arguments. She was completely respected and loved and was free to do anything in the house. But when she began to spoil the kids to the extent of overruling parental authority it became a problem. The kids had reached the pre-teen stage and it was a turning point. I had seen up-close  irretrievable damage done when grandparents shut down parents’ voices of discipline towards kids. Even in educated Indian families known to us kids had gotten into drugs and even after thousands of dollars and years of efforts poured in these kids could not be reformed or rehabilitated. There was no way I was going to let it happen to my kids. Kids disobeying parents was not a viable option. Defying parental advice and authority was outright dangerous.

I think she realized where I was coming from but couldn’t help herself. Her older son’s family had lived in her house so she always had an upper hand there. Here unfortunately for both of us, I had a mind of my own.  She had as much right over the kids as I did and I did not want this to become a power struggle. However for me to take a back seat would be a costly compromise if the kids were spoiled. It was sad but I just couldn’t make her understand where to draw the lines. We would fight and I would apologize. And then again the same cycle would repeat. She knew how much I genuinely loved her and I never doubted her love for me. But the kids had created a big dari ( valley) between us, a dilemma that I could never really solve satisfactorily in my mind.

She had just recently acquired a green card ( sponsored by Sheela tai) and I very much wanted her to stay with us forever. But she decided she preferred to stay in Pune for rest of her life. In her home. The goodbye was very painful. We both cried . No hugs( I was never a hugs person even for my own parents). No words. Even her usual words at every goodbye “bhool chuk maaf kara “( pardon if I made mistakes) were drowned in tears this time.  That was 2002 when she made the final return to India. With lots of coke in her bags 😊. And a not so surprising diagnosis of diabetes and osteoporosis upon reaching Pune. 😢

For this post I picked the green Paithani with red borders that I had gotten for Advait’s munja.