Baa

Yes, we called her Baa. My earliest memories of her go to the time when I was about 6 or 7 year old. She must be around 50 at that time. Clad in a white saree and a cloth bag in hand, she used to come to our house a few times in a month, for sure on dwadashi - the next day after ekadashi. My mom used to give her SEEDHA (a package of flour, rice, dal, masalas, some vegetables enough to cook 2 meals for her).

It was a routine affair seeing her from that time. As a child, I did not have any kind of feeling good or bad for her or her visits. In mom's absence also I knew what to give and would do it dutifully. She used to come around Diwali time to help making sweets and in kitchen work.

As I grew up, I had thoughts about the kind of life she was living. I learnt that she was from Gujarat and was married to a widower with kids at the age of 7 and was widowed by the time she completed 9. Neither the inlaws nor the parents did anything to support her- reasons I still do not know. With the help of some people, she migrated to Coimbatore. Being a brahmin (the only plus point of her life considering those days), she started going to people's houses on festivals and got some alms and slowly she started helping with extra or special cooking and got paid for that. She started making her living that way. Unlike today, in those days she used to get a very meagre amount for all that.

I do not know where and how she got an accomodation in the beginning but later because of her sweet and helping nature somebody gave her a permanent room for free to live. She had to go door to door, but was never greedy. I could figure out approximately how little she could earn that way, but still she helped her younger brothers back home and slowly found jobs for them in Coimbatore and had both moved with families. It was not a very big thing she got for them, but they could manage their families. I remember she even helped her cousins who were in need.

The more I knew about her, the more I felt respecting her. I remember at times of health emergencies in our family, she was always there round the clock without any expectation, just like a family member. She lived an active life till she was 90+ in coimbatore. Slowly health started troubling her and the children of her cousins who she had helped called her back home with them and took care of her till the end which came when she was 102.

Her memories are deep inside me. I just wonder how she lived such a long life all alone in those days when things were so difficult. I do not know how she would have overcome her emotions and faced the hardships. She used to walk miles with the bag in her hand, transportation and conveyance was out of reach.

But even today, when her mention comes anywhere, where she was known, people talk respectfully for her. Her sincerity towards life, the will to live with strong determination, the pure nature of helping people in need with whatever was possible, with no complaints ever, makes me bow my head respectfully to her with love. That was our dear Baa.

 

Hi Vijji,

Thanks so much for your FB. There are so many aspects of Baa's life from which I learn even today.

 

Hi Sujata, Radhika, Susri, Knot2share,

Thanks all of you for the fb and appreciating the strength and qualities of Baa. Such people keep inspiring even after they are gone.

Yes I was fortunate to have seen her and known her.