Out came a thought and then another...

He calls me everyday, this man I am going to talk about. He is evidently a creature of habit because he calls me exactly at that hour of the day when I am the busiest. Sometimes he makes amends by calling me at an hour when I like to talk and then ruins all the goodwill his action generated by telling me that he called because he was awfully bored.

He likes long conversations, this man I am talking about. He spares no topic and drifts along merrily from one to the next leaving me to haplessly pick the fallen threads and follow his trail. What could possibly be worse than trying to make sense of a drifter's conversation? The answer, of course, is being expected to offer an opinion to the drifter while he focuses on drifting! This man loves to ask me for my opinion on everything and then cut me short on my reply to jump to the next thought in his head. He thinks I understand Russia's economy and that I love Pearl S. Buck as much as he does. Actually, he thinks I have to love Pearl S. Buck as much as he does.

He complains that I am either tight-lipped or grossly vague in my answers. And he does not like either of those tactics. It annoys him so much that he bites my head off with his retorts. He slanders my name with the choicest epithets and makes sure all our common associates know what he thinks of me and my antics. If he has had a bad night, he calls to tell me about it and then accuses me of not cheering him enough with my reply.

He always asks me what I am cooking for the day and then proceeds to flavour it with "Nonsense, that is so terrible." He does not stop there. He always tells me how I should cook my meals and what should be served first. He questions me on cell phone technology, its rapid growth in Indian towns and then counters with a passionate plea for vocational education. He maintains that Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Church Courtyard is the best poem that anyone can ever write and admires Edward VIII for abdicating his throne to marry Wallis Simpson.

He speaks like a radical on most subjects, conspiratorially adding that many call him a heretic. He gushes about Mysore bonda and waxes eloquent on the virtue of eating a banana every night.

He is such a unique creation, this man I am still talking about. He makes me laugh, he gets on my nerves, he taunts me with mind games and he pampers me with compliments. He loves his life and tells me eighty years is still the beginning. His genes live in the frame of my husband and his conversations live in my head.

I love him, this man I call grandpa.

Posted by Echo/Lavanya on Tuesday, December 20, 2005 at 4:35 PM | Permalink