All Along The Watchtower

You can't predict the truth. Nor reject it.
You can deny it, but it will eventually come around to be accepted once and for all.

And that is the point of no return.

It was around 2.15 AM when i first heard that piece of truth.
"Dadu has passed away"
Shock.

Rushed to my parents bedroom to find Baba booking tickets for the morning flight to Kolkata.
I can see his hands shaking. I take over the mouse, follow it with a series of clicks.

Rewind.

My earliest memories of my grandparents are those of lazy afternoons. I would run home from school to find Thamma doing her puja. Her wet hair. Her soft cotton sari. Bangles softly clicking.
Just the sight made me so happy, I would dive into her lap with my school bag and my dirty school shoes, which would leave a trail through out the house.
She would start yelling and Dadu would be softly laughing while playing a game of solitaire on the bed, with a cup of tea on his side, witnessing the whole situation.

When we lived in Goregaon, I remember them going out for their evening walks. My Granddad tightly tying his shoelaces. Silently loving his sports shoes. While my Grandma would put on some lacto calamil, and get into her bata ballerina shoes and ask Dadu to hurry up.
They would be off walking for almost an hour, then they'd come and sit together on one of those big seats outside our building , talking to everyone walking by.

The more i sit and think, the more these forgotten memories crop up. Times in Bombay. Our summer trips to Kolkata. My brothers wedding in Jalpaiguri, our trip to Darjeeling.

"Dadu, tumi hundred years bachbe!" (Dadu, you'll live up to a 100 years!)
I would tell him this over and over again while drumming his bald head away :)
Can't remember the number of times I have caught him cheating while playing solitaire.
I remember him telling me stories of pre-independence times. Times he saw Mahatma Gandhi in a rally, the time he saw Subash Chandra Bose.
I remember him explaining Gita scriptures to me on early mornings.
I remember Thamma telling me stories of the time when she was a girl, and they lived in Bangladesh. How our family had huge acres of land, how my grandmothers had all British teachers, and she would repeatedly tell me about this red silk dress she had. She had to leave it back when the left for Kolkata.

My habit of keeping a diary comes from him, though I fail to be as punctual in writing as he used to be.
Used to be.
That just doesn't sound right.

Denial.

My Grandparents were the happiest people i know. My Thamma the kindest, and my Dadu the strongest. Mentally, and physically.

I couldn't even see him one last time.

Though now i think, it's better that my last memory of him was that of when he was walking away from me, with that brisk walk of his, oozing more confidence and smartness than of any young man.

I try and think he and thamma are together again. Happy. Watching over us. Bickering over small things. Talking their walks together again, Dadu with his cap and Thamma with her ballerina shoes.

He was more than my grandfather. As I had once said to him,
"Dadu, you're my friend"

Truth hasn't quite settled in yet.
Hope it comes around soon.

".. Until we meet again"