TWO FEATHERS: The love story of my Grandparents

The Young  Couple

They say love can happen at anywhere and anytime, might be while watching Annie Hall or Anime or while doing stuff which you generally do not like. It can happen when you are attending the needs of your dying uncle on the corridor of the hospital or while about to punch the man who stole your helmet. Someone might fall in love with someone in Facebook, get catfished, and end up cursing their stupidity. Someone might fall in love with someone in Facebook, get married, and end up thanking Mark Zuckerberg. Anyway, I am not advertising my relationship counseling skills so let me tell you a nice story, the love story of my maternal Grandparents. They too had a love story, a tolerable, sweet and real love story. Let their second-eldest grandchild (who is apparently me) narrate it to you.

In the beginning of the 1960s while the world was witnessing complex of inter-related cultural and political trends and Nagaland was known as Naga Hills District under the Assam Province, there lived my Grandpa who worked in Assam Police. He was well loved by his superiors for his honesty and meticulous nature. I am told that he was tall and so handsome that all the women who saw him would try to catch a second glimpse of him, I am also told eligible ladies would cook delicious meals to win his attention and affection, come on ladies, that’s the only talent you had???

Since I am done with his intro, let me say something about my Grandma. As cliché as it can get, my Grandma was a nurse, and now you are visualizing some Hollywood wartime romantic movie. She had a girlish innocence which she carried well, and she had full protruding lips which were not in fashion then but is in fashion now.

How did they meet? They met in one of the social gatherings. They started off as friends, but eventually they fell in love and now I do not want to sound like a country love story. However, Shakespeare wrote in 16^th Century, ‘The course of true love never ran smooth’, hence, they had to face a minor problem, which was not so minor, I am just being nice to the optimistic people who thinks their parents will accept the person of their choice in one flicker. My Grandma’s family did not like my Grandpa, maybe they thought their daughter/ sister deserved Dev Anand. Persuasion did not help and she was grounded. My Grandpa had to take a decision for this I put enormous respect on his name, he knew he loved her and she was the only one with whom he wanted to spend his entire life. He followed the oldest model ever known to mankind when the long road is boring and cumbersome, he opted for a shortcut- they eloped. He brought her to his home and no one had anything to say because that is when the literal and the metaphorical terms get conjoined giving a numbness to the people in a clown suit. When the mid- Monsoon started her family had nothing but only blessings to offer.

Let me get a bit naughty here, I don’t know what kind of ‘sweet little nothing’ talks were exchanged between them, but as a third class poet, let me take the privilege to present my improvised and imaginative version of Grandma’s love monologue,

Don’t jump from my window, there are thorns in the rose bushes,

Don’t walk through the door, there are scoundrel mongers and scandal vipers,

Don’t look at the ceiling, there are many holes, we are poor,

Look at my feet, look at your feet and thank the walk, it brought us together.

My Grandpa passed away last year (October 17^th, 2015). On his funeral my granny was angry with him for a simple reason, she told her children, ‘I am mad at your dad for leaving me alone. How can he be so selfish?’

I am glad how their love story ended, they were together until the last days of his life. You see in this world of ours which is infested with deadly diseases like Cancer, HIV/AIDS etc, and now and then launching of new diseases, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters, what lovers have is a moment which is valuable and which should not be simplified into mere typing of  XOXO- axe-oh-axe-oh. I am happy my Grandparents loved and stayed together and produced wonderful children and had the strength to bless their grandchildren.