He didn’t need a stick to find the obstacles in his path; he knew the streets of Damodarpur village so well that he could have walked through them in the dark effortlessly. He was so old that when asked about it, he used to look at the banyan tree near the Ankadlamani pond, waiting for it to answer. Every mud-house in the village knew him. The old man was aware of every tree, animal, and bird existing on the soil of Damodarpur. He had seen the Rushikulya River, when it was a thin stream of water flowing by, which later grew to be a river. This old man of Damodarpur was my grandfather, he who named me ‘Pavitra’ (Pure) when I was born. In his youth he was a freedom fighter, he was a poet, he was an entrepreneur, he was a story-writer, a great orator, and he was all that experience could make of an individual. Grandpa was one who took me to watch the sunset near the bridge on his strong shoulders, made me feel free like the birds he enjoyed to watch, he told me ghosts don’t exist, yet every night I sat on his lap to hear bed-time stories about Indian princes, fairies, demons. I remember when my school bell rang; he used to be there at the school-gates with a ripe yellow mango for me, to take me back home on his cycle, smiling at me when I used to drop the mango peel all over my white shirt. We climbed the nearby hills every evening, and used to stand there watching fisherman returning back to their cottage, watch a distant steamer disappearing in the horizon somewhere in the Bay of Bengal. While descending, he used to explain me the medicinal value of every herb he touched and talked to in his own world. I never had heard of Mark Twain, but he made me love them, gifted me Tolstoy and Dickens. At times, he sang Kalidas and Bhanja to me to divert my attention from things which were unnecessary according to him like the John Logie Baird invention. On a straw mat in his favorite corner of the house, he sat for hours wearing a plain dhoti & vest, immersed over the literature that he loved more then his life, at times using his inkpot and the pen to record them. He had hundreds of letters of his addressed to me, which he wanted me to read, but I never could for reasons unknown. Before I knew, I got too big for him to carry me, too tall to help me learn swim. Before I knew, I grew, I grew so much that I was lost in the passage of the time, which carried me away from him to a distant land of dreams, expectation and accomplishments. These small moments with him soon became a thing of past, and suddenly today I want to meet him. I want to hold his hands and hear him, I want to tell him that he is the sweetest thing I have .Wish I could express it all to the old man whose soul rests now six feet deep inside the heart of Damodarpur. I love you, Grandpa; I am reading your letters kept on the shelf.
Yours,
Pavitra
