Gritty old ladies of the past

 

Tai Rishalo was a wise, old woman. Widowed early with many children to rear, she managed to keep her brood’s neck above the waters to survive and sustain in the pool of life where the storms of low social position kept their little boat tossing with adversarial winds. She but kept her sense of humor above any other mood. Carrying her basket of vegetables and fruits, she sprinkled the staid village air with her puns, mimicry and jokes. She built a position of respect for herself across all castes in the village. She had a stupendous memory and would narrate almost endless fables and stories of princes, princesses, prets and parrots. She could sing, dance, joke and mimic with great effect.

Tai Rishalo loved Haridwar, especially visiting the holy banks of Ganga Maa in the auspicious month of shravan. The latter meant the cusp of all earthly delights for her. Her group of elder women would load themselves with wheat flour, pulses, rice and bales of clothing and start for the pilgrimage. They used multiple modes of conveyance to finally reach the holy town. Here they stayed in dharamshalas and cooked their food to keep their visits monetarily feasible. Some of the women in her group were so old that when they started from the village, many people joked that surely a few of them will definitely stay back with Ganga Maa forever. But all of them would beat all doubts and returned safe. Not only that, they would even climb the hills to reach neelkanth mahadev temple; a stupendous feat, given the fact that one of them, Tai Malho, was sitting on the edge of her grave.

I remember a rainy day when they started their pilgrimage. It was a gloomy, wet day. All of them old and Tai Malho the oldest of them, in her late eighties, frail, bony, slightly better than the crooked stick she held in her hand. She moved with her rickety steps in the street mud like a poor skeleton taking a stroll after jumping out of its grave. I thought I had seen the last of her on that rainy day. But there she was back in the village in a slightly better avatar after spending two-three weeks by the holy river. She had even managed to walk uphill to the holy shrine of neelkanth, a steep climb of almost eighteen kilometers. She gave credit to Tai Rishalo for her survival. ‘She makes you laugh so much that the yamdoots possibly get doubtful and take you far younger than your age because you are laughing so much!’ she exulted.

However, there was a false scare born of the trip. Tai Srichand ki bahu, uncle Srichand’s wife, a robust fair-colored woman with buxom breasts who had nurtured many handsome big-shouldered farmers, caused plenty of scare in the family after her return. She was uncle Srichand’s fourth wife. His previous three wives had died, earning him the name-de-plume of ‘wife-eater’. But our fourth Tai survived and almost two decades younger to her farmer husband, she beat him in the race of life to become a widow in her seventies.

During those days, just a few trains plied between Delhi and Haridwar. Our gang of old Tais would launch an assault with their big bundles to occupy any space available in the unreserved general compartment. The passengers would look horribly at unease but when the elderly peasant women started singing and sharing food with them the things would take a cozy U-turn. During one such scuffle to grab her footing in the crowded compartment, Tai Srichand ki bahu got a nasty elbow strike at her copious breast. A lump emerged as a result. She returned crying from the pilgrimage, loudly proclaiming that it was cancer and she would die. She unleashed torrents of urgency on her sons. They took her to a doctor and only the doctor’s words that it was just a temporary fibroid that would melt away by itself she returned to her usual jolly mood.

All those Tais are gone now on their further journeys. When I remember Tai Rishalo and her fondness for Haridwar, I always feel that she must be enjoying her days on the banks of Maa Ganga after shedding her bodily form. Their memories bring a sweet childhood nostalgia.