The ‘Grandparent’ Affinity
No distance can separate a grandparent’s love. May it be across the hall, across the city, or across the heavens.
This piece of writing may virtually limit my audience to a collection of 3 people (one of whom doesn’t enjoy reading English), but I’m still going to give it a go.
This is particularly challenging to write because everybody is different. The dynamics of each family keeps changing. But I feel like nothing can take away from a grandparent’s love no matter the circumstance.
I have been fortunate enough that until 2018 all my grandparents lived within a kilometre radius. In 2018 one of them took a one way trip to the skies, and in early 2020 two of them moved a couple of area codes away. My earliest and most fond memory, something we’ve never talked about much, occurred in 2nd grade. It was Grandparent’s Day, and our school had invited them to celebrate with us. A seven-year-old Vivaan walked in with all his grandparents and enjoyed the rest of the day. We sang songs for them that, at the time, we thought were… outdated. Listening to that mashup now, you know why they had it playing all the time when we were kids. My Dada was the first to stand and start dancing, and the rest of the room followed. It’s been ten years, but I can tell you that it was the second line in ‘जहाँ घम भी न हो, आँसू भी न हो’ that he asked for my Dadi’s hand and started dancing.
Life’s unfair. Nobody goes through the same trajectory. If it weren’t for our family, we wouldn’t be as blessed as we are now. They allow us to live how we are living right now. It’s only fitting that we can help them enjoy as long as we’re with them. Take some time to teach them how to use Instagram, go out for movies, show them the world around us. Most importantly, be patient. They held us as crying infants for over three years, never received allowances for unofficially babysitting us, and moulded us over the years. It’s our time to reciprocate. Be their walking stick, laugh at their jokes even if you don’t understand them, just be there.
There’s no definite reason behind me writing it. I feel like our grandparents are the unsung heroes behind how we grow up to be. It might be our parents who guide us and tell us what to do, but it’s grandparents that inculcate morals and values into us at a young age. In today’s generation, with a major shift from joint to nuclear families, more and more children are growing up without other influences around them.
If it weren’t for my Dada, I wouldn’t know anything about giving back to society. If it weren’t for my Dadi, I wouldn’t learn to look for perfection in even the most minor details. If it weren’t for my Nana, I wouldn’t know anything about the political scenarios in India, and without my Nani, I wouldn’t learn the spirit of life and how we should always stay young at heart. Of course, I would be 20 kgs lighter and eat a lot less than I do now without my Nani, but that is beside the point.
I want to end by saying that we shouldn’t let changing trends stray us from our roots. Spending time with our grandparents if they’re in the house, helping out with their work, just lending a ear for them to talk to can be so effective. If they don’t live with you, it won’t be the end of the world if you call them once in a while (my Nana and Nani are definitely calling me a hypocrite). Life is short, but ours is only starting. We should use the time we have been given right now rather than regret it later.
If that’s not incentive enough, always remember that it is only our grandparents behind whom we can hide if our parents are angry at us.
