When I returned from North Cyprus cancelling part of the leave as per the email from the Director of NITC welcoming me back to contribute whatever possible for building of the National Institute of Technology Calicut, we had already got our first grandson. As a fitting reward for the efforts of our daughter in law in preparing for the PG entrance examination, she had also got selection to the PG course in the department of Ophthalmology at Calicut Medical College. After the delivery and mandatory rest at her parents, she returned to Calicut with our little grandson.
For ordinary mortals like us,
it is an unforgettable stage in our life to be a grandpa
and grandma. As parents, we had very little time to
take care of our children or play with them
and share our affection with them as
we were running around as bread winners of the
family. We were almost racing against the clock to earn sufficiently
to make the future of the family safe and sound. Of
course, I know, there may be a few who could strike
a balance between all these, but frankly I
was not one among those disciplined ones.
However, things were totally different when we were blessed with a grandchild.
We could easily find time to watch almost
everything as the child was growing and enjoy every
moment with him. Let me share a
few things I could remember, as he grew
as the VIP of
the house with special care from
his grandma.
Our routine on regular working
days was like this. Our daughter(in law) and
me used to start in
our Maruti 800 to N.I.T. Calicut by
about 815 AM, drop her at the Medical College so that I
could reach NITC by 855AM , in time to join my work.
Grandma and the child had wonderful time at
home till about 3 PM or so, when his
mother could come back from her college. As a
grandson, he was very considerate
and loving to his grandma, much
more mature for his age. Once, we leave the
house in the morning, our house will be the empire of the child
and his grandma. Rarely he used to sleep in the day time and will
always be doing something without any break. If his
grandma lies down for a while
after the lunch and close her eyes pretending
to sleep, he would come close to her, observe her closely
and slowly lift her eyelids with his tiny fingers telling
that ‘Grandma, please don’t
sleep, I will be scared if you
sleep’.
Sometimes, he and grandma used to go
to a small shop near the colony boundary where they
were making banana chips in the open space.
Main purpose of going there is to buy banana
chips which was his favourite snack. There, they
could buy it really hot and crisp. He used to
enjoy seeing how banana chips are made, how briskly one
man cuts the full ripe banana into slices,
another washing it and third person slowly putting it into the big
vessel containing hot coconut oil. He used to
imitate the ‘hissing’ sound produced when
the wet banana slices are being put
into the hot oil. While going to the shop, he was very
particular that the money purse should be entrusted with
him. He was unusually enthusiastic about buying
the chips, pay the money, collect the balance
given by the shopkeeper and keep it in grandmas purse carefully. If
he meets any elderly lady on the way,
she will call from their behind ‘grandma, grandma’ and
almost every lady will wait for him to
come to her, say something to him and then
only move away,
however hurriedly they were going ahead.
Any lady of his grandma’s age or nearabout
was his grandma too, the real innocence of
the childhood.
Like his father when he was young, he was a bit
hyperactive and every now and then, he used to fall down.
Seeing this, if the grandma runs to him and asks him “ Are you hurt,
my darling?”, he rarely cried in front of his
grandma and he used to console her telling’
don’t worry grandma, it is nothing , I am ok’. Even while drops of
blood is oozing out of the skin over his knee,
he never used to cry , it was a wonder.
Now with me, if he is not
sleeping, he will come near me and watch what I am doing.
If I am writing something, I have to give him a pen and paper. If I
am doing some tinkering work with a screwdriver or something like
that, I have to give him a small screwdriver and so on.
When I go out on a Saturday morning to wash my car with a
bucket of water and an old cloth, I had to give him
another piece of cloth to
clean up one side of the car.
Once, we were really embarrassed with his
penchant for neatness of the car when my
younger brother’s daughter and her husband came to our
house for the first time. Being a bit
careless like all youngsters of these days, their
car had a lot of dirt on its sides.
While we were talking to them inside
the house, suddenly we felt the
child is not seen inside. As we
were looking for him, we saw him with a piece of cloth
dipped in water slowly cleaning up their
car. The young girl and boy
were really embarrassed to see that.
We had to tell them it is his nature to clean
up the car whenever he sees some dirt on our
car and he applied the same care to
your car too. Of course, they ultimately appreciated his efforts and
the innocence.
Whenever , my wife used to buy fish from
the fish vender who brought it in his
bicycle to our gate, our grandchild had to be on
his grandmas hip to see the full basket of
fish and see the different varieties in the
basket. He was crazy about cars. There was a
set of flats about 200 meters from our house. If someone
starts a car from the flat and move to our side,
this boy used to identify the car as it is moving in and
call Indica, Fiat Maruti and all.
Even I could not say for certain which brand car it is
unless it is very close to me. He had
a wonderful collection of toy cars of different types and
even a miniature auto-rickshaw which he liked most. He was also a
bit crazy about dinosaurs. Once we went to
the planetarium, he saw a few statues of
them in the children’s play area. When I pointed
out to one which looked like an elephant and asked him have you seen
that big elephant, he ridiculed me telling “ Shame,
shame, grandpa, it is not an elephant, it is a mammoth’. Of course ,
I was not sure of the difference between
the pre-historic animal called mammoth and our elephant!!!
Meanwhile our son
was continuing his
practice as Radiologist in two private
hospitals one after the other.
As many of his friends
were planning to go to United Kingdom to write MRCP examination after clearing the PLAB examination conducted
by British Medical Council, he
wanted to try for Fellowship in Royal College of
Radiologists (FRCR) and started preparing for it. However, these examinations
were not being conducted in India. He had to go to Singapore or Nepal for
writing the exam. I told him as I knew Singapore well, I will give the money
but he said, No, I will try to get some fellowship in Singapore hospital and
work, earn and then write his exam. He got a fellowship in Changi hospital,
Singapore and wrote his part A for FRCR. Our
daughter in law was doing her Diploma in Ophthalmology in Calicut Medical College during the
same time. While she was taking
her PG classes, grandma had an enjoyable time with the grandson.
Our son went to UK for Part B examination and started
liking the system there. Meanwhile he continued his fellowship in
another hospital, K.K. Hospital Singapore for one more year. He also tried to
get his name included in the Register for Specialists in Radiology which proved
ultimately successful. After that, he got a job directly as a
Consultant Radiologist in UK. He has completed his FRCR duly after being in UK
and is continuing as Consultant in National Health Services (NHS). His wife, after completing
her PG in Ophthalmologist has
also joined him and has
started working there. They are in Scotland with two lovely sons. Our
first grandson is now completing his graduation by June 23 from Cambridge
University. He has already started trying for admission to master’s programme. He has not chosen medicine of his parents or engineering of his grandparent,
but is pursuing a career in Economics.
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