‘Solitary grand moment’

Xpre$$!ons...

I hate to dig my old diaries but only once did I smell the pages and I remember it was the purest way of pressing memoirs close to my heart, but I don’t keep my old diaries with me, for some reason unknown.

Whenever I stand thinking alone, there is this whiff of air that passes by me and it untangles the memories—even though they are missing in print they are etched in my mind.

Every first page begins with my grandma; her motherly nurturing has imbibed in me some good mores, the only reminiscence I cherish every minute I go flashback. I see her sitting in the balcony in a grey sari that she always cared to drape it flawlessly, her hair neatly done, and when I look at her pleasant face she smiled back and sang a religious hymn that I too loved humming. I am on her lap, and there is no one in the house and the ‘solitary grand moment’ becomes my only memorable moment with this ‘grand lady’. She was beautiful, the only woman in my life whom I looked up to with a child-like ogle. The blustery weather seemed to be calm in her stillness presence, no word of wisdom we exchanged, no age-difference mattered, the grand moment went by in its preeminent humblest way.

There were no chocolates for the baby but it was the sweetest moment ever, no video games played, yet playful; no park could create an ambience like the loggia, no ‘thing’, nothing could have presented me a beautiful moment like this one. Humming a song or two was not a chore but a chosen task that sadly did not live for a very long time when the tiny toes stood on its own. There were moments like this, but very few. And there on, the closing stages began to stare, demanding a bitter adieu.

No page can word this moment, its special it its own way and so here I remember the grand old lady who gave me my ‘solitary grand moment’. Love you grandma, miss you!