Wordzzle midi-week 139

"I must be growing old," she thought to herself, and sighed. She was as old as this museum, and the huge jade carving at the entrance was 60 years old. A plaque on top of it announced, 'The Mahatma Gandhi memorial museum. Set up in 1951. Please do not litter. Thank you. Enjoy your tour!'

She looked around for her grandson. "Kanna, come here and look at this," she called. He was loafing around, staring at some fake icicles that hung over the door, his hands deep in his pocket, and earphones plugged in his ears. She closed her eyes and sighed again. Here they were, in the museum filled with memorabilia of freedom fighters, and her grandson was gazing at it all insolently-as though saying "whatever", his favourite expression. She wondered if he even had the least bit of patriotic fervour at all.

She thought of how she'd tried to get him to learn the sacred slokas. "What do they do?" had been his first question.

"This chanting is to invoke the sacred Gods and ask them to bless us with health, prosperity, and longevity."

"Uh-huh."

"The Aditya hrudayam invokes the sun god, Surya. You remember that Surya goes around the world in his chariot? We pray to him because without him, there would be no life."

"Uh-huh."

"This sloka must be recited before sunset. It isn't very tough to learn, there are a few difficult Sanskrit words, but I managed to pick up an English print in Bhavan's printing press."

"Uh-huh."

"So are you ready to start learning?"

"Right. Hey grandma, could I, like, not do it right now? I have to go to my friend's place for a school project. It's due tomorrow. I'll get around to learning the thing later."

"What's the project about?" Maybe she could help.

"It's maths. Parallelograms and stuff. Geometry. See you!" And he'd left.

She was affronted, but also amused. Did the boy think she didn't know maths? Why, she'd been given the most liberal education by her father. She was the first woman in their whole community to go to college. And she'd received a gold medal as well for excellence in academics, especially maths. But her dreams of going abroad were gently but firmly curbed by her family, who believed it was time she settled down. She received a marriage proposal from a boy with good prospects and excellent family, and accepted it. In those days, though feminist movements were rampant, there were still very orthodox families and communities in the cities itself which frowned upon the woman doing anything outside her home. She'd not been rebellious enough to fight that in her day. Nowadays, it seemed people rebelled at everything, though opportunities were so numerous and unrestricted.

"Open sesame." A voice said into her ear. She obediently opened her eyes to the command to find her grandson grinning at her. He'd finally removed the wires from his ears and his hands from his pockets. He pointed to an exhibit of the various weapons used by the British on Indians during the freedom fights. "Wow, grandma, I never really realized what it meant to fight for Independence until I saw those. I mean, imagine marching on the streets, waving flags peacefully, and have policemen with those weapons charge you and beat you to a pulp and not raise a finger in your defence. Those weapons look scary, don't they? And evil."

He stepped up to another exhibit. "And look, this one talks about the story of a brave fifteen-year old girl who defied the British and saved her brother from being killed by shielding him with her own body. She was my age. She was awesome! Grandma, why don't they talk about this kind of stuff when they talk about the Civil Disobedience Movement? The way my teacher tells it, you'd think it was the biggest goof-up in history. And, oh, look at this..."

She smiled affectionately at her grandson. She forgave him for his disinterest in his religion, and his cool assumption that any one above 25 was 'ancient'. She wished dimly too that the history teacher had taught her class about the real wonder of their past, because nobody could go anywhere unless he had pride in his roots. She was proud that she'd brought him here, sullen and uncooperative as he'd been, and happy that he was actually enjoying it. She bent her head to listen to his chatter, and gave herself up to enjoy it as well.