Everybody should interview their grandmothers and mothers, and granddads and dads of course, on top priority. Especially as they can fade away at any time, or get dementia or be otherwise unable to share their stories. It will usually be a fascinating revelation — even to those who think they know their mothers, to learn who they really were, before they got married and became our grandmothers and mothers. What kind of people were they, who were their best friends, what games did they love, what did they do after school/college, what movies did they watch and where, what were their dreams, what did they want to grow up and be, what was the boldest or wickedest thing they did? And even apart from all that, it was only on interviewing my Amma, Indu Shedde, now 98, that I learnt that she and Papa (the late S Rammohan) made fresh badam toop (almond ghee) at home to massage my sister Sarayu and me when we were babies. I simply crumbled like a Glucose biscuit in hot chai.
The series of interviews I did of Amma were for her autobiography, in her own voice, that I wrote and gave her as a 95th birthday present in 2022: it took me three years to write it and put it together.
Amma grew up in Dharwad, Karnataka, in a family of four widows. She learnt early on about taking financial responsibility and financial independence. She held four jobs before she married, earned a BA DLS (Diploma in Library Science) and became Assistant Librarian in Karnataka University in the 1950s, speed-reading, as she remembers it, 2,00,000 books in order to make the books’ accession cards. Astonishingly, she was 32 when she married — I just didn’t find the right boy, she shrugged. Yet, when she married and had my sister Sarayu and me, she chose not to do a job, but to be a full-time mother. When my parents had the opportunity to move from our modest chawl home to a three-bedroom flat, Amma boldly insisted they buy it, when my mild Papa dithered. Trying to make ends meet on the about R129 a month Papa gave her, after the home loan EMI was deducted, she invented original “vegetable art” from home to earn a little more money. She created an Air India Boeing plane and Maharajah, Taj Mahal, Krishna, Mirabai, an Ikebana flower arrangement and more, entirely from fresh fruit and vegetables, that were published in Eve’s Weekly and Dharmayug magazines, and elsewhere. Her wonderful art was born in desperation.
She values her independence, and after our dad passed away, she insisted on living independently at a senior citizen’s home, preferably outside Mumbai, rather than stay at my sister’s place or mine (though she stayed with me during COVID).
Recently, someone asked her, are you afraid of death? “Not at all,” she replied, without hesitation. “What is there? It is like changing clothes, that’s all. The soul remains.” I had also asked her, is there any unfulfilled wish you have? “I wish I could see you settled,” she replied (meaning married). “OK. But can you guarantee that any woman you know would be much happier, more fulfilled as a person, as someone’s wife—than if she were single and independent?” No, she shook her head. “OK, do you feel I am happy and fulfilled as a person, and probably already have everything or most of what I need?” I asked. She immediately said yes. We hugged for a long, long time. Then she said grinning, “If anyone asks you, you can always say, ‘Mere paas Maa hai’.” We both laughed heartily, then we did a high five. Our gorgeous Amma.
Meenakshi Shedde, film curator, has been working with the Toronto, Berlin and other festivals worldwide for 30 years. She has been a Cannes Film Festival Jury Member and Golden Globes International Voter, and is a journalist and critic.
Reach her at meenakshi.shedde@mid-day.com