My muthachan, my first super-hero.

He was my first super-hero. He was my first play-mate. I vividly remember watching him in awe as a curious three year old, as he expertly wove balls out of coconut palm leaves for me to play with. With infinite patience, he would strip those leaves one by one from the branch, examine their quality, and you could be sure that only the best would pass his scrutiny, for he would settle for nothing less, when it came to his beloved little granddaughter. Later, he went on to build a swing for me in our front courtyard when playing indoors wasn’t enough for me anymore. And by “building” a swing, I don’t mean he just tied a couple of ropes to an overhead branch of some tree. He literally BUILT me an entire swing. Complete with the side poles and a proper seat and everything. When it came to building or creating new things out of seemingly useless junk, I haven’t met anyone with an innovative mind quite like his. And to supplement this hobby, he had this huge tool box which had every random bits of screws and other such junk that you could possibly find. He loved tinkering with machines. And I loved watching him while at it.


My muthachan (that was what I used to call my grandfather) was a self-indulgent foodie. I would like to think that it was from him that I inculcated my penchant for spice in my food. But he was not just your usual foodie whose interest was confined to just the eating part. He enjoyed the preparations of his food almost as much as he appreciated the final output itself. In all my life, I have never seen a man quite like him in the kitchen. Squatting in his usual corner in the kitchen verandah near the back door, he would sit, cleaning prawns for hours together, enjoying every moment of it, in anticipation of my yearly arrival during my summer vacations. Prawns were always my weakness, especially a specific kerala style preparation with coconut milk. And so every year, my muthachan would go to the market a couple of days before my arrival, purchase the best quality prawns available, and come home declaring in pure glee to my grandmother, “Anju varar ayille, chemmeen curry oke undaaki vekyande”. (Anju’s coming right, we should make prawns curry and stuff and keep). Likewise, he would then secretly stock up on more of these little orange “muttayis” (hard round candies), the love for which only he and I shared in the entire family. While my mother and grandmother would keep advising him now and again to cut down on those candies, every day after lunch, I would go into the kitchen, nick a couple of extra muttayis, and share them with my muthachan outside in the balcony so no one would know. It was our little secret. It’s been around 4 to 5 years now since they stopped selling that particular candy in the store from where my muthachan used to buy it. And also by then, his health had slowly started deteriorating, and he gradually stopped looking for it.


My muthachan is the reason I have always wanted to be able to drive. Since my childhood, I have heard infamous stories of how he had started driving since the age of twelve, and how he was the proverbial virtuoso when it came to driving and cars. He was indeed a driver par excellence. Having been in the navy, he was once a big-built man with toned muscles, and so when he drove, he almost had an air of arrogance floating about him as he used to breeze through extremely tight spots down preposterously narrow lanes, squeezing past other vehicles with nonchalant ease. Driving was like breathing to him. It was one of the greatest passions in his life. He knew every new model of every car and every scooter that came out each year, irrespective of whether he could ever afford them or not. Even at the age of 80, with two cataract operations behind him, he still drove with the same sense of power that he used to always enjoy being behind the wheel, albeit a lot less dashing looking than he used to be in his hay days. For 22 years of my life, he has driven me around, to all possible corners of the state. When I finally got my license last year, there couldn’t have been a more prouder person than my muthachan. By then, he had become a lot less energetic, owing to his old age and ill-health, and he would rarely even get up from his bed to go sit and read the newspaper. But as soon as I got home last year, and went running up to him proudly to show him my drivers license, he sat up immediately, asked for his glasses, and took it from my hand and examined it closely for a while, read every word out loud, smiled and congratulated me. It was one of the proudest moments of my life. It was one of my dreams to be able to drive him around one day, with him sitting beside me in the front seat of our car, but unfortunately, that was not to be. It will always be one of the greatest regrets of my life that I didn’t take my license a little earlier.


My beloved muthachan passed away last month, and words cannot begin to convey the emptiness I feel inside me at his loss. I have other such countless little anecdotes of memories with him, and of him. To say that I have learnt innumerable lessons from him would be a mere understatement. The way my muthachan has lived his life itself stands as a testimonial to the biggest lesson that I can possibly learn from him. All his life, through and through, he has been the ultimate family-man. He was never one to shirk away from responsibilities; in fact, he chased after them, and fulfilled more than what was expected of him. But now, as time passes by, I am slowly beginning to realize that my muthachan was more than just MY grandfather. He was the most loving husband, a most concerned father, and a doting grandad. But he was also so much more than that, to so many countless people that he influenced, in the 82 years that he lived. Recently while going through some old albums, I just happened to find out from my mother that he used to be quite a good singer in his younger days. I felt a stab of regret and grief that I was never a part of that side of him, a side of him that I did not know existed. Likewise, I also realize that many others knew him as well, during the course of his life, and have their own personal little memories of him, of which I am no part of. But despite everything, in the end, for me, he was my muthachan. My first super-hero. And I will always miss him.


[P.S : Personal note to my muthachan. “Muthacha, if you’re up there somewhere, hope you are being treated to the most awesome orange muttayis up there. Of course, I would also like to imagine you in a royal Rolls Royce, while you are at it. I love you.” ]