Nani Ma

Summer afternoons in the kitchen with Grandma may be a familiar memory for some, but I experienced it for the first time today. Peeling potatoes, learning new recipes and hearing about my mother's childhood antics, all while practicing my Hindi - could a granddaughter ask for anything more? Yesterday I sat at Nani Ma's feet while she retold her experience fleeing Rawalpindi after the India-Pakistan Partition; the horrors she witnessed and the uncertainty that came with ever step. I'm continually amazed at how a woman her age so emphatically tells stories, how her piecemeal English and Susan Auntie's very limited Hindi don't stand in the way of their thoroughly enjoying each other's company. Yes, Nani Ma repeats stories sometimes and she can't walk very far without tiring, but her mind is agile as ever, and I suppose that's one of the most important things one could hope for at her stage in life.

I'm so glad that she has this opportunity to stay in Luxembourg for a few months, to take a break from the behr bahr, the hustle and bustle that cloaks New Delhi. Sitting around the kitchen table our first day here, Nani Ma first noticed the silence, the shanti, that pervades this corner of the world. The air is cool and the street's only interruption seems to the be the occasional car gliding quietly out of the neighborhood - a far cry from the humid, dusty Delhi air and the puttering, honking cars that fill the gulliya. This morning Susan Auntie said after less than a week Nani Ma seems to be looking less and less like the tired, frail woman that emerged from Brussels' airport. I only wish I had more than three days to spend reminiscing and learning from her.

More than I expected, this vacation is turning out to be just the break a student about to enter her last year of college needs. The past two weeks have been enjoyable in opposite ways - hectic, bhangra-filled wedding days in London followed by long conversation and lazing in the kitchen or along Luxembourg's countryside. While I didn't always know or understand what was going on at the wedding, I was far enough removed from it that I didn't have much responsibility, but was still in the thick of it all. The best place to be if you ask me. And now, here in Luxembourg, I'm surrounded by everything I like about European life - foreign languages, quiet countryside, and people who wear skirts and heels to go grocery shopping. But most importantly, I've got political commentary with Susan auntie, griping about school with Sara, joking around with Mamu, and Nani Ma's squeak of a laugh when she tells us she mistook Sara's hot pink slippers for some special Luxembourgish rabbit.