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One of my fondest memories as a child is sitting at my grandmother’s feet and listening to her talk about the experiences and lessons from her life. I could listen to her for hours without getting distracted. My grandmother believed that real education entailed doing things out of the comfort zone and learning to look beyond the barriers set by human minds. “Unfortunately, the the education that we receive in schools and colleges makes us more qualified than educated. It is important to grow beyond what we are taught to truly become learned and make a difference,” my grandmother often remarked. She wasn't a highly educated woman, according to the standards set by our society, and nor had she ever ‘worked’ for a living, but she was a very disciplined and astute woman, who had a mind of her own. It’s no wonder that her words still ring true in my head.
My long summer vacations during my school years were spent at my grandmother’s house, who lived in our ancestral home in the interiors of Gujarat. Spending my vacations with her always meant learning something new, either by observing her or from the valuable life-lessons she would share. One day, as I sat beside my grandmother to listen to her talk about her life struggles, I saw her opening a small box of fancy buttons. I was fascinated looking at her collection of studs, while she tried to choose the right buttons for my sweater. Little did I know that it was going to be the last sweater she would knit for me. While sifting through the buttons that had been carefully preserved over the years, we realised that none of the fancy studs in the box suited my aqua blue sweater. “Don’t worry, we shall go and buy matching buttons for your sweater, tomorrow,” my grandmother said, immediately, after watching the excitement on my face give way to a frown.
My grandmother decided to live alone following the untimely death of my grandfather. Despite several attempts to convince her that staying with her children was indeed a good idea, she refused to uproot her life and routine in that small house. She did all the household chores with little help from anyone. “The more you grow dependent the more you let someone control your life,” she would state as a matter of fact. I woke up the next morning in anticipation of my visit to the shopping market. Most vendors in the village market came from neighbouring villages and would set up shop only in the evening. The sight of make-shift stalls selling fancy items, women excitedly trying out various accessories, children pestering their mothers for a gola (ice-candy) and vendors at small eating joints calling out customers to taste their hot-selling dishes never failed to mesmerize me. It was refreshing to feel the warmth and connectedness among the people of the village without there being any need to interact with each other. It was a far cry from the busy, city life of Mumbai.
I hurried my grandmother to leave for the market so that we could reach before the market got crowded. While my grandmother and I strolled, looking at the various stalls around, many a vendor tried to stop us and display their items in a bid to promise us a better deal. “These buttons are so beautiful, Ba! They are also very light and would look perfect on a sweater,” I exclaimed, as soon as I came across some very attractive, hand-crafted buttons. I was, instantly, tempted to buy those buttons, and, much to my surprise, they also happened to be quite reasonably priced. I, immediately, turned to my grandmother, who said, “Do you see that ice-cream stall? It sells the best ice-cream in the village. And the ice-cream barely costs anything. We must go and have 5 cups of ice-cream each, today” she stated in her typically calm tone. “But I usually cannot relish ice-cream beyond 2 scoops, no matter how good it is. And did you forget that we also have to buy my favorite chocolates before going home?” I replied. My grandmother smiled as if she knew it all. “The biggest mistake we make in our lives is that we fail to differentiate between what we need and what we think we need. Just because the ice-cream is good and you can buy as many cups as you want doesn't mean we must have it beyond our capacity. At the end, you won’t benefit in any way. You've over-eaten the ice-cream, that you did not have to, and you also won’t value eating the chocolates you most love, since you've had more than your desired share of something sweet,” she explained in a manner which was indeed delightful. Although it was difficult to convince a young, raw mind to look away from what it had set itself to, for once, I had decided to heed my grandmother’s advice.
As we continued our stroll in the market, we saw a distressed man lying on the streets. There was blood dripping from his nose and his arms and feet had severe bruise marks. At first, it seemed like the man was involved in brawl with some locals, but it turned out that the man was a construction worker, who had accidentally fallen off the construction site, nearby. It was shocking to see that nobody bothered to reach out to him. All that I could gather from that sight was that there was a man covered in blood stains and crying in extreme pain, and all that the people around chose to do was take a glimpse of the situation and move on. My grandmother handed all her belongings to me and rushed to the man’s aid. With some assistance from the locals, she managed to take him to the only hospital in the village. It was later learnt that the man was suffering from vitiligo, a condition which is characterized by the loss of skin colour in certain parts of the body. In India, especially in most rural areas, people suffering from this disease are considered to be social outcasts, almost to the point of relegating them to the place of sub-humans.
The man’s family profusely thanked my grandmother for her brave act that entailed putting humanity above everything else. In their eyes, my grandmother was a real-life hero who had successfully battled the demons and unwarranted complexities of the human mind to let her real intentions come to the fore. But to my grandmother, she had only fulfilled her most basic duty as a human being. It was surprising to know how, despite being the most evolved of the lot, humans fail the evolution test every time they are pitted against each other. On our way back home, I kept pondering over the incidents that had transpired through the day. Although, at that point in time, my raw mind could take little more than the disappointment of having to go home empty-handed, there were some lessons I picked up that day that will loom large over my existence till the time I live. My grandmother was indeed correct when she stated that educated men in our society were much fewer than qualified men, for real education encompassed deeds that go far beyond selfishness and competence that degrade the spirit of humanity. One of the things the failure of our work and choices can be attributed to is the bleak division between our priorities and desires.
As humans, we, often, get so engrossed in chasing our dreams that we forget what we had actually set out for. My grandmother did not live enough to find me the right buttons for my sweater, but she enlightened a mind that would have, perhaps, been left untamed in this all-for-money world. As I continue my search for the right buttons for my sweater, I either come across buttons in inappropriate colours, or those that my wise and ‘educated’ grandmother would have never approved of.
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