On the 12th of November I wrote:

“I am not here to sight-see, but to meet my mother and grandmother whom I had not seen in more than two years.”

My grandmother passed away on the evening of the 15th of November.

She was at home, in the surroundings she has lived in for the past 50 of her 90.5 years (exact, to the day – she was born on 15-May-1913). She was hale and hearty, and not ill in any way. She did not suffer, nor was she in any pain at all, she just had a cardiac arrest, and it was all over in seconds.

I am glad I listened to my Piscean intution by coming to Germany despite all the stuff I should have been attending to in India. I was able to spend more than a week with her, in her home, completely normally. I spent time talking to her, singing to her, joking with her, eating meals together. On last Sunday, we had a family gathering where everyone dropped in impromptu and had a rollicking time. And I was lucky enough to be here and part of it.

Yesterday, she and I had lunch together, at her dining table, as we did every day that I have stayed in her home since I was born.

Here is a poem my daughter Geetanjali wrote this morning. It refers to the times when she and my grandmother were together – neither being able to speak the other’s language, but getting on like a house on fire.

My Fairy Great-Grandmother

A cheerful smile greeted me every morning
And another one always bade me goodnight
We couldnt talk, but we laughed
We couldnt speak, but we smiled.
In a way an adult, and in a way a child
Insistant on looking good all the time.
But no cream, no powder could ever illuminate
That wonderful face of hers as much as it already was.
For when she smiled, everything else was forgotten.
But she will never ever be.

– Geetanjali