Pratap Chandra Patro (my paternal grandfather)

When I was told to write about one person in the Patro family, I immediately thought of Bapa. He was the most excited person when my mother was carrying for me. He kept telling my mother “It will be a boy! It will be a boy!” But when I was born he was disappointed that I was a girl. This disappointment soon changed into obsessive love and affection. My Bapa, always used to pick me up in his arms and take me away to his room whenever I was corrected, screaming at my parents for being harsh on me. I used to watch television in his room and used to love listening to his broken-speech. I used to crawl in between Santo and Bapa in the mosquito net and sleep. I used to use his huge paunch as my pillow and climb all over him. This used to make Bapa smile widely making his eyes look so tender and loving. He let me do things that others wouldn’t dare dream of doing like dotting his entire body with Nivea Cream or covering him with huge amounts of talcum powder. He used sing nonsensical little ditties to me.I am very lucky not to have been the recipient of his temper. I had heard about Bapa excelling in every field, cooking, language, literature and singing, but I am unfortunate not to have witnessed his extraordinary abilities because when I was born he had already lost his speech and had a paralytic stroke on his entire right side. But there is one thing I am very fortunate to have known at least one Grandfather. Standing six foot, fair and good features, he was still the most handsome person and exuded an air of authority His eyes always spoke so much to me though his tongue failed him every time. He never could take anyone’s name, but with great difficulty he made it a point to say “S- O- N- U!” Years went by and I grew to know Bapa more. He was becoming old, more and more mentally sick, though he had the constitution of an ox. He began failing to recognize people. I remember, one day I asked Bapa “Who am I?” he said, “I don’t know.” I wept copiously because he dint take my name, but then I thought, “Is he so ill, that he cant remember me?” That was the first time I got scared, only thinking that Bapa is deteriorating day by day. Days and years went by and as I feared, Bapa’s health, more so his memory, was failing. He was hospitalized. Eventually he succumbed to a heart attack at seven in the morning. It was on the 22nd of July 2008, the day before my birthday that Bapa passed away. I attended his funeral on my birthday. I was as it is numbed with pain that Bapa was no more, but on my birthday attending the person’s funeral, whom I loved the most in the world, was heart wrenching.Two years have elapsed, but the pain hasn’t dulled, and I only think of the fact that Bapa is no more. I am very happy only about one thing is that Bapa is at a better place - with God, away from pain that he went through. For everyone he has been a terror, but for me he has always been a besotted grandfather.