Nostalgia of a Schoolgirl

It had not been many years since India had its tryst with destiny. The city of Calicut was decked up to welcome the then Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehruji with all his suaveness and elegance, waved at the sea of people who had gathered just to see a glimpse of the great visionary and the paramount leader. Accompanying him was his young daughter- Indira Gandhi and the Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon. Nehruji gracefully waved and said Namaste to the crowd. In the crowd was a schoolgirl whose hair was neatly combed into two long pleats who stood transfixed at the sight of the great man. She had heard a lot about him from the elders in the family, who were staunch Congress loyalists. She was proud to tell her friends that she shared her birthday with Chacha Nehru. 

Pt. Nehru greeting the crowd during his visit to Calicut.
Photo Courtesy: digitalpaper.mathrubhumi.com

      My Ammamma's (Vilasini Chandrasekhar) eyes would light up each time she narrated this incident to me. She would then go on about how the leaders then would work tirelessly for the party and the nation selflessly, unlike today. "Life those days were difficult but peaceful. We did not have a lot of money as my father, an army officer was the sole earning member who had provide for his wife, five children and his younger sisters. The cities were not this developed or progressive, but we were happy. Families do not seem happy nowadays", laments my grandmother. She was the first girl in the family to receive formal schooling. Education for girls was not a granted thing then, she says. 

       Untouchability was widely practiced regardless of its abolishment and women of lower casts were not allowed to cover their breasts. Even though we belonged to a respectable Nair family, she recounts how her previous generation was not allowed into temples. Her father( my great-grandfather) thought it better to serve in the Royal Army than to serve the Zamorin monarchs where petty politics mattered over people's problems. Things had changed for better when she was growing up.

A file picture of my maternal grandparents. Late Capt. T.K. Chandrashekharan
Nair and Vilasini Chandrasekharan.

I come from a family where, growing up, I listened to my elders discussing politics over tea. Within a matter of minutes it would escalate to a level where my uncles-Congress loyalists, would be drinking a glass of water to calm their tempers and blood pressures down, arguing with younger dissenting voices. It looks nothing less than an episode of Arnab Goswami's News Hour. That was our definition of family drama. I learned more about Indian history from them than from any school textbook. It is now that I realise the worth of personal narratives of history, which goes unheard otherwise. One understands about our own sense of history, legacy and tradition from these stories, arguments and hazy memories.