It's the Small Things | Three Generations at a Dining Table

In a home, between the three generations of women, what could be a common language?

When I sit with my mother and grandmother around our dining table, sipping tea over biscuits and snacks, it is incomprehensibility that we share. Each of us cannot understand the other's stories despite living under the same roof. We differ from each other. The difference is ruthless yet beautiful. We reach a point of being lost in translation. Yet,
sometimes, old age, as cruel as it is, can answer many of our questions.

The joint family of my maternal side was where I was raised; I grew up around women. The inter-generational sharing of anger, gossip and tantrums had loud noises and moments of happiness tied in. The conversations between the women who raised me mostly took place in the kitchen and around the dining table in the living room. My maternal grandmother, the stubborn woman I grew up watching, is inspirational yet at constant odds with her three children, all women.

In my childhood, I used to hear the plates and ladles in the kitchen being thrown around or being cleaned with loud clattering noises. The aromas from the kitchen were homely but not very delicious. However, it was edible and we loved it.

My grandmother back then used to cook boiled sweet potato and serve it with red spicy chutney. But she only liked to cook and not to clean the cooker or the sink. Then, there is the chana masala curry of my mother, and some other curry made with capsicum and onion which I never used to like. Fried rice, an item for Sundays, is cooked by my aunt but the
rice is way too sticky. Then with idlis, the red hot tomato chutney is the classic breakfast everyday, except on Sundays.

The kitchen scenes change depending on the family's feelings. Clanging plates, muttered words behind pursed lips or, very rarely, a general atmosphere of peace. Anything could be the secret ingredient. But nevertheless, the most genuine flavour was of love. That love might not have known long periods of peace but it was love nevertheless.

Now as I see it, the conversations around the dining table have aged. They are no more about the cooker kept unwashed in the sink by grandma, a constant point of debate between my mother and her mother back then, but about the medicines, the clinical check ups and the routine physiotherapy my grandmother need.

Earlier, silence was hard to find in this space, but age has taken its toll. My grandmother now feels lonely in our house. She asks me to keep her company and between two cups of tea, it is loneliness we share. A question or two about my college and that too for the sake of asking. Her ears are slow and so is her memory.

The ninth member of our family is our black Labrador. Now he too is old, his hefty body trembles on his four legs.  Just last week, the postman was telling someone, "That is the house with the black haired dog and the white haired grandma." So when someone asks my address, it is always my grandma's house and our old dear dog that I
remember.

Ananya M.P. is a final year BA student in sociology at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.

We’ve grown up hearing that “it’s the small things” that matter. That’s true, of course, but it’s also not – there are Big Things that we know matter, and that we shouldn’t take our eyes, minds or hearts off of. As journalists, we spend most of our time looking at those Big Things, trying to understand them, break them down, and bring them to you.

And now we’re looking to you to also think about the small things – the joy that comes from a strangers’ kindness, incidents that leave you feeling warm, an unexpected conversation that made you happy, finding spaces of solidarity. Write to us about your small things at thewiresmallthings@gmail.com in 800 words or less, and we will publish selected submissions. We look forward to reading about your experiences, because even small things can bring big joys.

Read the series here.

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