Filmy And Vacation Grandmothers

The Smugbug has an aching post about the omnipresent great Tamil grandmother – Paati.

I never had a very personal relationship with Lakshmi Paati. She was my vacation paati. She rarely visited us in the sleepy small towns that we lived in, because it was too hot or too cold. So we visited her. In between meeting the two dozen uncles, aunts and cousins, one had to take time out and spend with her. My conversations with her were usually minimal, because there were other cousins who were vying for her attention and I was anyway too shy. She was always faintly disappointed with me was the sense I got each time. What song did you learn recently, she would ask. I knew what would come next, that she would ask me to sing the said new song, and that petrified me. I was an awkward eight-year old.