Grandpa had lost it.

We watched. Anxiously at first, and then warily. If one day he massaged pink antacid liquid on his cheeks, the next he wrapped a saree round his head like a turban. Even as his treatment continued, his condition worsened.

Through all this, grandmom nursed him diligently. Not your submissive, self effacing Indian woman, grandmom was feared for her acid tongue, loved for her generosity and worshipped for her indomitable spirit. Her fiery personality easily overshadowed my grandpa’s docile, gentle self.

Thrice before, grandmom had single-handedly nursed grandpa back to life, and steered the family away from starvation. Poor old grandpa could never really come to terms with the ways of the world, happy to be left alone with his books and music. He was as forgiving to the man who picked his pocket clean, as to the doctor who nearly killed him with incorrect diagnosis.

And at 84 years of age, he was still crazy about his wife. If she ever stepped out of the house for more than 15 minutes, he would totter to our room. Giving us his toothless, sheepish smile he would ask in his pucca colonial accent, “Have you seen my wife? I can’t seem to find her!”

This time, things were different. As grandpa sunk deeper and deeper into darkness, grandmother seemed to get edgier, her tongue sharper.

Every time grandpa did something crazy, she stood before him, waving her index finger furiously, “I have just ordered the best sandalwood for your funeral, you hear that?!”
We laughed nervously at this unlikeliest expression of love.

One morning, we woke up to a different grandpa. The mild-mannered, soft-spoken Gandhian was in a fury, tossing things around, charging at anyone trying to get close. Invisible monsters were dancing around him, teasing and tormenting him.

Having unsuccessfully tried to calm him down, grandma was furious. “Why don’t you die you mad man! If you don’t, I am going to kill you myself!”

The unimaginable happened. Grandpa raised his voice, for the first time in his life. “Ustad! Ustad!” he screamed. “Look at this woman, who thinks she is some ustad! Ustad! Ustad! Here she comes!” His voice echoed in the house long after the fury had died down.

Next day, grandmother disappeared for a good few hours. We waited anxiously for grandpa to peek into our room and ask for his wife.

He didn’t.

One by one, all of us were wiped out from grandpa’s memory.

Grandmom grew silent.

Grandpa died a month later.

There was a ritual on the 11th day of his death. Grandmom sat on a white mattress, watching the endless stream of solemn, moist-eyed guests.

“When we first met, I was perched on a guava tree in our garden. He was walking in with his cousin, who was to ask my cousin’s hand in marriage. I was 12, didn’t want my cousin to go away and hated boys. I hurled a guava at him, hurting him badly.”

Smitten by the guava-chucking girl, grandpa never brought this incident up with the family. Later, he married her. In the initial days of marriage, when the young couple barely managed some privacy, grandpa would lovingly address his wife as ‘Ustad’.

“Ustad, the one who was good at everything,” she sighed.

The name was long forgotten, until a fading memory brought it back to life.

The day was ending. Ustad gathered her white mourning saree and walked off towards the kitchen, yelling instructions to the maids.