"Women are like pine

          Let them grow fine"

     The thought was almost revolting that the grandmother was young and pretty.  She called up her childhood how she played sports and games.   

     She had always been short and fat and slightly bent.  Her face was criss-cross of wrinkles.  She was old and feeble but she was static and dynamic.  She was constant and consistent in her functional day to day manuals.

     She hobbled about the house in spotless white with one hand resting on her waist to balance her stoop and the other telling the beads of the rosary.

     She was as beautiful as the winter landscape in the mountains serenity breathing peace and contentment. 

      The grandmother and the child were good friends.  His parents left him with her when they went to the city to make their fortune.

      She used to wake him up eary in the morning and make him ready for the school.  She used to inculcate spirituality in ever walk of life.  She took hime to school and picked him up in the evening.  And in the evening,she taught him and helped him in his stuides.Returning from school, she used to feed the hungry dogs with crumbs of stale chappati.

      He went to the university for higher studies.  Whenhe went abroad for studies, she accepted her seclusion with resignation.  She was emotional and sentimental.  The affinity between them waxed more and more day by day.  The happiest moments were with her sparrows whom she fed longer and with frivolous rebukes.

      On the eve of her doomsday there was a change over her.  She collected the women of the neighbourhood and started to sing.  For several hours, she thumped the sagging skins of the dilapidated drum and sang of the home coming warriors.

      Though we persuaded her to stop to avoid over straining  she was not deterred.  She foretold her destiny.  Though we protested she ignored it.  She lay peacegully in bed praying and telling her beads.  Even before we could suspect, her lips stopped moving and the rosary fell from her lifeless fingers.  A peaceful pallor spread on her face and we knew that she was dead.

     It was customary and all the funeral ceremonies were completed.  She was peacefully carried away to the graveyard.  Thousands of sparrows were present there.  When they were offered pieces of bread they did not take any notice of it and flew away mournfully.

     “The elder generation hands over the torch to the younger generation when they depart”.