Family Story – A Lesson well learnt!!
Photo credit: anitapeppers from morguefile.com
It was a matter worth wondering about how a person’s mood could come down from a high-in-the-sky mood to becoming as grumpy as a just woken up gorilla. The news of my grandfather’s arrival made me feel so.
Normally, people just LOVE their grandparents. But this is not so in my case. My grandfather’s visits usually mean no rap music, over-discipline, wearing old-fashioned clothes, no movies, no enjoyment on a friend’s visit and lots more. Even the music he listens to are so old that even my great- grandfather himself would have not known about them. I am made to study 24 hours a day, even a break for 5-minutes, to him meant a never-ending break and that that I’m a jobless, useless male who’s a waste of space. But this visit’s got to be even worse- I’ve got to share my bedroom with him! This means that I have no freedom in my own room.
After his arrival, I just said, “Hi grandpa.” And since then I haven’t spoken to him much except for a thousands of ‘no grandpa, it is just a 5- minute break’ or ‘OK grandpa’. But this could not go for long.
My friends told me about a recently released song, which according to them was very good. I really wanted to hear it. But there was only one problem, a teeny-weeny problem- how do I listen to it?
All the electronic devices were banned except for, of course, the television. But as I said before, my grandfather was listening to old songs. I begged him for what seemed hours and finally I said,” What enjoyment did you find in this? The rock songs are much cooler”
He gave a grandpa-ish sort of laugh, and after a short pause said,” So what is it that you call coolness? Watching television all day long? Or is it playing with a Playstation all day? I don’t care whatever it is. But at our time coolness was thrill, adventure and most important of all- finding a moral in every good deed you do or every story you read”
Yet not wanting to accept defeat, this time I asked rather more aggressively,” So were you cool?” ,
” Seriously” He said, and after a short pause said,” You’re asking an explorer whether he experienced thrill or adventure?”
Seeing my puzzled state of mind he said,” Hasn’t your mother told you anything about me?”
I tried to remember something but my mind wouldn’t allow me to. He then gave a sigh of exasperation and said,” Never mind, I’ll say it myself. I never had any ambition. I was carefree and to say it in the simpler way, I was more like you. At about 16 years of age, I found out that I had a knack for exploration. However, exploration from being an interest became my profession. The Institute of exploration of ancient history and artefacts (I hope you heard of it) developed my skills. I and my group were very famous explorers of my time (you would’ve known had you taken research as a time pass). If you didn’t believe me yet, then who do you think found Hen-Huen? Or Cokworth or Cibola (the city of gold)? Do you think a bunch of tribals just named the island ‘Andaman and Nicobar islands’? It was your grandfather (that is me of course) with his group who successfully mapped the whole island with a lot of adventures. In fact, it was a natural habitat to many mystic creatures which were believed to be extinct like, the luminescent nightingales, Hippogriffs and many more. Once, while escaping from an Igno phoenix (probably got the name from its flame throwing capacity and also its scarlet-yellow body colour), we had to run on a narrow road on top of a waterfall. A sudden change in pressure and weight makes it loose and it falls. One of the group members fell from it and was never to be seen. So, if you want to become something, find your abilities now “And now with a more intense expression “or never”.
Saying this, he got up to leave. By this time, many doubts were running in my mind, but there was one that was the most troubling. So I asked my grandfather ,” So what was the moral in this story” And it was then that my grandfather with a sarcastic smile said,” It teaches us that it is not necessary to believe in every story you witness” and saying this he left the room.
It was at this point I understood who was cooler –
ME or MY GRANDFATHER
***
AUTHOR
CHARAN PALLAV
(A grandson of a very cool grandfather)
