To be with the truthful

My Dadi(paternal grandmother) is almost 90 years old and age is really causing her cognitive faculties to deteriorate. It’s breaking my heart to see this happen to her.

My grandmother was a very affectionate, caring and pious woman and I was really close to her. but now she keeps forgetting,she is usually not oriented to time and place, she keeps losing her way to the bathroom, she hallucinates, she keeps falling down,she gets anxiety attacks and crying spells. And the worst part is that she doesn’t recognize anybody. She treats us like strangers.

So we keep her under supervision at all times. We don’t leave her alone.
Everyday after I get home from work, I sit beside her with my arm around her while she mumbles (usually incoherently).

Yesterday she was saying,”I was not like this but my mother died then baba died, then nana, nani (referring to her grandparents) died and he also passed away (referring to my grandfather). Everyone died.” Tears trickled down her cheeks.
I felt so distressed. I hugged her, wiped her tears and tried to comfort her.
My Dadi’s parents and grandparents died in her youth but she still cries over them.
She suddenly registered my presence. She looked at me like she would look at a stranger and asked,”Have you finished your studies?”
I told her that I had finished my studies two years ago. “Then what are you doing now?”, she asked. I told her that I was working and that I had just come back from work.
She looked disturbed and mumbled to herself,”We should get you married. We need to look for a nice dulha(bridegroom) for you.”
Hearing this made me laugh! Even though my grandmother’s cognitive faculties have deteriorated very badly she STILL worries about marrying me off! That’s how most desi grannys are!

Mom is so awesome. Whenever I talk to her she brings me closer to Allah(swt). She is a woman of knowledge and faith.

Bad idea!

Everyone who reads my blog knows that I have a very pious younger brother called Mohammad. I’m not kidding when I say he is very pious. I absolutely adore him. It seems that all the religiousness of my parents has gone in one child!

Anyway, Mohammad is very careful of what he eats. He usually doesn’t eat anything from outside not even bread or milk and since we live in India he thinks almost everything is unclean (najis)!

For a long time he has been on our case because we order our chicken meat on the telephone from Umar chicken wala. Because he thinks that Umar chickenwala doesn’t say Bismillah before slaughtering. Infact whenever he used to go to get chicken himself, he used to ask him to say Bismillah loudly.

He told me later in a very distressed voice, “And you know what he did! He said Bismillah while picking the chicken for slaughtering but didn’t say Bismillah before actually slaughtering it!”
I think the chicken wala must have sensed my brothers hostility towards him. Because the other day Mohd. went to buy chicken meat from him and as usual he asked him to say Bismillah loudly. That was the last straw.

Umar lost his cool.

He burst out,” I don’t even know what Bismillah means! Heck, I’m not even sure if Allah exists! Everything we give you is Halal! Even if we give you dead meat it’s halal!”

“I told you”, Mohd. said to me later after narrating this incident,”We can’t trust an Umar!”

We had 28 members of my extended family (my nanihaal) coming together after a long time. It was fun.
I discovered that:
Swimming is not as easy as it looks.
I suck at playing pool.
I need to look for a new job.
I love my family.
That’s all.

I thought it was after maghreb. I was going to attend it after work.But it happened before maghreb. There are sooo many weddings happening in my family that I got confused. I’m feeling so horrible. She is not just my cousin, she is my good friend. And as luck would have it I didn’t attend her engagement, I didn’t attend her manjha and now I missed her nikah too!
She is going to feel very bad and to be very honest if I had been in her place I would have felt bad too!

Every one has got together and we are having a lot of fun. We even calculated my grandmothers birthday according to the Gregorian calendar. She only knew her birthday according to the Hijri one. Her birthday is on Sat 25 April 1942. Nani was as sarcastic and cynical as ever,”What do you want to know my birthday for? To recite my fateha!”

It’s not a surprise anymore thanks to my little sister!

Mom was giving me a lecture today:”I have never seen an Islamic woman laugh loudly.”
So, I think I will stop laughing.