It
is a sad, sad day when I reach the final page of Family Matters. For
one, an exquisitely crafted story of the day-to-day life of a lower middle
class family in 90s India is forever over. But more importantly, this was
Mistry’s final full-length novel – the author has been away from the public eye
for nearly two decades now, and I doubt he will be coming back to literature.
All we have now are the gems he left us from the decades past.
I
start thinking about the novel, its characters, political stance, and the
setting. Most of all, I sincerely wonder why a novel about a dying man in his late 70s resonated with me, a 21 year old college student. Was it to the author’s
credit, or perhaps the Indian setting? Or the outspoken contempt of certain
political factions that Mistry dares to put into words? And then I realized
that it was all of these and more. Family Matters isn’t just Nariman or
Yezad or Roxana’s story. It is the story of my family, and quite likely yours
too.
* * *
Some of my fondest childhood memories are with baa dada, my grandparents. Every year when the May vacation rolled around, my mummy and I would pack up and head to her village to live with them. This was a 3-hour long bus journey between Ahmedabad and Vadodara – sometimes I would sleep it out, my head on mummy’s lap and tiny legs stretched out over my own seat. On other occasions, determined to stay up and witness the entirety of the journey, I would look at the scenery through the rattling windows, specked with paan and dirt and grime, often stuck in place, until the green fields merged into one and sleep overcame me. I never ate or drank on the bus ride – with my history of motion sickness, that would be asking for trouble.
The best part of these visits was that I was free of parental shackles. Buying the latest flavours of Balaji and Kurkure and Hide-&-Seek for me along with the usual Roof-Afza and khus-khus sherbet brought my grandparents great joy. Dada would often take me places – back then, his legs worked just as reliably as they had for the past 70 years, not yet plagued by stiffness or joint pain. Every day was a new adventure. I was woken up on a random morning well before 7, and we went on a walk to the fields nearby. I would wonder which of these had belonged to him decades ago. I never could remember. In the afternoons, I’d accompany him to the town – a 20 minute walk – to deposit, or sometimes withdraw money, from the bank. In the evenings, we would take a rickshaw to Baroda Dairy, and he would throw the usual challenge at me – ‘Aapde ek competition rakhiye. Let’s see who can eat more cones today, hanh?’
He would always stop after the first one, the unspoken shadow of diabetes looming over him, proclaiming me the winner of our own private contest, as I lined up eagerly for more softies, alternating between chocolate and strawberry. We would return with frozen pizzas, a dying specialty of the dairy, which would almost always make my mother sick. She would retch and vomit for the next few days, marveling at how I could stomach this with no consequence. At night, the mosquitoes were not a source of annoyance but a fun game, a valiant effort to jump off of armrests and sofas and tables to squish as many of the tiny insects as I could in my palms. The morning call to prayer from the local masjid was not a nuisance but a gentle reminder of our home for the month, its familiar tones lulling me back to sleep as the broadcast neared its end. In this manner, years passed, with each one bringing down the length of our annual stay.
* * *
As
the years passed, the village routine began getting to my mother, and soon
enough, me. Age carried with it new demands that rendered the illusion of
happiness into smoke. No longer was the constant hustle and bustle endearing,
and the bunyan-clad men sitting on their front steps all day, watching
the comings and goings in every house, became an irritating, sleazy form of
perceived surveillance. Hariya mama’s tiny dukaan a short walk
away at the bottom of the hill, which had for years seemed to house all one
could need in the world, from Kurkure and Parle-G to milk and
sachets of Pantene, suddenly seemed devoid of Lay’s and
ready-to-drink Nescafé. Lining up at the municipality water tankers that came
in every morning to the chowk, and carrying back two buckets of water,
one in each hand, made us miss the running tap water back home. What used to be
a month’s visit was cut down to a few weeks, and ultimately, we stopped
visiting for the summer break altogether.
Meanwhile, age had caught up with my grandparents too. No longer could dada go on walks or take us cousins on outings as he used to. What started off as a dull throb in the knees after a fall ended up with him being confined to the house, at most able to make brief excursions to the chowk outside for evening status reports from the neighbours. Baa, struggling silently with his needs and demands and the strain of daily chores, started showing signs of exhaustion too. My mother and her sister, my maasi, decided then to move them to our city. The question was, who would shoulder the task of looking after two rapidly ageing parents?
* * *
In what was to slowly become a growing source of resentment towards my parents, the task fell to my maasi. It was mutually decided that her flat, never mind the fact that her family of four was already occupying the 3 BHK apartment, was still closer to the daily facilities that my grandparents would need. The doctor’s office was but right outside their apartment gates. In contrast, it would take at least 30 minutes by car to get to a hospital from our remote, rural home. The same went for basic needs such as pharmacies or general stores. Maasi’s place seemed like the safer bet in case they needed emergency medical attention, or simply uninterrupted power supply during those blistering summer nights.
And somehow, miraculously, they made it work. My sister’s room was given up for dada, and baa moved in with my brother. Love, it seems, can open up spaces where others would seemingly see none. From time to time, dada would be overcome with nostalgia for his hometown. Then he would cajole, threaten, or cry his way into going back there with baa silently in tow, as always, his partner in time. There they would live, happily, until the next fall or illness struck, leaving them vulnerable and in need of constant care. They would be moved back to maasi’s, and the usual changes would be made to the rooms in the apartment to accommodate the two extra occupants. In between these occasions, they would initiate a quick visit to stay at my parents’ house, more often than not as a gateway to their demands to go back to the village.
* * *
My grandfather passed away from Covid-19 in the second wave that devastated India. Since then, grandma has lived with maasi. Recently, she stayed at my parents’ for a few months before moving back to maasi’s apartment just a few days ago. What stood out to me, and started this whole trip down memory lane, was a comment mummy made while telling me that my grandma had left – ‘sad thing is that nobody wants Baa.’
This
instantly brought back Family Matters, which I had coincidentally
finished just days ago. The novel deals with much of the same themes – the
helplessness that accompanies old age, the reliance on family, and the
potential conflicts that might set up with people you’ve known all your life
when burdened with the role of caretaker. It is Mistry’s most touching work
till date, finding moments of beauty for Nariman Vakeel and his family even
when he is in the harshest grips of Parkinson’s. He also briefly touches upon
the conflict that immigration can bring about in one’s person, when you wish to
move away to a better life far away from India but ‘the loss of home leaves a
hole that never fills.’
Here is a man who gets what I feel like few others could, I think as I close the book.
Mistry hilariously - and poignantly - weaves a thread that contrasts consuming foreign literature like the Famous Five with growing up in India, but that is a discussion for another time.
Family Matters is definitely not a novel I will go around recommending to others; it falls into a specific niche, one that you get the most out of when you can relate to the situations portrayed in it. The family dynamics and the underlying culture might seem alien to foreign readers even if the book itself makes for a good read. Ultimately, I hope you come out of it the same way I did – with a deeper understanding of ageing, familial bonds, and the ties that bind us.
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