I came down to Goa for a sabbatical to see the folks and dropped in to see Avo (which means granny in Portuguese). She sqealed in delight when she saw me. This is her usual way of acknowledging someone she has not seen in a long time — to sqeal in delight.
A trip to visit my maternal granny is always an amusing experience. She’s 93, a wee bit frail, and her mental faculties are pretty sharp. She does have her batty moments, though.
Sometimes, she sees a procession marching past her window and sometimes a thief steals into her room. She summons little Pepper, the family spaniel, and asks her to bite the robber. However, little Pepper looks all bewildered.
We suspect that she could be seeing ghosts, but she doesn’t seem scared, one bit. Just a little excited, which gets her all animated. And then there are her dreams, which she narrates every morning. We plan to publish a book, titled ‘Avos dreams’, as they provide good fodder for intertainment.
Post the niceties, she got straight down to asking if I have found ’someone’ — as in have you found someone to marry. She prays for me a lot, she says. I just smile and don’t say yes or no. She’s waiting for me to get married, and has a dress ready and all for the occasion!
Next, my uncle pulls her leg. He tells her that I had ’someone’, but the chap was demanding a lot of dowry. “Wosambhor”, she yells in Konkani, the literal translation meaning, ‘ Tell him to go to hell. ” Our daughter is made of gold,” she adds.
This lady could teach the dowry-demanding, dowry-giving populace a thing or two about values and self-worth.
written with alot of passion