Concerning Aajis
Aajis are a huge part of every Maharashtrian family, they come in all shapes and sizes, and can normally be found in the living room knitting lumpy sweaters or in the kitchen preparing banquets fit for twenty people
Out of the thousands of aajis in my family one of my closest ones is my maternal aaji (Punya-chi aaji) who was yoghurt-personified; a wonderfully mild and nurturing lady who sadly isn’t with us anymore but who is probably enjoying unlimited chaha and bakarwadis in aaji heaven. The other one is my Mumbai-chi aaji, a yoga doing, tech savvy, eccentric lady who is full of surprises. Yes still to this day whenever I go to Mumbai and stay with her I always end up waking up incredibly early thinking somebody is having an asthma attack – in reality it is aaji doing her yoga which looks more like somebody break-dancing or doing breathing exercises like a Dyson 500 hoover.
In the same way that everybody’s aaji is unique, there are certainly defining factors to my one – the main one being that she genuinely believes that she speaks English extremely well. A little bit of background - this extraordinary lady was widowed in her thirties and had to look after three loud children during a time when telephones were the size of washing machines, so you can imagine how difficult it must have been. Almost immediately and without support she decided to enrol in English lessons and eventually became a teacher; commendable to say the least, and yet I still have sincere difficulty trying to understand what on earth she is saying to me. I firmly believe that speaking fluent English does not make anybody a cultured genius so it doesn’t actually bother me that I have to spend ten minutes trying to make sense of her five word text messages; because what I love is her confidence that she truly believes she is speaking well. Before I learnt patience from my aai and un-patience from my baba I learnt something special from my aaji – to believe in yourself.
To be fair, I prefer when she speaks Marathi to me, again I still don’t understand entirely what she is saying because it’s either too fast or it’s old school Mahabharat-style Marathi; but there is definitely something comforting being around an older aai who keeps speaking fluent Marathi to me; I tend to stick to smiling back and just saying “haa bara” which mostly works.
Now I know I said in the first paragraph that aaji is tech savvy. There is an element of truth as well as total lies to that statement. I have to commend her on actually installing wifi in her flat and for using an iPhone. Yes, an actual iPhone. This is incredible progress for an elderly person, at least I thought it was until she learned to Face-time me. I have got used to having regular Face-time calls with my aaji’s hearing aid or her eyeballs, but it would be nice if I could see her face again one day again.
The critical point to her apart from the obvious language barrier is that she is the glue that links me to India apart from my parents. Staying with her in Mumbai means I am staying where my parents stayed when they were young, when she tells me stories they are the same ones she told my baba when he was young, almost like a domino effect. If it weren’t for aaji and the bond I have with her there would be a high chance I wouldn’t even visit India to the same extent. If it weren’t for aaji I would also never have been able to eat the most fantastic food I have ever tasted.
I don’t actually think I have ever heard of an aaji who cooks bad food, it must be a special cook gene they develop. Even smashing a mango at my mouth does not compare to the taste of aaji’s home made Kandyachi Amti or the miniature polis laden with thup. Aajis have an in-built ability to cook things that make you put on at least five kilograms within five minutes, and they also force feed you by sneaking extra polis into your plate, followed by rice. Thankfully as my aaji gets older, the diameter of her polis are shrinking so it’s not as much of a worry.
It breaks my heart every time it comes to the end of my Mumbai trip especially the night before I have to leave for London but we have both come up with a ritual to celebrate our time together. After saying my goodbyes to the other twenty aajis who live in her block of flats, on the final evening aaji gets decked up in one of her fabulous saris and I take her out to a restaurant for a cocktail and a meal. This is the kind of aaji I would read about in Aaji-Vogue, sashaying into a restaurant and ordering a piña colada while tucking into her meal, all she is missing is sunglasses.
Finally, and most importantly aaji is a perfect example of how to never ever cross a road. Erratic behaviour runs incredibly deep through my family but I thought elderly people were calm and avoided stressful situations; these are the kind of old people you read about in books. In real life however you get people like aaji who goes walking into roads guns blazing without thinking about safety. She’s the “I want to speak to the manager or I will break down your door” types. Every time I am in Mumbai I leave her flat knowing fully well it may be the last time I see it – because most likely within half an hour I will have been run over by a scooter or a gigantic cow. If I am still alive now it is only because of her dragging me with her. Aaji ignores the fact that she is over eighty years old, faces the traffic head on, grabs my hand and pulls me forward. She keeps her head held high and marches into the road in manner of Amitabh Bachchan with me as her terrified sidekick.
What have I learned from her? Apart from charging into roads aaji has shown me how a strong woman stays strong for the people she loves. And her hearing aid has shown me that sometimes it’s best to just voice call.
**I know commenting has been a total nuisance to figure out on the previous two posts, please see instructions below:
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4) Give your aajis a call and tell them you love them
