You Can't Force History

Before this trip, my sister, Rathi, discussed with me about getting a tape recorder or writing things that my 94 year old grandmother has to say. I thought for a millisecond and said "I'll think about the matter." Never did. I never thought of myself as a journalist but someone who can dig up dirt for good or bad. The death of Billy Ray Wright comes to mind for instance. Mr. Wright has public documentation in existing in Charlotte, NC from 1944 to 1962 from records, city directories, and microfilms at the city public library. With my own grandmother, these resources are unavailable then and now in Pudukkottai District where she was born and raised.

However, those are just documentaions. The real history is the oral ones and what the person is about. They are the tough ones because nobody wants to talk freely but with some editing. With Billy, I tried to ask his family and classmates through the internet but family said nothing and classmates who did know him said, "Nice guy this, nice guy that." With my grandmother before Malaysia, it was when I'm going to get married. When I asked about the past, it was yes/no, what date, and what period.

When I came back to Pudukkottai, I just laid in bed and watched cricket. Meanwhile, my uncle and cousin, Senthil (sorry about adding more grey to your hair) went back and forth to city offices to allow me to stay in Pudukkottai for a week. Apparently, I violated an Indian law when I left for Malaysia. You can only come back two months after you leave India. I came back within a week. Those agencies will play the red tape game of not letting you leave town till you pay the cash. They have these books to document those. Those books are so big and dusty, they put those old Greek tablets to shame. Those goverment buildings are not computer automated but high-rank folks in government have them.

During the whole time, I was laying in bed and mulling around. This house servant who gave me tea which seemed like every hour who was getting disgusted with my behavior of not wanting to do anything. Particularly with my grandmother sitting downstairs by herself with nobody to talk to and is in excruciating pain at 94. The house servant said in a nice coersive way that I should go down and talk to her. I did albeit, reluctantly. Here comes the marriage talk.

Yes, the talk ended up being about marriage but I learned some interesting aspects of her history. Some too detailed to write but some I could mention. When I was younger, I had skin issues and use to scream when they tried to scrub my skin with soap and lotion. She mentioned about my sister, Kamini, her surgery just after birth, and how she cared for her. When she was in Chicago around 1974, she saw this guy throw a snowball at another kid who fell to the ground (I heard a story about this on reelradio.com from 1974). Likewise, she was trying to cook rice on a kitchen stove in Baltimore and set it on fire. Finally, she talked about her life how she had to raise her sister's two kids at fourteen when she died of typhoid in her early twenties.

Her memories really made me undertand the person she is and the person she became (I now understand why my relatives scrubbed me so hard when giving me a bath as a youngster). Grandmother is still alive and Billy is gone. I remember these folks in Atlanta would want to know more about their history of their relatives in Tamilnadu. Grandma had some antedotes about these folks when I visited her. My thought said, go ask grandma. She knows more than you think but don't force it out of her.