My Bhajiya!

Here’s my maternal grandmother circa 1949, in her early 20s, in the only photograph we have of her from her youth.

I was just thinking whether it was a good thing that photographs were taken on rare occasions and that the beauty that shined through had to do with that, or if people were indeed just more beautiful in those days, without all that make-up or filters. I mean, when someone who’s, say, 35 today looks at their own photos from their 20s, they’ll just be inundated with so much that it won’t be as joyful as it is when I see this one of my ‘Bhajiya‘!

By the way, there’s a story behind that name. You see, she became a grandmother at around 45 years of age (when I was born to her daughter), which, even in those days, was a bit on the younger side. And so, everyone used to tease her with, ‘Aji, Aji, kandyachi bhaji’ (it’s untranslatable into any other language, but is basically a nonsensical rhyme equating a grandmother to onion fritters). As an infant simply imitating the adults, I picked up on it and started calling her ‘Bhajji‘, which turned into ‘Bhajiya‘, and then, everyone who came after me (Abhijit, Neha, Aditi, even Abhi’s and my first wives) started to use that name. And hence, Bhajiya, my beautiful (and very very very tough) maternal grandmother.