Stature

Long before side-wheels became popular and when India was still in the nineties, under my mum's able tutelage, I began learning the art of balance on two wheels. She would constantly hold the handle-bars and run alongside me, refusing to let go. It all came back to me today, in one of those black-and-white flashes we're all so familiar with, thanks to Nolan: the first day I rode my first cycle, all by myself. Strangely though, it wasn't my mom at my side on the day it happened. It was grandpa.

Like a loose rock causing a landslide, a barrage of memories come back from the forgotten corners of the brain. I vividly recall that day, in Bangalore, when I tripped and fell, thus knocking out my first milk-tooth. It wasn't the pain which had affected my that day, but the sight of blood. Beyond that, I only recall staring into the sky as grandpa carried me home...

It feels strange to acknowledge that the very man who once used to carry me with consummate ease - someone who would, in those days, boast about his days inside battle-tanks and his travels across the globe - has waned in strength. Time is a cruel taskmaster. But one realizes that there are certain things that even Time cannot take away from us.

We talked at length that day about the culmination of my four years at Roorkee and life in the offing. Mentioning 'Schlumberger' as an 'Oil-field Service Provider', as I have so many times in the past, I ran him through the job-profile the company offered - to the extent I knew, that is. Most people don't understand what a barrel of crude is; few people know how a rig-functions and some people are quite baffled when they're told that oil comes from underneath the earth's surface.

But that day, I watched grandpa sitting on the sofa by the window, bent-double, uncomfortably picking at the mango with his fork, as he explained to me, in detail, what the oil-industry is about and what kind of rugged life a field-engineer must expect - eliminating a few doubts which have been growing inside my head. Having thrown in a bunch of stories from his work at Houston and Vancouver to supplement his facts, and having finished his mango, with some effort, he finally rose from the table.

At this age, he was not nearly as big and powerful as I once knew him to be, but clearly he was the tallest person in the house.