My Granny(ଜେଜେମା) : The Gem of My Family that she was
Being born to a Brahmin family, my grandmother Bhagabati Mishra had all those qualities that a Brahmin woman should have. She was born at a village near Sambalpur, Odisha called Gurupali. She had a great source of practical wisdom. She could make some utility artifacts out of inexpensive material with exquisite colour and design. She was super active and agile, while doing her work, be it cooking indigenous dishes or creating art and craft of exquisite looks and traditional design. She had a large repertoire of stories of various types, which she would narrate from time to time at ease like an expert.
With an amazing sense of humour, she would narrate them to perfection. The characters of her stories had superhuman strength. Some of them had indomitable will power. A few could fly with ease like birds and others could become invisible anytime! A few could take any shape and play tricks on anyone!
She would open her box of stories mostly when she would feed me and other children or when she wished us to take a nap in the long summer afternoons. I often remember sleeping off while listening to her enchanting stories on fairies, princess and nymphs and dreaming in that fairyland. I particularly remember her story of a frog and princess and how the frog transforms into a handsome prince and marries her and they live happily ever after. Her storytelling was so engrossing that we would refuse to budge from her side for hours on end!
She would also narrate many fact-based stories that made us sit glued to her face in wonder! We were five brothers and seven more of my cousins would make it a dozen children to get entertained by her skill of storytelling to a fault. The astounding quality of her art was such that she would never tell the same story twice! We often wondered how she could remember so many stories! But she would never reveal that secret!
All her stories had some morals and lessons to learn. Even all her anecdotes on life had some valuable lessons. Lastly, she would insist that we had to respond that we had been listening! Oh, my Jejema!
Sanjay Kumar Mishra
WhatsApp# +919981411674
snjymshr64@gmail.com
Department of English
Rajkumar College, Raipur
Chhattisgarh, India
So sweet
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