Viju chechy

        Viju chechy (my father’s elder sister) passed away many years ago. She was unmarried and stayed with her mother at her sister’s home. When ammachi (my grandmother) had moved into our house in Kottayam, to take care of my younger sister and me, Viju chechy stayed back with her sister and her family in Kollam. For many long years, the mother and daughter stayed away from each other. I don’t know if they missed each other or what their feelings for each other were. 

Whenever we visited my father’s sister’s home, I remember her standing at the door’s corner. She was a frail woman and wore a flowy sari. Her lips had a red tinge that came from constant chewing of the betel. She would run to the nearby small shop and come back with a shapeless newspaper pack for me. It contained sweets of different shapes and colours. Sweets of those days. Those that were put up in big glass jars. 

Those were her only gestures of affection for me. She didn’t know the language of sweet and sophisticated talk or cuddles and hugs. I don't know what her thoughts or  hobbies were. I guess, nobody knew.

Like all mothers, ammachi had a special place for her in her heart.

She had shared with me a particular incident of her daughter many times- as a story or as a reference to some other story.  Maybe the memory was strong in her mind that it resurfaced time and again in her mind. Ammachi always verbalized her thoughts and she had many listeners. 

Therefore, I have heard the story get narrated not just to me, but also to many others.

The incident happened when Viju chechy was quite young. The oil lamp, used during those days to light the late evening hours , somehow fell off the table and her clothes caught fire. I clearly remember her narrating how the fire on the cloth clinging on to her daughter's breasts was put off with ammachi’s own hands. 

The daughter would have carried eternal burnt marks on her breasts. The mother probably thought of her daughter through those marks. And the marks might have reminded the daughter of the pain and her mother. Or maybe she hasn't paid any attention to it.

Viju chechy had her daily dose of medicines. When she got a tumor in her stomach, I remember people saying that it might be the medicines that caused her the tumor. 

I don’t know if she died a painful death.  

When she breathed her last, Ammachi was already diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 

She couldn't attend her daughter's funeral. Her memory and health had started to fade by then. But the daughter occupied much of her mother’s thoughts even during those days. 

Within months, Ammachi also left us. It was as if she just wanted to survive her daughter. 
To make sure that her daughter never died motherless.