Exam results

I was done with Maths exam, Phew! I was happy because I had done well. If I said I had done well it always meant that I would get more than 36 and probably less than 50 out of 100. I breezed through my other exams and was finally done with my exams. My sis and I went to our ajji mane (dad's mom, my grand mother) in Madikeri to spend the summer holidays. My ajji mane is not a typical ajji mane, what I actually mean is my ajji is not a typical ajji. Now who is a typical ajji? that gets me wondering. Hmm.. let me think, a typical ajji is one who pampers you silly, indulges you with great mouth watering delicacies, and doesn't say a word for all the mischief you have done. A typical ajji is one who never ever gets angry with you. In one word, she is my ammamma, my mother's mom who is the most lovable creature in this world, I simply adore her !!

Coming back to my "not so typical" ajji, she has never ever hugged me or my sis, never ever planted a kiss, I don't remember her speaking lovingly at all. I remember my mom telling me sometime that, when I was a 6 month old kid I had wet myself and my ajji called my mom who was busy doing some work to come and clean me up. Never once has she held me or my sis when we were babies. However, she was a totally different person with her daughter's kids, especially her eldest daughter Bharathi's kids Archana and Prashantha. For her grand children meant archana and prashantha, it was always archana this archana that, prashantha this prashantha that. This would hurt us a lot, and I used to hate my ajji very much for this.

At the same time she wasn't a monster. She would barely tolerate our visit at a minimum. We were kids then and wouldn't really mind this at all. Our ajji's house is on a hill and you can see a beautiful hill called Suswagath betta, you can also see beautiful rice fields called Kannandamaane. My sis and I were only concerned about the great weather and beautiful scenery and didn't mind our ajji's lack of love or affection. We would go out for long walks in the morning and come back really famished for lunch. Our ajji was a stickler for timeliness. She would serve us food only at 1-30 p.m, immediately after some "ceylonese" program on vividh bharathi (All India Radio). God knows the reasoning behind this. We used to sit on the floor and my ajji used to put these goni cheelas which are nothing but hay stacks on the floor and that was our mats. The moment she would say goni haaki meaning put the goni, it would signal lunch or dinner or breakfast. She was an awesome cook but she didn't really cook many varieties. It was always one sambar (melogara) and one chutney or one rasam and one sambar. We didn't complain as we were famished after long hours of playing with other kids.

I used to call her "Colonel ajji", there used to be a kannada program called "crazy colonel" and I decided to coin the same phrase for my ajji. We had a friend called Venu he always used to hang out with us. After a month's stay at Madikeri we headed off to Bangalore. My results were to be announced on April 10th (once again I don't know why the schools in Bangalore always chose this date). I would pray to god every day to help me get good marks. I guess when we were kids we would rely a lot on god for some miracle regarding our results :).