She was born in the hills
dotted with villages quiet and small.
Her village was breathtakingly beautiful
With a scenic landscape,
A free flowing, humming river
And a little noisy waterfall.
In such a divine backdrop
No wonder
She lived a free soul's blissful human life
From birth till her marriage
To an equally free-spirited man
My grandpa.
Yes, she was my grandma...
My Dadi.
They lived a long, happy life together,
A 50-year long association
But, for any pain or sorrow
There was hardly an occasion.

Till much after my grandpa's demise
Dadi then well into her seventies was still firmly in her zone
Until we all thought she couldn't be left alone
Any more.
So she was shifted to our house here
In the city
For her due care.
For about a decade she shared with me her room as well as her experiences back home.
Hardly was there a day
When she had nothing to say
about her village
And implicitly the price she had to pay
To stay away.
She yearned for her village
As she felt suffocated in the city like a bird in cage.
On one such occasion she confided in me that she felt lovely
Alright
But quite lonely
Without Dada
Who she thought was waiting for her in the village
And that she wanted to take her last breath there.
So papa was persuaded to make a family trip to the village.
It was a relative's marriage.
The whole village gathered under the moonlight.
Full of fun and frolic the celebrations went all through the night.
There was music
There was sound
And a happy Dadi kept dancing around.
As she went to sleep later
She asked for a glass of water,
Drank it and slept
Never to be awake thereafter.

We all were left dazed and amazed...wondering
What a splendid spell of life,
What a way to live!
What a way to go!!