The woman in the picture

She sits on the ground in the front row. Her hair is neatly parted to the left and tidily draped with her sari.  Her eyes are focused away from the camera- not exactly to the ground, but inward as if she were contemplating the future.

(My grandmother is in the white sari with the dark border, her head covered,  in the front row, fifth from the left)

I have often looked at the picture and wondered what she is thinking of. In her eyes, the set of her mouth, the way she holds her arm on her lap I see glimpses of a cousin or an aunt or a fleeting likeness to my mother. She is my grandmother, my mother’s mother.

But in the picture, she is not. She is just a young woman, beginning her life. So many dreams, so many hopes, so much potential. There will be six children, so many grandchildren- but of course she does not know yet. Maybe she is focused on the more immediate Quit India Movement, or some political meeting she will attend where she will meet the tall, handsome freedom fighter she is going to spend her life with. Or maybe she contemplates the intricacies of Math or Logic from a lesson not long ago. Maybe her mind lingers on some philosophical discussion she had with her peers. Or perhaps her mind is engaged with the more mundane, some forgotten chore or other.

I have no way of knowing. She died a long time ago, when I was eight. All I really have is this picture and one other and disconnected memories. Memories of a UNICEF birthday card sent every December. Memories of her threatening to tie me and my cousin up if we continued bothering our mothers. And then a half-seen shadow in the room on the roof after she was gone - I just knew it was her- maybe I was thinking of her.

I try to look for glimpses of her when I look into the mirror, but I do not see any. I suppose the fraction of her genes which I inherited are present in more subtle forms. Perhaps it is some part of my temperament. Perhaps it is my love for tart food. Or the preference of a color over the other. Or maybe, a propensity to some malaise. Whatever, it is- a part of the woman in the picture is me. And so maybe, that I never knew her much, nor have anything more tangible to remember her by does not matter so much after all.