Yesterday, I lost a man who occupied an extraordinary place in the landscape of my childhood.

I remember his hands. Always clammy, rough and calloused, bearing the unmistakable testimony of a life spent working tirelessly.

A handsome man, six feet tall, with thick, misaligned eyebrows and a few stray strands of hair sprouting from his ears. They say those are the markings of an angry man.

And angry he was. The house would tremble when he raised his voice.

A formidable disciplinarian, he insisted that we read, excel at our studies, watch the news, and pore over every column of the newspaper. Yet, beneath that stern exterior lived a man with the most extraordinary laugh, made all the more endearing when he lost his teeth.

I remember him reclining in his armchair, his long limbs barely accommodated, watching television in perfect contentment. For a man who had known so little comfort, perhaps that modest armchair was his own little piece of heaven.

He was the quintessential grumpy grandfather, one who seldom expressed affection but ensured we never left his house without an abundance of food, fruits, and little indulgences.

He loved Vishu. His grandchildren would gather around him, marvelling at the astonishing assortment of firecrackers he brought home. For a man so stern, he had a curious way of creating joy.

Time passed. Nobody came around for the firecrackers anymore.

Somewhere along the way, perhaps he stopped bringing them home.

Or perhaps he still brought home a few every Vishu, out of habit, or in the quiet hope that someone might turn up.

I wouldn’t know.

Somewhere along the way, I had also begun to resent the grumpy old man.The affection of childhood gave way to grievances of growing older, and gradually, both my grandparents ceased to exist in the world I had made for myself.

Life went on, as it so indifferently does.

I know that for years, until his hearing began to fail him, he would ask my mother to have me call him. And each time, I found a reason to postpone it. There would always be another day, another occasion, another opportunity.

Eventually, he stopped asking.

It has been nearly half a decade since I last set foot inside that house. I wonder what remains of it now. Would it still smell the same?

Grandmother had a fragrance entirely her own. Of coconut oil, of meals perpetually simmering in the kitchen, of fresh sandalwood and the quiet sanctity of the prayer room. The entire house seemed steeped in her presence.

I sometimes think she took that fragrance with her when she died.

But how would I know? I never went back to find out.

Perhaps Grandfather could no longer bear living in a house that had lost the familiar scent of his equally obstinate wife. Perhaps the silence she left behind had grown too immense, even for a man of his disposition.

Or perhaps she simply came for him one night and took him away.

He was found last morning, lying peacefully in his sleep, his hands resting upon his chest, just as they always had.

I did not go to see him in death. I had not gone to see her either.

I could have gone. There were years, afternoons, countless opportunities.

But I didn’t.

Perhaps writing this is my penance. A belated act of remembrance, a catharsis for the visits I never made and the goodbyes I never offered.

All that remains are fragments of another life. Rough, clammy hands. A thunderous voice. A toothless laugh. An armchair. The fragrance of sandalwood. Firecrackers on Vishu.

Death is strange..

An entire lifetime reduced to the lingering scent of a home that no longer exists as I knew it, and two voices, somewhere in the distant corridors of childhood, still calling me “Lakshmi”