Kama aji is my maternal grandmom's sister.
The earliest memory I have is when I was about 4 years old. Kama aji looked way younger than her age (she also was amongst the youngest of my aji's sisters). Every time Kama aji and Shyam ajoba visited India, they would have a get-together with all the respective siblings. In this particular get-together with my aji- Kama aji's siblings, there's a photo with Kama aji pointing towards my dad, and the caption of the photo is "hach amcha javai". I don’t remember the context or the story behind the photo, however the caption and her smile is what I still do.
During that visit, Kama aji got me a musical teddy bear. Few years later, I remember them gifting me an egg-shaped virtual pet toy, Tamagotchi. It would give the player a happiness quotient based upon how much the player has petted/ fed the pet. I soon figured out how to “factory reset” the toy, so that I could get a new avatar of the pet after every reset. Next, I pried open the screws and the back cover of the toy. The toy used a button-cell, and this new kind of battery baffled me. (In India, almost everything except for the wristwatches used AAA batteries, and I was too young to change wristwatch batteries then.) I asked them what this new type of battery was. Shyam ajoba always was very patient with me. One time I told him that I "discovered" Pythagorean triplets. Shyam ajoba explained, through a hand-written letter, how I could use "x" to substitute stuff and check that my "discovery" works for all odd numbers. Though I laugh at how naive and silly I was back then, I give a lot of credit to Shyam ajoba to patiently explain things to me without being condescending, and in fact give me a tool to explore more of mathematics way before we learnt about "x"s and equations in school. When I visited them in USA; inspite of meeting them for the first time, Shirish, Asha, Anjali all made me feel welcome. This speaks a great deal about you both, Kama aji and Shyam ajoba. During my Boston visit, I casually mentioned that I like besan laddu. Three years after my first visit, when I visited them again, Kama aji did not forget the small details, and made besan laddus for me.
Both Shyam ajoba and Kama aji used to write detailed letters about their life in USA. A snowfall would be so vividly described that reader would feel like they are standing in Boston shovelling off the snow alonside Shyam ajoba. One time Kama aji described how she hid in the bushes, tiptoed around a bunny, put a basket around it and got a pet out of this. Another time, Kama aji described how Anjali went out crawling in her yard to take photos of a bear in her yard. It was very evident that both Kama aji and Shyam ajoba were gifted with words! I always wonder how Kama aji and Shyam ajoba retained so much of their Marathi vocabulary. Their letters used to describe the events that their group used to organize. Kudos to their group of Marathi friends. Kama aji always addressed the country as "BHARAT (India)" on the letter. We youngsters look up to you all and we sincerely hope that we carry forward your task of preserving the heritage.
Kama aji was fun-loving. My aji shares a story of how as kids they were once playing dumb charades with Marathi sayings as the theme. Kama aji chose "वाखाणला गुरव देवळात हगला" (praised priest shat in the temple). To act it out, Kama aji squatted and made farting sounds. My aji still fondly remembers the day, and bursts into laughter at the memory. Kama aji taught their dog Bella some unusual tricks: "Bella sit like a lady" and then the dog would sit with its front legs crossed. Kama aji would animatedly describe how Bella would fetch the newspapers off all of the neighbours' driveways.
Kama aji was very efficient, and very practical. When she was diagnosed with glaucoma, her letter made it sound very trivial so that she wouldn't worry my granny. Once Shyam ajoba's foot was run over by a car. Kama aji described in the letter that she carried food for both of them with her to the hospital. She iterated that she has to take care of herself first in order for her to take care of others. I simply cherish this quote of her.
In spite of her bubbling laughter, all was not rosy in the initial years. One anecdote shared by my granny was that Shyam ajoba's mom wasn’t very impressed with how thin Kama aji was at the time of the wedding. (Brides these days diet specifically to look thin, guess it wasn’t in vogue back then!) Apparently the mother-in-law kept asking the elder sisters if Kama aji was healthy. Another memory Pushpa aji told me: When Kama aji- Shyam ajoba got married, Kama aji and Pushpa aji were bawling their eyes out during the "bidaai". Shyam ajoba joked that he won’t take away kama aji with him if the sisters are so sad to leave each other. Not too long after the wedding, Pune faced a devastating flood. Just when the situation looked bleak, Shyam kaka had an job opportunity in the USA. Anjali was very young and Kama aji was pregnant with Shirish at the time. Imagine a family who has lost almost everything in the floods and is now uprooting their life in India to settle abroad. Armed with very little money (I guess with only 12$), they landed in the USA. Thankfully, Shyam kaka made his employer aware of the situation and the stipend that would be given after a fortnight of work was given to them earlier. Kama aji and Shyam ajoba braved the situation, and carved out their happy life in the USA.
She will always be there smiling and happy in our memories.
