The Glass Box

How does one write about a man who has been expired for almost 24 years? Expired. Not like fetid curd or shapeless strawberries, but the word Indians coin for the deceased. How does one really remember the essence of a man who lives in the memories of an 11 year old child and whose puerile memories are further skewed by limited Summers spent in his presence? Why would so many years pass before someone, his kin, his granddaughter, I, felt compelled to write his persona back to life? 

I don't know, it's cumbersome, Motherhood, the glass box.

There are finite characteristics and moments I remember about Balwant Singh Sethi, but I am reminded of them each time I return to Kobe, Japan where my maternal family has resided for the past 60 years. In my grandmother's bedroom idly lies a glass box atop a mantle above the television. Encased is a blazing paprika colored turban, the cotton cloth toughened and glistening with the coating of starch. He always wore that color turban, the identifiable crown to its notable proprietor. Each layer - purpose, pride, identity, knowledge, strength - had been wrapped meticulously as it had been wrapped daily each morning. It reminds me of the times I'd find him sitting at his dresser, staring adamantly into the mirror as he pressed the tips of his mustache in twists between his index finger and thumb, charred with grease from styling wax. After both sides were symmetrically curled up, like the letter J knocked gracefully to its side, he smiled in solemn acceptance. He never smiled in photos.

I remember his maharaja jootis stylized by pointed toes that stared up to meet his eyes for approval, emulating the curve of his mustache in envy. I remember his prolific use of “bloody bastard,” whether to scold us kids for drowning out the news with our playful screaming or in frustration at the ice that skated off his forearm, tender and numb from dialysis; a treatment that failed to treat after 10 arduous years. We'd snicker nervously at the word "bastard," the "ah" of the first syllable elongated for what felt like 3 Mississippi seconds, the staid influence of the British colonization, scared senseless of his wrath. One day, at the sound of my whimpering, goodness I hated that Summer when I was the chosen butt of all sibling and cousinly jokes, he called me to his side. Stiffly and nervously, I slogged over to his La-Z Boy recliner, fearful of a scolding for my noise. "No tears in your ears," he joked, flashing that rare smile...at me? Okay. No tears in my ears, I thought and smiled back, widely, as his staunch presence simmered into a calming charisma.

It is that je ne sais quoi that is raveled and bound by every thread and every layer of the turban, that fills the glass box, that interrupts my view, each time I enter my grandmother's bedroom. It is the idea that there is a root in my life, decades laters, still pulsating strength and nutrition into the Tree of Life of my own family. They are those memories that form the bedrock of our future society, good or bad. And I am grateful for the memories, however few.