In our part of the world, we call older sister as "nani". In my community , we also call our "bua"(Father's sister), "Mausi"(mothers sister) as nani as well. Today, I remember our childhood neighbor Rakha nani(rather Rekha Bua) and Vidya Dhara(He is just called as Vidya Dhara - I don't know why) very fondly.
The story with Rekha nani goes like this.. She was known to our family long long ago. May be she is from my father's village. While I was still a little girl, I just have very prosaic memory of hers - coming to our house, helping my mum with lots of chores and sometimes having lunch/dinner/chai at our place. She occasionally brought some of her kids( All her kids were way older than us, so I don't remember having any interaction with them) to our house. Rekha nani was from a well to do family, but they had failed businesses and were really hard on money at that time. My mother always used to look forward to her coming to our house and helping us. The way it was presented to me; I kind of believed that she enjoyed working for us... Now after growing up, I can't even think somebody doing some manual work for us just because she finds pleasure in it!! Probably, that is the way my mother wanted to present it, so that she did not feel guilty about making Rekha Nani work in our house. As such my mother was very hard working and she ended up doing a lot of work by herself, but she always needed help - that was not available from any other sources, and Rekha Nani being soft, was the right choice for her to lean on. Slowly time changed, we moved to another town, but my family still stayed in touch with Rekha nani. Rekha nani's children grew up, started having good jobs. But my mother always used to remember her whenever there was a celebration at our house. It was not that my mother was soliciting her presence, but she wanted extra hands to help her. Rekha Nani would still turn up and do lots of work in our house, stay for few days and leave. In my grown up days, now I suddenly discovered that there are always some relationships where people want a Rekha nani handy. The easiest targets are the needy gullibles or may be imaginary gullibles. This is the person they imagine gets pleasure working for them without complaining - to get over their own guilty consciousness. I can't imagine treating some one as a Rekha nani in my life!! I am sitting and wondering what Rekha nani would have thought about us all then. We the people, are so insensitive that, we don't even know where she is now, whether alive or dead. Where ever you are Rekha Nani, my sincere apologies to you on behalf of my family.
Another person I remember fondly is Vidya Dhara - yes, we used to call him so, although I wonder why we never called him uncle. Vidya Dhar used to come to our house and work in our garden. No - he was not our gardener, he was just another employee in the same company my father worked, but he liked working in our garden. He will keep it weed free, make water canals for the plants, plant new tress, make it beautiful in 1-2 days work on it and leave. Nobody ever asked him to come and work in our garden. He just used to come and my parents paid him just the bus fare. We used to take care of his food and chai needs though.. May be his love for plants/gardens brought him to our place even though we moved far away. Now, I have a garden, and it is hell of a job to keep it clean! Every time, I attempt to remove weeds, I remember how efficiently Vidya Dhar used to work. Usually after he does the garden job, for 6 months, there were no weeds. Such was the quality of his work. Vidya Dhara is no more now, but his work and memories live on.
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