Gutsy Grandmas

My mother did not tell stories often, so on the rare occasions that she did, we sat up and listened. One time she told us about this great-grandmother of ours who was a young widow. And like widows back in the day, she had her head shaved and she wore the pallu (the tail end of her white saree) over her head to cover the baldness. Being a penniless widow, she lived with her brother and an extended family in a small tenement room of a three-story building in Mumbai. Every day was the same, an unchanging landscape; work, work, and more work, from the crack of dawn to dusk. There was water to be filled in pots at the bottom level of the building from the collective tap and hauled all the way to the third floor at four in the morning. There was an enormous amount of food to be cooked for breakfast over a single stove and food to be packed for lunch for the men who left for work early. And after they left, there was washing clothes, cleaning floors, mending clothes, and tending to children. The only break one got was after lunch for a quick afternoon siesta. The weariness of the morning labor, the heat of the day, and the sleepiness induced by lunch, would make siesta so sweet! 

One afternoon, this sweet sluggishness was shattered by sharp cries of “Kalaieeeeeee! Kalaieeeee!” Now, the Kalaiwala was not just any hawker. He made rounds all day long, collecting copper pots and pans blackened with use, treating them with acid and heat and bringing them back to their original sheen. His live action alchemical magic show was the stuff of the neighborhood’s entertainment! Wait, wait, but not for our great-grandmother! Her sweet siesta, the only break to rest her weary body, was in danger. Almost every day, the kalaiwala turned up around the same time and cried the same “Kalaieeee! Kalaieeeee” on top of his lungs to get attention. One afternoon, after several days of enduring the annoyance, the widow just couldn’t take it anymore! She took off, ran three flights down, came face to face with the kalaiwala, pulled down her white pallu, bared her shaved, bald shiny head and said “Here! Kalai this!” Needless to say, the kalaiwala took off and did not show up again!

Maybe it is the heightened uncertainty of the world we are living in right now, lately I have found myself thinking of my grandmas more than I usually do. Recalling their stories brings to mind the grit and humor with which they faced immense difficulties. Willa Cather said, "Life began for me, when I ceased to admire and began to remember.” Writer and director Lee Isaac Chung for Minari (2020) was so moved by this quote that he worked and re-worked the narrative of his own family’s move from California to Arkansas until a screenplay emerged. The foul-mouthed, yet loving, Korean grandma in this movie is pivotal to the transformation the family is seeking in the middle of nowhere. In stark contrast to this loving grandma is the is the stern, domineering Sicilian grandma in Paolo Licata’s Alone with Her Dreams (2019). Donna Maria’s sternness stems from her need to protect her granddaughter Lucia from a painful family secret. For Lucia, being raised by her grandma is a process in learning to love grandma and growing in strength at the same time. Papirosen (2016) by Gastón Solnicki and Big Sonia (2018) by Leah Warshawski and Todd Soliday are both documentary features on Polish grandmas who survived the Holocaust, Pola Solnicki and Sonia Warshawski respectively, and the effect of its aftermath on their families. For Pola and her family, now settled in Argentina, the trauma continues with Pola’s son Victor trying to get his legal papers and for Sonia, the trauma is a both a burden and a blessing. Sonia tries to overcome the darkness by raising awareness about hate among young students and prisoners, her petite frame belying the three concentration camps she survived. These gutsy grandmas are truly amazing, but my favorite silver screen grandma is the Japanese actress Kiki Kirin in Hirokazu Koreeda’s movies. Her Toshiko in Still Walking (2008), frying corn tempura with her daughter, is the most memorable treat of all times.

If movies are your life and you are not into the run-of-the-mill variety, you will end up exploring our collection of films in world languages and documentaries. And don’t be too surprised when you come across our huge collection of DVDs and Blu-rays. A search in our online catalog for ‘foreign film’ will give you a whopping 4,554 of them in 105 languages! This is not including hoopla, our streaming service, which includes downloadable films for offline viewing, a wonderful feature for when you are travelling. If you would like to browse for ideas on what to watch next, you might want to subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter, NextReads, to get the latest list of international films; or look for #Fridayfeatures on our Facebook page. If all of this still leaves you unfulfilled, just walk into any one of our branches and your best recommendation might yet come from the staff at the library!

- by Shilpa Shanbhag, Hickory Corner Branch Library