It was a Sunday, how quickly had time passed, she had not even kept track of the passing days. But staying in her room helped her avoid everyone, or so she had thought. It was now obvious that her grandmother's patience had run out.

Her grandmother was not a woman who could be refused or argued with, Gāyathri had heard that from her father. She had wondered how it could be and had often thought it was another example of her father's weakness. She could argue and rebel against her parents, she did it all the time and sometimes for the smallest and stupidest of things. Concluding along that line of reasoning, she determined that her father had simply been too afraid.

Now, face to face with her grandmother, she could feel the weight in those words, one that dared her to disobey. She wanted to, but then hunger pangs made refusal difficult, it also explained why Shanta had not appeared with her breakfast.

And in silence, she gave in and followed her Grandmother.

There was a moment of confusion as she wondered how her grandmother would navigate the stairs, but when her grandmother continued along the corridor beyond the staircase, it was replaced by bewilderment and surprise. The sight of the elevator solved that puzzle, it was clever and convenient. The corridor was wider than normal and opened into a terrace garden. One which she could have noticed if she had stepped out of her room over the past three days.

Déjà vu accompanied her as she walked to the hall, though as a faint echo of the day she had entered this home. That night, exhausted with grief and fatigue, she had slowly walked up the stairs behind Lavanya, feeling eyes boring into her back. Today she felt their eyes as she followed her grandmother to the dining table.

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Breakfast was disappointingly familiar. It should have cheered her up, peserattu with upma, a combination that her mother whipped up for her father. It was like a ritual, Sunday morning breakfast was always pessarattu and upma, her father's favourite dish. The only difference was the chutne,y made of peanuts and tomatoes. It was different, tasted fine but she was not enamoured, she missed her mother's chutneys. Her mother could never get it right, either the salt or the chillies or the curd, something would be off and breakfast would be eaten while making jokes about her mother. 'Amma was never a great cook and had never bothered to master the culinary skills either. But mealtimes were fun; her father would eat while passing teasing remarks, which at times she joined in. Her mother would laughingly retort and the banter lasted beyond the long breakfast. '

The familiar grief flooded her, she missed her parents. And it was difficult to stay with unfamiliar relatives, who did not appear to be sorrowful. But she was not going to cry, that would invite concerned reassurances, which would be difficult to hear and believe. 'How could things ever be fine again?'

She looked around the table, her grandfather sat at the head with her grandmother to his left. She sat beside her grandmother while Chandra sat to the right of her grandfather. The kids must have eaten earlier, they had told her that Sundays they went to their maternal grandmother's house. When Lavanya sat beside Chandra, discomforting suspicions stirred inside her. 'Why was she here, had the kids gone alone? Who exactly was Chandra?'

There was no one to ask or rather no one she would ask so she had to speculate as to his relationship with the family. The kids or Shanta might know but she felt it foolish to ask outright. Yet the ease with which he interacted with the family and the familiarity with Lavanya was discomforting.

A touch forced her to stop thinking on those lines and she turned her head to look at her grandmother, who appeared to be worried. Pasting a smile on her face, she shook her head. It did not matter what exactly the question was but her answer seemed satisfactory, for her grandmother nodded.

'Enough of those disquieting thoughts!'

With that silent admonishment to her errant mind, she looked around her. The table was long, could easily seat eight and twelve could be accommodated. It was wide too, one would have to stretch to pass something to a person on the opposite side. Back home, they had a small square dining table and each of them would sit at one side and there would be just enough space in the centre to place a few dishes. This table could hold at least a dozen large bowls and serving plates.

'And where did nanna sit? Did he have a set place or did each of them sit wherever they wanted?' Strange, she did not know and did not want to ask. Her father never mentioned it but then he rarely spoke about this family, all she had learnt was what she had overhead and the inferences she had drawn.

And she was doing it again.

Everything reminded her of her parents, even the unfamiliar surroundings. She could not wait for breakfast to be over so that she could escape to the solitude of her room.

Lunch would be a repetition of breakfast, and a longer one but she would be prepared.

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It was in the evening that she caught sight of Chandra; he was watering the plants. That surprised her, she had been sure there would have a couple of gardeners to take care of the garden, it unusual for a family member to get their hands dirty. Which again was a foolish idea for her mother, uncle and tatha were perpetually handling plants and mud. But then she had built up a vague image of her father's family being snobbish and was finding the reality far too different to be comforting. Just spending an hour or so, over two meals had been enough for her to find come to that conclusion.

But the best part of being forced to come out of her self imposed seclusion was that she could finally walk in the garden she had admired from her room.

She walked about and stopped short. In the distance, she could see a profusion of flowering plants. She knew of that!

What do you need all these creepers for, Nanna?

"I will build a huge pandiri with them, your mother has drawn it up and as I will follow the instructions, hopefully, the creepers will survive and grow to entwine over the trellis. I will have a bench or two, maybe a metal swing, fixed below. My father always wanted to build one for my mother and if it grows as I envision it, it will be loved by your grandmother.

Oh! Nannamma likes flowers?"

"She loves them, not what she calls as English or foreign ones, which are the only ones she never had in her garden. She likes jasmine and hibiscus and parijat and other familiar local flowers. She adores all varieties of jasmine, she strings the flowers and tucks them into her hair, even now. Though it is a much smaller strand. But she will enjoy the evenings and early mornings.

That had been more than ten years ago, the bower had taken root, it was surprising that her father had not managed to kill any of the flowering creepers. For someone who loved plants, it was sad that he could barely keep any plant alive. Amma often joked that even plastic plants would wilt under his care. Gāyathri had known it to be true though it hurt her father. Amma, on the other hand, could even make rocks blossom though she was not very interested in gardening. She like the fact that she could visualise and design gardens, her innated and knowledge of plants and flowers enabled her to create variated beds and unique grouping of plants. But she was never a passionate gardener. Yet together, her parents had a beautiful garden, her father would hunt down the plants he wanted and her mother would work them in. It was quirky, fun and riots of colour.

The garden here was beautiful but orderly; well laid out paths, clumps of trees bordering the wall, flat flower beds between the house and the wall, with shrubs closer to the house. She could see her parents plan this one too, her father with the house plans and her grandparents' interests, her mother trying to make the traditional but boring garden layout work.

Her grandfather appeared from the side of the house, walking straight and upright, measured steps using the cane. Her eyes followed his path as he made his way down to the bower, still watching him as he stood at the edge.

"He is like tatha..."

The words were a mere whisper but since she was standing close to Chandra, he must have heard them for he replied, "But he is your grandfather."

The confusion was visible on his face, she wondered why. And when the realisation struck her, she shook her head, "I meant he is like my tatha, amma's father. Both do not show any sorrow. I cannot stop crying and they have not shed a tear. It makes me wonder if they feel anything."

His brows knit together and when he looked at her, disapproval flashed across his face. "It is neither fair nor correct to compare grief, even if it is not the same for each of us. We have different ways to grieve. How can one compare the loss of a parent to the loss of a spouse or a child?"

She turned her away, preferring to stare in the distance; his admonishment hurt her. But as he continued, she could make out the understanding in his voice and she turned to face him.

"Most of us make the mistake of asking the grieving person to remember that someone else has lost more. That is why tathagaru does not show his anguish, all these days he has been asked to be strong; for baamma, for his daughters, for his grandchildren. It must be the same with your tatha. They pretend to be strong.

But then you must always remember that it is tougher for a parent. Your tatha would never have thought that he would live to hear the news of his daughter's death. I know that tathagaru is broken, he must have been hoping that his son would perform his last rites, he never dreamt that he would be present for his son's last rites.

And it is worse for he cannot openly grieve, it would break baamma. That is the same reason why baamma also does not cry in front of us, it is only in the privacy of the puja room that she mourns the death of her son."

At that instance, she knew that the ramrod posture was a mere shell, one that disguised the broken heart inside, an old man shattered by the death of his son.

Tears pooled and she wiped them with the back of her hand, ashamed to be crying so openly. And at night, she called her tatha, there was not much to speak about, but even the few words they exchanged, brought relief.