Polaroids

Polaroids.
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(21st Dec,2016)

Grandmother was a frail word, wrapped in yard length of the softest of sarees,
With tiny flowers printed all over, littering its borders like gulmohar trees shedding flaming red buds across our lawn,every summer.

Grandmother had a few albums of photographs which was a treasure we sought and she kept locked up in a Godrej almirah,
On rare occasions she brought them out, 
We would flock around her and stare at faded polaroids - from a time when women still covered their heads,
And wore blouses with sleeves that reached till their wrists,
In them I found grandmother,
And the realization of how nice a couple they made together dawned on me slowly as I saw their wedding photos,
Along with the album she kept a coconut oil tin;
Inside it were 25 paise coins, exactly a hundred,arranged in a pile.

Grandmother told me her mother-in-law had given to her, 
On the night of her wedding,"Buy something sweet with this", she had said.
The money was never spent, and Grandmother had kept it safe all these years;
"Someday I'll buy something sweet", she said.
And I wanted to tell her,"It did'nt matter anymore, those coins are forgotten relics,
Memories which someone had carried for decades, 
piled in an oil tin, locked inside the Godrej almirah, like treasure".
And I closed her palms around the coins;
"Someday you'll buy something sweet with this", I told her.
And the polaroids smiled back at me, like knew our secret - but had decided to keep it safe.