The author’s grandmother was an old, affectionate, orthodox and a deeply religiousminded graceful lady. While she was in the village, she would spend her days while looking after her grandson, reciting prayers and feeding the stray dogs. She used to get the author ready for the school. She used to accompany him to his school. She used to say her morning prayers in the hope that the author would learn it by heart. She would serve him breakfast of a thick stale chapatti with a little butter and sugar spread on it. She would carry several chapattis to feed the village dogs on the way to school. The school was attached to a temple. The grandmother would sit inside the temple reading passages from religious books. Then she would come back to home alongwith her grandson. The dogs would accompany them fighting and growling for the bits of chapattis thrown to them. When she came to the city, her activities became restricted. As the author went to school in a motor bus, she did not go to school with him. In the absence of dogs, she started feeding sparrows in the courtyard of their city house. She woke up her grandson initially for some time. But gradually she started talking rarely ’with her. When the author went up to university, she remained secluded. From sunrise to sunset she sat by her wheel spinning and reciting prayers. Only in the afternoon she relaxed for a while to feed the sparrows. The sparrows would sit all over her body, but she never shoo’d them away. She rather enjoyed it. While the author was going abroad, she came to see him off at the railway station. But her lips were moving in prayer and her mind was lost in prayer. Her fingers remained busy telling the beads of her rosary. While the author came back after five years, he found her reciting her prayers. On the first day of his arrival also her happiest moments were when she was feeding her sparrows
