At Home With Nani, My 85-Year-Old Roommate
THE NEW YEAR started off like most days in my home do: me trying to beat my nani to our shared washroom. She has remarkable timing when it comes to the toilet. Whether I’m tiptoeing in at 3 a.m. or taking a bathroom break before lunch, Nani, my maternal grandmother, is always in there. Sharing a washroom with an 85-year-old is a special kind of hell reserved only for stay-at-home granddaughters like me.
On that first morning of 2023, our race to the toilet was just the start of Nani’s antics. As I was about to fall back asleep, a Facebook live stream from the local temple began blaring in my bedroom. Why was it getting louder? Why was Om Jai Jagdish Hare—a devotional hymn (and certified pooja bop when it’s not blasting through a New Year’s hangover)—edging deeper into my eardrums? What did I do in this timeline to the Supreme Lord Vishnu to deserve this?
I stormed into Nani’s room and scanned her makeshift temple. The volume of the bhajan seesawed while my blood pressure steadily rose. She was sitting up in bed, staring blankly at her phone. No sound was coming out of it. And then it hit me: She’d accidentally connected her phone to my Bluetooth speaker. Ugh. I’d like to have a word with the Hindu god of technology.
For as long as I can remember, my grandparents have lived under the same roof as me, my brother and my parents in Mississauga, Ont. Given that cohabiting with extended family is more prevalent among ethnic populations, I never questioned our multigenerational cohesion. It wasn’t until my teenhood that I became familiar with the idea of the “nuclear family”: parents and kids only. Aunts, uncles and cousins congregated in my family home every weekend for get-togethers and meals. Despite competing sound systems (every relative brings a distinct brand of commotion), I welcomed the bustle as a necessary irritation of a richer family life.
Having a housemate who is a senior citizen prepares you for life in unexpected ways. I’m reminded of my mortality when I flick Nani’s white hairs off my freshly laundered pants. (I don’t have the heart to tell her about it.) Or when she leaves the faucet gently running behind her. Nani isn’t easy on herself. If I point out her lapse, she will deny it, embarrassed. Patience, I tell myself, is the softest form of love.
Nani is like a fixed point on the spinning wheel of my life. Throughout my childhood and early adult years, our relationship survived every type of closeness and distance. I remember spending hours in the basement playing dress-up with Nani’s gold jewellery and rolling around my grandparents’ bed wrapped in her chunnis. Even when I felt the furthest from Nani during university, all I’d have to do was apply lipstick as blush (her singular makeup hack) and I’d be transported right back to the refuge of her dressing table. These days, I know we will inevitably reunite at our double-sink vanity, brushing our teeth in unison. I like to think of Nani’s presence in my life a bit like tarka, the aromatic blend of onions and spices that anchors most Indian dishes. You can’t live without tarka.
***
WHEN I WAS growing up, my grandmother told me something strange about white people. As a schoolgirl in pre-Partition India in the early 1940s, she was told that white skin was hardened by cold climates, which was why white people were so industrious. Adversity had made their flesh firm. In British India, white ambition fattened bank accounts and expanded properties. White resolve, she learned, did not melt in the hot sun; it did not succumb to noon-hour naps.
Nani grew up in Dayal Bagh, a locality in metropolitan Agra, about a 20-minute drive from the Taj Mahal. The sixth of seven children, she was a competitive kid who was determined to make it out of her Mennonite colony with an education. After graduating from Dayalbagh Educational Institute, she moved to Delhi to work as an elementary-school teacher. In 1962, she had an arranged marriage and within three years left India for good.
Nani landed in Edmonton in March 1965, with my then 16-month-old mom in tow. Canada was home now, with its wondrously wide streets and the quiet dignity of its national flag. I’m convinced that the Canadian prairies hardened her brown skin—not from the adversity of dealing with winter’s chill, but from the burden of being forced to assimilate into this new world. My grandfather had arrived in Alberta a year earlier, in 1964. During that time, many new Canadians rode a wave of relaxed immigration policies that allowed them to build social capital and occupy previously white-only postal codes.
When Nani enrolled in psychology courses at the University of Alberta, her life was just beginning. She was always hard at work: Between schoolwork and driving lessons, she would regularly haul plastic bags full of vegetables and spices from the general store, the thin handles creating blisters on her hands. Nani often stares at my fresh manicures with a half smile. Is she happy that I can afford the luxuries she couldn’t? Or does she secretly think I’m too delicate to handle making aloo gobi and a tower of rotis? Probably the latter.
Knowledge of Nani’s proficiency in the kitchen spread among the Indian community in Alberta and, later, Ottawa, where my grandparents and their five daughters relocated in the late 1970s. Nani took pride in endurance. Not a week went by when she wasn’t feeding a dozen nearby relatives her signature subjis, like chole, saag or rajma. If you were to dig up an Ottawa phone book from 50 years ago, Nani would be able to list off all the family names that stretched white mouths in unusual directions without even glancing at the book.
I’ve never felt Nani’s battle between assimilation and preservation. We tend to grow up thinking our elders will never understand our struggles, but the truth is they make sure we never feel theirs. My two worlds blend seamlessly because of my mother. Our road-trip playlist jumps from Bob Marley’s “Buffalo Soldier” (Nani’s favourite) to “It’s the Time to Disco” (my go-to Bollywood tune from childhood) and then to Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” (my mom’s most-played song). In these moments, we’re just three women bonded by a sun-soaked sky and nostalgic melodies.
***
AS WAS THE case with so many South Asian women of her generation, Nani’s identity was wrapped around her husband’s. She wore her devotion to my grandfather, my Nanu, on her sleeve. But who was she outside of their relationship? As the highest-ranking woman in my maternal family tree, her role was not about finding herself but about sublimating herself—in the duty of family, in the duty of work and in the duty of being a model minority. Nani understood that the true value of hard work isn’t money or shiny praise but rather the feeling of self-worth. She counted her wealth in jars of dal. It wasn’t until 2009, when she became a widow, that she started to learn who she was, and I witnessed her on that journey.
The temple became Nani’s social playground. Vanity plates in the parking lot name-drop regions half a globe away—Gujarat, Kolkata, Mumbai—and suggest steadfast allegiances to identities long left behind. Nani usually dons a pastel-coloured salwar kameez with white New Balance sneakers and a Roots hat—the reigning aesthetic among South Asian grandmas.
For Nani, each day is an opportunity for another on-screen pooja or another virtual yoga class she teaches via Facebook Live. I recently ordered her a better tripod, which is as far as creating a home studio will go.
After Nani turned 80, her walker became a fixture in our home. She’s lost the dexterity she once had in the kitchen but now uses her hands to keep the staff at TransHelp—the ride-share service that facilitates her social life—on speed dial. As I roll her walker up the porch steps, our neighbour and fellow temple-goer watches Nani’s knees tighten as she struggles to stay standing against the garage. They regularly banter about the handful of 30-something grandsons they’d like to set me up with. I know better than to stay on the porch for too long.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what these mundane interactions between us mean. It’s satisfying to help demystify her smartphone and show her how to pay bills online. In turn, I get a catalogue of family lore and recipes, a firmer grasp of my roots and the same dry reassurance whenever I share my fears: “Life goes on.”
But what keeps me from moving out and living independently? Is it seeing Nani more wholly now that I am an adult? I think it’s more intangible than that. I’ve learned not to overestimate the time we have left with those we love. Being around Nani offers a glimpse at a full and happy life. While my 20s have been a treadmill of chasing goals, Nani’s slow pace reminds me to be still. I’m not ready to give up that balm yet—even if it means sharing a washroom with her for a little bit longer.
Originally published July 2023; updated January 2024.