My grandmother moved to the piece of land along Woo Mun Chew Road first on rental basis, feeling a burning need to live in her own space and beholden to none. All children were born here. Since my grandfather’s salary was not enough to make ends meet, she bought one cow when she moved to this premises from the PWD quarters. She sold the milk from this cow. She saved some money and gradually acquired one more at a time till the number reached ten. She got up at 4am, cleaned up the barn and then started the milking process. She would bottle the fresh milk and delivered them from house to house. Most of her customers required milk to reach them by 5.30am. She collected her dues at the end of the month. She also played Ton Tine (kootu) and saved enough money to buy a land and then built a house. This house got extended as the family grew.
When I was about 12 or 13, the rules regarding keeping domestic life-stock changed. As a result she had to give up her dairy business.
During her later years, she used to visit her eldest daughter, my mother and her family twice or thrice a week. She collected extra cooked rice from the previous day and fed the chicken she kept.
She was a very honest person. She was hard working. Her married life was not favourable for her. She was for a time had a very tough moments with her husband, exploited physically. This stopped later on when her children grew older and shielded her from their father's blows. She was not in talking terms with her husband for some time thereafter. He passed away when he was 62 years old,. My grandmother became a widow in her late 40s.
She went back to India once to buy land for her son.
A few months before she passed, my grandmother called me to her and asked me to get married to a girl of my choice and live happily. This showed her forward thinking even in those days when caste-based marriages were the mandated norm.
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