Memories

My memories of my maternal greatgrandfather named Hardit Uday Singh Sohanpal
The one Which comes first is his carrying me and twirling me around sand saying oopey, so lot children used call him oopey baba ji. He used to come and visit my mother often from the village often. She was his first grandchild and first girl in three generations of family. So he really used to care for her. I remember going to village and sitting on his desk. As we were from town a folding table and chairs used to be laid out for us to dine. It was the tallest house in the village and one could see the whole village from the roof top. They lived on the first floor of the house with rooms around a courtyard.The downstairs area was various store rooms etc. There was an iron grill gate in the middle of courtyard which could be opened, but i had never seen it that way.On one side of the wall was a big iron pulley.I used to love walking over it and looking down a bit scary too. But the story is that when my geart grand mother became very ill and could not climb the stairs she used to be sent up and down in a basket through that gate with a rope which that pulley supported. I always imagined it. I don't remember my great grand mother . I was one when she died. Though I have a picture with her. They say i have inherited my flat nose from hers. More about all this another day......