Blog # 66 Dated: 09 January 2023: Our Sister Kaki Jee Remembered Part 5

 

Namaskar.

Part 5 of the narration started four days back and continues here.

Kaki Jee was a great personality. There were good and bad qualities in our parents. This is normal with everyone. Kaki Jee inherited only good qualities from her parents. She inherited beauty, charm, kindness, and wisdom from our mother. She inherited, Godliness, charity, and speaking truth always, from our father. Everyone who came to know her saw all these qualities in her. The carpenters, the painters, my car driver, and any other helpers who would be associated with us, would always address her as ‘Didi’. Her word would be respected by all of them. If she would like a modification done by the carpenter, she would just express herself. The job would be done there and then. A call from our side mentioned to any of the workers, that some work had to be done at her house, and they would rush and be at her home within a short time. Kaki Jee would always recommend a higher amount as payment to the workers than Baisahib Jee would agree to with the worker. She was generous towards the weaker section of society. I have no words to express how good she was treating the house help workers. She would minimize their work on cold days. And then she would always gift them with things that would make them and their families comfortable in summer and winter. I am right now at Faridabad, and we have the same house help that would work in her home. She tells me every day about how much Didi Jee helped her and her family. She sheds tears for her every day since she came to know about her disappearance. 

My driver would sometimes bring us fresh cabbage from his field. He would first give it to ‘Didi jee’ and then only bring the rest to us. We used to get rice from Rajinder Nagar in Delhi. He would always drop half of the bags at Kaki jee’s place, even without us ever asking him to. He had great respect for Baisahib Jee and Kaki Jee. He would be very protective of Sheetu Jee and Sonam Jee. He had two daughters of similar age.   

I remember one day, Kaki Jee telling the driver that some of the wooden curtain rods in their flat did not have end caps. She gave him the sample piece. The next day was Saturday, which used to be a holiday for both of us. He came to me sharp at 9 AM. I reminded him about the day being our day off. In reply, he informed me that we needed to search for the curtain rod items for Didi Jee. I dressed up quickly and we left for the marketplace. We visited a number of shops but could not find the desired item. After a couple of hours, a shopkeeper gave us a reference of a factory in Faridabad, about 10 kilometers from our residence. We went to the factory. The owner was not there. The workers said that they can make the desired pieces but would need the owner’s permission. The driver took one of the workers with him to the owner’s house and brought him to the factory. The pieces were made. The driver in his typical Jat language told the owner that the pieces were for the sister of the “Boss”. The factory owner did not charge a penny for the job. (The factory owner had the same sub-caste as the driver.) From there, we came directly to Kaki Jee’s flat. The driver was proud to hand over the pieces to Kaki Jee. In response, she entertained him with tea and snacks. 

Baisahib Jee and Kaki Jee would regularly mention to us a very nice person from Jammu District. He was poor but very gentle. I am not aware, of how Baisahib Jee and Kaki Jee came to know him. Both Baisahib Jee and Kaki Jee would help him and his family as much as they could. He had a family. He sent his young son to Baisahib Jee and Kaki jee in Jammu (probably around the time of Sonam Jee’s marriage). The son was 8 or 9 years old. The father, it appeared, wanted to help himself by having one less mouth to feed. He also wanted to help in exchange of Baisahib Jee’s offer to host their boy. He wanted the boy to help Baisahib Jee and Kaki Jee with housekeeping jobs at their Jammu residence. Kaki Jee treated the boy like a mother would treat her young child. He was not asked to do any work. He had carried some books along with him and he would be helped with his studies. The young boy would spend most of his day on the terrace. In the evenings, he would play the flute. Kaki Jee and Baisahib Jee got him a new flute too. They would help this family whenever the family was going through tough times. 

Kaki Jee would always help their house helpers in their hours of need. On the annual shradh days of her parents and parents-in-law, she would give money, fruits, rice, etc. to needy people instead of the Pandit jee from the neighboring temple. She felt that Pandit jee was not deserving of the offerings, since he was a drunkard. (I had seen Pandit Jee in that state a couple of times and told my sister about him.) She modified the routine, thereby helping people in need instead.

Kaki Jee was always fond of growing plants. She would buy pots to plant flower saplings. She had planted mint in one pot and would regularly update me about the progress. (I had bought her the mint root.) Her most treasured plant would be the money plant. She would be proud to show off her growing plants. She had a money plant in her house in Faridabad. It was in a bottle on the kitchen windowsill. She was worried about the plants even when she was suffering from the disease in Mumbai. When I visited her in Mumbai in September last year, she asked me to check the plant and replace the water in the bottle. She was worried that the plant might have dried off. On my return from Mumbai, I went to her flat and located the plant. It was still alive but barely. I changed the water in the bottle in which the plant was already there, and put it out in the sunlight to help it to grow. While I was in the process, I made a video call to her and showed her this plant and other plants too. She was very pleased.      

This concludes Part 5 of the events involving our sister and the family. Part 6 will be sent tomorrow.