My grandma is not an ordinary grandma. She is 68 years, if I remember correctly, because she told me so. Her birth certificate is lost and her ID card has the incorrect date. But she has a mind of a 50-year-old. This is thanks to her regimen of sticking to an all organic diet.

But at the same time, she is quick, quirky and eccentric. You now know where I am leading you to.

She is loving and caring most of the times but is angry and grumpy sometimes. When she remembers something which has gone wrong, like her not being an architect, it makes her angry. She is sweet at one time and sour at another time. All her 10 grandchildren love her very much.

And I can tell you why. Not because she bakes us organic sugar-free cookies (with her own recipes) and loves to tell us stories of fairies and demons and her own life, but because she does things differently.

Once she put salt in my grandpa’s tea because she was crossed with him for being late to a picnic. Then she shut down the neighbour’s electricity (I still don’t know how she did it) because they were creating a lot of noise.

But her bravery can be gauged from this incident: once when there was a traffic jam on a busy road, she got out from the car despite our pleas and beat the culprit black and blue with her walking stick. She is not afraid of anyone, not even grandpa.

One of the most memorable events was a party where she invited all my friends and some not-so-friendly classmates. I was not aware of this nor were my parents. My grandma hid this from us, she just said that there was a get together and a lot of people were coming. I was not interested, but she said that I should be ready and that I would enjoy it.

And what a fun time we all had! There was the balloon man with giant animal-shaped helium balloons, horse and camel men to offer rides, cotton candy man with his machine and we took turns to create our very own candy, and then a man with a monkey. My grandma allowed his monkey to roam free. It jumped here and there and we were even able to teach him some tricks.

Then the next day she invited my cousins to another party where we were given Lego blocks, playing cards, household knick knacks and story prompts to create our very own stories with physical props. This was different from the party held the day before, but was totally enjoyable.

So, now you will understand why my grandma is an extraordinary grandma.

Published in Dawn, Young World, November 17th, 2018