Chương 3: The Relatives Will Meet Soon

His words made her ponder. Yes, it was true that he was giving her a third option of living in which ever city or country she wanted to live in. He just wanted her to visit her father's home and meet everyone. Similarly, he wanted her to visit her mother's home and visit everyone there too. He was correct, if children can make mistakes even parents can make mistakes. No one is perfect.

After hearing him, she understood what he meant. She started to feel respectful towards both sides of her parents' families. He was right there. Her parents and their parents should have resolved their differences. They had left this world but had passed on the guilt factor to her grandparents and now it was for her, Tania, to resolve this issue.

"I want you and Dadi ji to come to Moscow to visit me and stay with me for a few days." She told her Dada ji.

"When can you come to Moscow?" She asked.

"Beta, at present, it is cold in Dharamshala which experienced all the seasons of Spring, Summer, Monsoon, Autumn and Winter. Spring is in the air but it is still cold. We would prefer to travel as soon as the weather became pleasant." Her Dada ji responded.

"The Moscow weather, in March, is freezing with temperatures of -4° and 3° degrees and slight rain. Spring commences in April with maximum daytime temperature of 10°C while at night the temperature goes to be 2°C. The month of May in Moscow is the warmest month of the year with daytime temperatures of 19°C and night time temperature reaching 8°C. I think you should come in May."

" Yes, I think you are right, May the 21st will be a good day to land in Moscow. Summer would have begun in India but it would be pleasant in Moscow."

"We will inform the details about our flight etc. Bye Beta, take care."

"Namaste Dada ji and Dadi ji."

During the telephone call she had decided to call representative from both sides of her grandparents i.e. maternal and paternal, to come to her home within a few months to meet her and discuss matters. Since it would take time for her paternal grandparents to come, she called the Indian embassy to help out. The embassy sent one of their persons to personally visit her and collect details from her pertaining to her father.

She was informed that there were official formalities and it would take at least two to three months for them to come over. This delay in their coming to Moscow would give her ample time to submit her thesis which was almost at the final stage of completion.

It is said that time passes slowly especially when you have lost some close relatives. In her case, the first 2 months, after the death of her parents, had moved very slowly but thereafter, the next two-month picked up speed. Maybe she felt so because she had picked up her normal routine of going to the University, meeting the professors, discussing with them about the thesis and finally submitting it. Soon she would get her desired PhD and with it the designation of a Professor.

Before she knew it, April had arrived. She had earlier, sent out messages to her maternal and paternal relatives to come and meet her or at least send one relative from each side to discuss things with her. Her maternal grandparent was ready to send someone within a month but in case of her paternal relatives, it would take time as they would be coming from another country and that too from another town in that country.

The paternal grandparents would need a visa and to book a flight to Moscow from New Delhi, the capital of India. They hailed from Dharmshala, a small town in the mountain state of Himachal Pradesh which had become famous as a tourist attraction due to the presence of the Dalai Lama who had fled Tibet in 1959 and sought asylum in India. The Indian Government at that time had allocated upper Dharmshala called Maclord Gang area for him and his followers to settled down. After the Dalai Lama got the noble prize for peace in 1989, this area became even more famous. Since then many foreigners have been visiting Dharmshala regularly to meet him. They also come as tourists and some come to get treatment in the Tibetan system of healing.

Both her paternal grandparents were alive. Her father had been their only child and had grown up as a stubborn child and a stubborn adult. It seemed that the grandparents were equally stubborn. Even after Tania was born no one took the initiative to break the wall of no communication. It is said that when a child is born in the family, all differences are resolved. However, this did not happen in their families from both sides.

Her maternal grandparents hailed from a small village in Ukraine. They were simple folks and had a close-knit community there. At present only her grandmother was alive as her grandfather had passed away a year ago. This was the information that had been passed on to her by her maternal relatives who had come to meet her earlier.

Her grandmother had two daughters and one son. Now, there were only one daughter and one son. Both were well settled and the son and his wife along with her cousins lived in the same village. Her uncle was the head of the village level organization that looked to the development of the village etc.

Her father would converse mostly in Russian at home and in Russian or English with foreign students or foreign patients in the hospital where he worked. He knew how to speak in the Hindi language as well as in the Punjabi language. He could speak kangri the dialect of Pahari language. However, her mother would speak Russian at home and like my father, she would converse in Russian or English with foreign students or patients at the hospital. She understood Hindi very well but her spoken Hindi was not so good.

Tania, on the other hand, had been taught to speak in all the three languages since her childhood. In college, she took up Sanskrit, as an ancient language, to help her understand the texts that were available in old books. However, the languages she used to converse in were Russian and English with the colleagues of her parents as well as the patients in the hospital where they both worked as doctors.