A hundred years can make one jaded. But Girgaum resident Vimal Purshottam Dhebri, a mother, a grandmother, a great grandmother, and now great great grandmother, gets more interested in life as she gets on in years.
A hundred years can make one jaded. But Girgaum resident Vimal Purshottam Dhebri, a mother, a grandmother, a great grandmother, and now great great grandmother, gets more interested in life as she gets on in years.
She turned 100 this Sunday. From Lezhim dance in the traditional Maharashtrian attire to Pada Puja to weighing her with sugar later given away to an old age home to creating a photo gallery
of special moments from her life to treating her with the choicest delicacies ending with a shot of scotch for her, the family celebrated in a big way. Dressed in traditional nine-yard sarees, three-year old children and older women danced around the ‘mother figure’ at the Kshatriya Chawl.
Everyone seems to remember Vimal’s toughness. Her great granddaughter Neena Mulaokar, who is visiting from Dubai recalls how her siblings and her were not allowed to stay out for long, not stay in the sun to avoid a tan, were expected to carry themselves well and dress proper. “She would even watch from the balcony to see who we would talk to,” says Mulaokar. And when 11-year-old Rahul is being reprimanded for skipping breakfast, his 21-year-old cousin can easily relate. “I always had small tiffs with her, for she would say girls should not run around creating ruckus at home,” says Siddhi Molaokar, Vimal’s great granddaughter, who visits her from the US every year.
They, however hasten to add how the lady did it all to ensure they did well in life. “She was broad-minded otherwise. Despite us having grown up in a chawl for ‘Kshatriyas only’, most of us married among Sindhis, Punjabis, Bengalis, Christians and Muslims. She supported that,” says, her granddaughter Sunita Hava, who is married to a Muslim. “My parents were apprehensive but she took a stand.”
You could not skip a meal, eat too much junk and she made sure no one went hungry from her house, recalls Dhanraj Naik, a member of her extended family who was introduced to ‘Varan Bhaat’ by her.
“She still makes and sells spices besides cooking and doing household work,” says Dattaram Dhebri, her 79-year-old son. With no friend alive, Vimal spends her time watching family dramas on TV, which is her favourite hobby.
Ask her if she misses her friends or whether there are things on her wish list she hasn’t ticked off yet, and pat comes a curt reply as
she gestures towards her family, “I am happier than any of them.”
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