1962 Raia, Goa: Piedade, my grandmother, was not an easy woman to love. She was rude, bitter and ungenerous. “Her heart is small,” my father would say of his own mother. My mother would scold him for painting a bad picture of a grandmother, especially to an impressionable 10-year-old. I often heard stories about how she would go off for the village version of a kitty party, where a garrafõe (flagon) of feni and a few cigarettes would do the rounds. “Mae smoked?” I was shocked when I first heard it. Dad would nod, trying to shake off the memory from his head. Now, as I look back, I think Piedade was caught in a bad marriage with children she didn’t care for. Maybe she
savoured her moments of freedom. But how far could one go in a small nosy village where everyone was always watching?