Though they never saw even walls of a school, my grandmothers taught some incredible lessons that I really treasure and try to practice in daily life chores, dealings, and interactions. Vividly I remember both of my grannies and many other elderly ladies of the area how they would welcome the relatives, sometimes total strangers, even beggars, with broad welcoming smiles to their houses, whispering gentle, serene ‘Bismillah’. After formal greetings and elaborately asking about the well-being of the visitors’ entire families, they would ask the girls and women of the house to serve the guests with food, depending on the time, without asking the guests: “Do you need food and how many rotis would you like to devour?” If it was not time for lunch or dinner, they would not let the visitors leave their houses without taking tea or qehwa, with gur or sugar added to it. They would murmur Bismillah while serving the guests, lifting every food item from the kitchen or placing it on the table, milking buffaloes or doing any other small task.

Even after years of their death, I still feel the soul-stirring Bismillah echo through my mind whenever I greet someone, serve someone, drive or do any other small activity: lifting an item, handing a pen or paper to anyone or doing any exercise. Of course, I do not recite Bismillah when planning to hurl a stone at someone or something. I really feel the sweetness of this blissful expression Bismillah melting down my soul. I am sure the reward for this utterance and practice goes to my late grannies who implanted these traits through their tender utterances and continuous practices.

Of my grannies, the paternal granny was a naively innocent but profoundly God-fearing lady who would always assert the need of rising before the call for prayer and offering the prayer, particularly the Fajr prayer regularly. Once, it so happened that I woke up a little late for Fajr and hurriedly did my ablution and rushed to the prayer rug, deeply worried. By then, the sun rays had already started sprinkling through the room where she was counting her rosary. Glancing at me, sensing my apprehension, she said gently: “Beta, close the door to block the sun rays and offer Fajr.” And I did. Now when I reflect back at those rather innocent instructions, I smile but reminisce that she was a pure simpleton who wanted me to pray in feigned darkness to foster punctuality of offering prayer. Even nowadays, whenever I get late for Fajr, I recall my granny’s formula and kneel before the Lord, believing that He would not reject prostration before Him. Naturally, sincere prayers spring for my grandmother whenever I kneel down to Allah in the dark or a little late. I always try to rise with the cock’s crow, though.

I cannot forget yet another event that mirrored her pure-heartedness and ingenuousness. One day, we siblings were playing in our house and we lost the ball inside the house. Desperately, we started to hunt for the lost ball, blaming each other for a wrong throw that misplaced the ball. The frantic search for the ball led to arguments that created a potential danger of a small quarrel amongst us, the siblings. Perceiving the impending danger of a fight, granny who was sitting in the corner on a goatskin rug, gently pronounced: “The ball is lying there under the bed.” The next moment my sister located the ball and we all started giggling and chuckling at the innocence of our granny who continued to offer her prayer. Her innocent timely directions to help us find the ball, amidst prayer, averted the potential scuffle amongst the siblings. Such was the pure love of grannies to their grandchildren; such was the level of innocence embodied by our grandmother and other grannies of the locality.

In the contemporary era, when the schools and colleges have almost abandoned the foremost responsibility to groom Gen Z, they are at the throes of ruthless media and social media. It is really imperative to protect and groom this generation, and for this arduous task, we need to revert to old-fashioned granny-style of grooming. It may sound obsolete to many, but it is the only way forward to supervise, guide and groom this generation, with grannily love, affection and care, not with taunts and scoffs.