I'm faced with a rather uphill task of throwing out four years worth of accumulated newspapers and junk from my room here in Bahrain, before I pack my bags off to Mumbai next month.
As I was sorting out my things, I came across an old air ticket dated May 10, 2007.
It is perhaps the only reminder I have left of the mammoth journey my family and I made to attend my paternal grandfather's funeral.
Flights to India normally take four hours, but as we had few options left, we travelled for half a day, boarding and de-boarding four aircraft en route.
This Sunday will mark his third death anniversary and though I knew him little - I hadn't seen him for six years - I can't get my thoughts away from him.
His love for oratory, play-writing skills and the family tradition of giving Latin middle names for girls and Sanskrit middle names for boys are some of things he'll be best remembered for.
As much as we remember the dead for what they meant to us, we can't help wonder how they would have remembered us, if they did at all, in the end.
As I left India for Bahrain when I was eight, I have little recollection of anything either him or my granny, who passed away four months before him, might have remembered me by.
One little incident however stands fresh in my memory.
My mum and I had gone away on a trip to Chennai.
When we returned, we found our room tidied and all the magazines I owned, gone.
In those days, my mum saved an issue of Femina magazine that had a picture of a little girl eating a huge blob of jelly.
Mum always kept the 'jelly book', as I called it, in full view as I was very fussy about food and needed the picture as a companion for lunch!
I went ballistic when I found that my granny had sold it while we were away.
I decided to march out of the house at noon to get it back from the shop.
However, I was not able to get out, as the metal gates were too big for me to slide open.
Polite as ever, my grandfather slid them open for me, much to my granny's chagrin.
The shopkeeper, just across the street, was taken aback to see an angry-looking seven-year-old marching up to his shop in the blazing afternoon.
"I think my granny sold some magazines to you last week," I said to him.
"You have my jelly book and I want it back, right now."
I don't remember if I got it back. I should have, or I might have staged a walk-out.
The story however has been retold many a time in the family because no person ever overruled my granny's decision and got away with it.
I've always felt a twinge of regret because I did have an opportunity to meet them when I was on a short vacation in Mumbai in 2006.
My dad advised me against going down to the state of Tamil Nadu, where they lived, as there was an epidemic raging there which affected and later weakened my grandparents.
From what I recollect, there wasn't much I was known for when I was younger, except for being a spoilt little brat.
I can't guess what they best remembered me for, but I hope they didn't forget the jelly book.
¥ Jennifer Gnana is a former Bahrain resident now studying in Mumbai. Her family still lives here.
Copyright 2010 Al Hilal Publishing and Marketing Group
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