My first memory of this lady was from when I had gone to Hyderabad to attend my appa's cousins wedding. She was standing with her back straight, smiling and talking to appa. She must have been in her 60's wearing a bright coloured cotton saree with gold border with equally bright but not matching blouse. She had worn it in a traditional gochi style. She must be 5 feet tall, pale in complexion, petite in built. What struck me about her was the grace with which she stood and held her head high with pride. There was a sense of self assurance in her stance. Her face beemed with kindness everytime she smiled, and she smiled a lot ...I thought it was my sight..me tugging her saree every now and again trying to divert her attention towards me which made her smile...Over the years as I learnt and understood more about her life, I realised maybe that smile meant something else.
 
I didn't think much about her until I attended another wedding a few years later. I was a teenager by then and had certainly decided that I was able to make my own opinions on just about everything. I saw her talking to appa again and though it was a few years more she seemed just the same, that face well puffed, similar cotton saree, kohl smudged big eyes, a very big kumkum on her forehead and more kumkum on her hair partition. Her hair neatly oiled and placed in a bun, a few kanakambaram flowers tucked on her bun,...but again it was the smile..it intrigued me, how she smiled all the time. This time my eyes never left her for a moment... I...kept following her with my gaze everywhere she went. She talked to everyone young and old whoever she saw with similar affection. I saw her smile so much but not once did I notice her laugh.
 
She continued in a similar fashion and then after a while my young restless mind got bored and looked somewhere else to see what everyone else was doing. Then, I saw two ladies in thier late thirties who looked like siblings, wearing lehenga and blouse not much age difference between them wearing two plaits and thier hair tied in ribbons. They behaved like two happy children much younger than me. I wondered, they seemed much much older than me and still behaved like young children, playing, clapping their hands at what everyone would say, eating from other people's plates and talking in a real child like manner.
 
Now, I found Subbulu nannamma approaching these two ladies and calming them down and looking after them. By now my latest Nancy Drew imagination started working overtime and I went to appa. I knew appa would have all the answers. I asked him who all those ladies were. 
 
Appa told me her story.
 
Subbulu nannaamma like many ladies of her time was married off at a very young age to a man atleast 18 years older than her. She was sent to her inlaws house when she grew a little older. Her husband was the only child so nannamma looked after her old inlaws and learnt the ways of life from them. Over the years she sired four children, two sons and two daughters. Tata's income was just enough to scrape through to support his old parents, wife and children. As the children grew older it dawned upon everyone that nannammas both daughters had Downs syndrome. The sons grew up too.