Miss you Babai - always will

I still cannot fathom Death and what it means. One moment you have a person alive and the next it is a lifeless body.
How can people say with such surety that the dead go to a better place? Have they been there? Or do the dead just disappear into dust or ashes?

Where did Babai go? I sit up nights like an owl, waiting to feel his presence around me, willing to see him looking at me from somewhere in my living room and I do not feel his presence. I cry out to his soul to tell me that he is in a better place. But I feel nothing.

I miss him so. I call the Charmwood number hoping that there will be a pick up - even a silent one. But all I get is the voice message. I long to hear his voice telling me “Bhalo achi re” . Such a huge whopping lie. He was not OK for some time and hiding it. He was especially careful not to worry me – sitting so far away. In his old age, in the years I have been away from home, I began to appreciate this naturally warm and much misunderstood person that was Babai. We joked about lottery tickets, indulged each other and made sure he got a call everyday from his grandson.
When I was growing up, I did not know him as a person at all. I was closer to my mother. The only things I remembered were that he was strong and never ill and nothing could keep him down.

Babai was not a typical dad. One did not sit and discuss one’s dreams with him. His formula was simple. Position, money and food. Food was of paramount importance. Good food was the solution to all ills according to him. It was terribly tragic therefore to see him refusing food in the last few months of his life.

He was something of a maverick, always on to one project after another. Nothing ever got him down. One failed business venture after the other never robbed him of his enthusiasm for the next . He just got back up and ran again. That was what I always remembered and admired about him- The sheer will power and the complete lack of cynicism. All this kept him so busy that he did not do the usual dad things. Like saving up for his girls, or for his old age. He simply believed things would fall in place. And of course they did.

I did do my post graduation, we did have food on the table and both my sister and I did settle down to reasonably comfortable lives.

I remember one evening when I was little. It was about 8 pm. In a small town that was like the middle of the night and I said I needed a frilly frock for the school play next day. No amount of assurance of telling me that it was too late and to wait till the next day would stop my whining. Finally dad was so frustrated he put me out in the dark for a bit and I was heartbroken. As a parent, I know now, how much more heartbroken he would have been. Ma quietly cut up a beautiful sky blue sari and stitched the most beautiful frock into the wee hours of the night.

The next day, when I came back from school there were 2 big boxes from CG Dass full of frilly frocks. “Take your pick.” He said. He was full of grandiose gestures like that.

And when we fell sick, he was the one we found by our side when we tossed and turned. His first question as soon as we felt better always was - what would you like to eat? And he turned the world upside down to get us what we wanted to eat then.

Another memory I had was of the day the BCom results were announced. He came in from the back shouting Han Go to Ma. I ran out to see what was the matter and he gave me a big hug ( we are not a huggy family) and asked Ma to “Mukh mishto korao. Tomar me rank peyeche.” He had tears of pride in his eyes that day. And he had tears in his eyes when he left me standing on the station in Kota. That was my official ‘bidaai’ No tears on the day I left for my husband’s house.

When he came to live with me having to give up his business I got to know him differently. I became the parent trying to get him out of depression by introducing him to people with who he could talk stone talk to. He was not happy and made no bones about it. His way of protest was silence.

I tried very hard to be a good daughter. While I was growing up and then after I became financially dependant. I know he did not always like staying with us. He used to threaten to go away to Kolkata. We indulged him when we could, sending him off to see his siblings.But he was a great grandfather. And more than just that to Isha. He was her second mother

I do not think I was gracious all the time about being a good daughter though. I said words that did not need to be said. I regret every one of them now. My last words to him were an apology with a hug. “I have said many words I did not mean. Please do not worry about them. I just want you to get better and come to Canada”. In my own way, I tried to make it up to him in his last week. Papda maach tangra maach, mishti, I stocked the fridge with his favorite food much of which he would never eat. I tried. Did it matter? I do not know.

The one thing I should have done when he was alive was mend my bridges with my siblings. We did it after he was gone. He did tell Babun, he had spent a lot of time in riling with his siblings and that they were now all gone. He was urging us to make peace. He taught us how temporary life was to be squabbling in his Death.

I know he missed his grandkids. I remember his expression every time we had to leave for the west. There was such loneliness and despair in his eyes it made it difficult for me to look at him.

Ironical I did not see that look that last time I left. There was no one at the door to see me go. And deep down there was this something…was it my soul, that was so heavy so very very heavy. It knew I think that this was the end.

I have not lived a single day without guilt here in Canada. I have been forever guilty. Of not being with him in this last stage of his life. The irony was that I was working on it. I saw myself back in India by the end of 2012. But Death did not heed my plans.

In deference to the best memory I have of him – of the man who always gave it a good fight – I have returned to living life. In deference to the memory I have of him of keeping silent about his deepest feelings, I am avoiding friends who want to come console. My response to all who ask is “I am OK. I am fine. – Bhalo achi” True, most of us have by now experienced a loss in our lives, but each one of us are different in the way we take it. This is my way- Babai’s daughter’s way.

I am not sure about after life. But in me he lives. As he lives in Bula. As he lives in Babun, Monu, Arijit, Debu and Isha
He wrote, he painted and forgave everybody. I will try to keep that legacy alive.

Incredibly Indian

After my trip to the Indian capital last December I was going to write a piece “Maa Tujhe Salaam” on the Republic Day this year impressed as I was with the airport, the metro and the malls of Delhi
But life has its strange twists and turns. I found myself back in Delhi on the eve of the Republic Day under very different circumstances.
My father lay critically ill in the hospital and my sister and I were the chief caregivers. Just like one realizes the true worth of friends and relatives in a time of crisis, does one realize the culture of a place. Delhi is ruled by scavengers! Soon enough I began to see that the cab drivers, the helps at home were all cashing in on the hapless situation we found ourselves in. They were out to maximize their gains in the face of our vulnerability. I looked for angels in the crowd and for the first time in many years found none!
Everything was a struggle. From getting my father a bedpan to getting him cleaned up and into a fresh pair of pyjamas. The inhumanity, the lack of reverence for a human life both amazed and disgusted me. The nurses were in a perpetual daze administering wrong dosages of medicines and relaying half baked information.
When it was time to leave the hospital, and I asked for an ambulance, my father was actually made to step into the ambulance and then ordered out! One had to literally scream to get their attention to the fact that the reason the ambulance was ordered was because the patient was a patient! And people who did their duty at the hospital lined up for their bakshish!
While the doctors were excellent- all surrounding facts almost negated the fact that they were so.
I hired 24 hours attendants for my Dad, who slept while my dad moved himself around to the bathroom on his own.
Unfortunately we lost our father the second time into the hospital. And when it was time to move him to the crematorium, a drunken ambulance driver tried to order the bodily remains out with no reverence to the fact this was the last journey of a person – a living being a few hours ago! The crematorium employee wanted money to hand over the ashes and the pundits were shockingly mercenary.
Thanks to one family of women and an old pujari, we finally found some solace and peace in performing the last rites.
Is this what Incredible India is all about? True the size of the population puts a strain on the infrastructure but whatever happened to the tehzeeb North Indians were known for? In its run to become an economic superpower, Indians are slowly losing their values – the essence of what made India dear to us.