Late Life Thoughts and Das Lied von der Erde
1
It was a rainy evening in early October of 1962, like most evenings in Liverpool that year. I had been in that lively city for a year but the fine, almost molecular, grey drops still chilled me to the bones. In retrospect, it was a brave act on my part to accept a free ticket and walk down about a kilometer to the concert hall for my first visit to a performance of Western classical music. I had no idea of what to expect. I suspected it would be very different from the classical music I had grown up with in India. However, I was encouraged by the reputation of Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra as top notch and that of John Pritchard as a very promising young conductor.
I took my seat in good time to study the program. Mozart’s symphony no. 41 was performed in the first half. Although it is one of my favourite symphonies now, it made so little impression on me that I even forgot about it being performed in that concert. It was the second half that got me hooked. The title “The Song of the Earth” impressed me. ‘Song’ was actually six verses which I read with great interest during the intermission. Although I did not really understand many of the allusions, the poetry made a deep impression. Fortunately for me, they were, as was the custom in England then, presented in English translation of the German text used by the composer. I later learned that the German poems were a translation from French version of what was originally written in Mandarin. The singers were tenor William McAlpine and Alto Sandra Warfield. I followed closely the words while listening to the singers, a practice I have stuck to ever since. Even though ignorant of Western music, I was struck by how the music had captured the soul of poetry. The desperation of “The life is gloomy, so is death” was driven home, as was the forlorn mood of the autumn. The clincher, though, was the final words, “The beloved Earth everywhere blossoms in spring and becomes green again! Everywhere and for ever the horizon shines bright blue, for ever, for ever …. .” The expression of sorrow at taking one’s permanent leave from the earth that will always return to lushness and beauty will move a heart of stone even with amateur performers leave alone the distinguished artists performing that day.
The ‘song-symphony’ has six ‘movements’ sung alternately by the tenor and the Alto. First song, “Drinking Song of Earth’s Sorrow” laments the short sorrowful human life on this beautiful Earth with the refrain - Life is gloomy, so is death. In “The Lonesome in Autumn” the grieving singer extols the beauty of the landscape before cold winds destroy it and wishes for either death or love to tenderly dry her tears. “Of Youth” describes an assembly of young men writing poems in a beautiful garden. “Of Beauty is a lovely song where girls are picking flowers when handsome young men on beautiful horses gallop by creating tumult in the hearts of the ladies. In “The Drunken Man in Spring” the young man lives as if in a dream singing and drinking all day and sleeping all night. “Farewell” is the last song. On a beautiful and pleasantly cool evening the forlorn singer is waiting for her friend who arrives to tell her that he is returning home leaving this beautiful place for ever. Mahler’s version combines two Mandarin poems separated by a haunting interlude. The composer added at the end a line similar to one in the first song and this coda, mentioned earlier, is probably the most moving music in the Western classical canon.
What was it that attracted a 24 year old postgraduate student to this pinnacle of melancholy? It could not be loneliness, away from the family and friends. I had left home six years earlier and never really missed my family. I never had any bosom friends and moving away was never a heart wrenching experience. I was living in a foreign country but I had lived in Liverpool for a year and was familiar with English literature, British history and politics since the early teens. Therefore I was not in an altogether strange environment, my work was going well, I had received additional funding and there was no reason to fall in love with this song of sorrow. In fact, I did not feel sorry, rather felt the elation of reading and hearing something beautiful; beautifully expressed emotion in poetry and music. The emotion was not strange of course. If it were, the beauty would not have been appreciated. But excitement was with the beauty of words compounded by the musical setting, not sorrow expressed by them. Melancholic music in ‘Farewell’ made me pensive for a few moments; it did not bring tears to my eyes leave alone induce me to jump in the Mersey. I do believe that my interest was more intellectual than emotional.
2
I owe an immense gratitude to the local Rotary Club who donated a pair of season tickets to the International Students Residence where I lived. I went to as many concerts as the graduate student workload allowed. I was also introduced to the world of opera with Mozart's The Magic Flute. It did make a more lasting impression than Symphony no. 41 had done. A young English girl, mature beyond her years, was a source of inspiration and information in my acculturation. A couple of years later she agreed to marry me for better (for me) or worse (for her).
I got a taste of a wide range of music over next four years in England. Five following years in Libya were a cultural desert. My wife, two daughters and I settled in North America nine years after the first Das Lied and we renewed our association with the concert scene. At this stage, the works of Beethoven and Mozart were the staple and our small record collection consisting mostly of their symphonies and piano concertos with Mahler songs and symphonies being somewhat on the periphery.
It was around this time, in 1981, I read the essay “Late Night Thoughts on Listening to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony by Lewis Thomas, a New York physician. The connect between the sad situation of the human race and the coda of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony and the memory of my introduction to the Western classical music induced me to spend an evening listening to the ninety minute work which was composed around the same time as Das Lied in the last years of composer’s life. I was intrigued by it. I decided that to appreciate what the composer was telling me, the listener, I had to become familiar with his other compositions. Thus I began the journey which is nowhere near its end almost thirty years later.
My first discovery was that the set of Mahler’s symphonies, including Das Lied numbered 8 ½, is one long book. Each individual symphony is a chapter and a movement is a section. In each chapter the composer asks the question, “Why am I on this Earth?” He provides a provisional answer in the last movement and then revisits it in the next work. Although there is continuity musically, each chapter is philosophically different reflecting the circumstances and the maturity of Mahler at that stage of life. The first symphony often called ‘Titan’ suggests heroic deeds while the second ends with all living creatures participating in the glory of the Heavenly Father. Third is about love – love of nature, love of life, love of God in an ascending order. Fourth further expands on the theme but in a humorous way. Fifth is the joyful homage to love, love of another human being, which creates a range of emotions from the tragedy of loveless life in first two movements to excitement of love in the third to peace and harmony of the fourth movement and finally the great joy and brilliant climax – sexual in its intensity – of the last movement. It is as if the composer has found a reason for living in the love of a woman.
The pendulum turns the other way in the sixth symphony, originally titled Tragic. The beauty and joy is snuffed out by brute force and life is snuffed out by three strokes of a sledge hammer. The joy is ephemeral in this long work and the last movement, as long as most symphonies, is a litany of misfortunes which lead to doom with no redemption. Perhaps as a reaction to the undiluted joy of Fifth and unmitigated disaster of Sixth, the Seventh is a ‘purely musical’ creation: three haunting nachtmusic movements, albeit one termed scherzo, sandwiched between two joyous sunshine ones. It is as if the composer is telling us that joy and sorrow were fleeting emotions and Art was his reason for living. The Eighth is a Song Symphony dedicated to Love in all its forms. It integrates Latin hymn “Come Creator Spirit” in Part 1 with Goethe’s Redemption of Faust in Part 2. Eros, God of Love, is the creator of all things material and spiritual and the symphony ends in a wonderful crescendo “Eternal womanhead, Leads us on high.”
Das Lied, Ninth and the unfinished Tenth are different than previous works. These symphonies were written after Mahler had suffered three blows of misfortune and was living under constant fear of death. They are about coping with the finality of death and a deep melancholy hovers over the entire symphonies. While the ninth ends in a great coda of reconciliation described most aptly by Alex Ross as “a whisper of love at the edge of the grave”, the tenth is, if it is at all possible, even more grief-stricken but it ends with “music of love” in Deryck Cooke’s words.
3
Das lied is the first in the final phase of Mahler’s composing career, the last three summers in the life of this ‘summer composer’. I love all of them dearly and have traveled far to hear their performances. But Das Lied has been my favourite since that fateful day in Liverpool and any of 24 CDs of it that I own remain my first choice for listening pleasure. But my reaction to this work has changed over the years. The ‘intellectual sympathy’ of the first few years when only the strangers passed away started becoming tinged with emotion as the parents and then older friends started taking their leave. By my own late fifties “Farewell” was creating new emotional sensations; I began to feel as if I was taking leave of my world of a beautiful family, kind friends, and the glorious Mother Earth whose bounty I had the good fortune to enjoy in its many forms. But this was only an intermediate stage.
In my seventieth year I have gone beyond feeling emotional about my own death. During this year my granddaughters returned to live with us again because of their special needs. While helping their mother and grandmother in the recovery of the children’s health, my concern increasingly became the headlong rush of humanity towards its destruction. Two major threats to the human survival are global warming and environmental pollution, both directly related to gluttonous consumption by human race. We destroy the forests to create farms, then destroy farms to build shopping centres and clusters of palaces which are left deserted a few years later to start the process somewhere else. We still live under the code devised two millennia ago in entirely different circumstances and ignore the permanent destruction due to an exponentially growing population. We create an economic system which threatens collapse if the economy does not grow day to day; leave alone shrink even for a few months. When handed a golden opportunity to lead the populace towards a system based on steadily reducing and eventually sustainable consumption, our leaders desperately try to reverse a miniscule slowdown in breakneck rush to consume and destroy while paying lip service to environmental protection. Already weak environmental regulations are being relaxed to encourage more production of unnecessary goods (!) all over the world. Alberta, my own province, is a particularly discouraging example where incentives are being offered to extract more oil from tar sands with total disregard for extensive pollution of air, water and land; all in the name of protecting jobs. In order to promote our commercial interests we encourage increasing consumption among the middle classes in developing countries at the expense of the poor who have even less to eat and disregard the consequences in those lands of multiplying population, overcrowded cities, evermore scarce water and polluted air. We are rushing to our inevitable end with our eyes shut with the exception of a few isolated voices who cry in the wilderness.
Given this scenario, I feel more and more disheartened with every passing hour. To me the third stroke in the sixth symphony is about to come and fell the human race and the deep melancholy of the coda of Das Lied is not a lament for an individual but for all of us. That is why I worry about my grandchildren’s future and Das Lied echoes in my mind when these thoughts keep me awake at night.
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Friday, July 24, 2009
Friday, July 17, 2009
Wretchedness Shared
1.
Earth spins on its axis during summer and winter. Night and day even out over the year. Joy and grief take turns and even out over a life time. Perhaps they do for many. They did not for me.
2.
The year was 1950. The year of joy and sorrow. Joy because our son was on his way to a brilliant career that would bring fame and fortune to the family of this lowly civil servant in the government of newly minted Republic of India. Ramesh had graduated with a medical degree from the elite medical school in Lucknow and had won a prestigious scholarship to go to America to specialize as an Oncologist. Sorrow because our only child was going away for who knows how long. Joti was in tears most of the day. Her delight was going so far away, a letter took ten days to get there. When will she hear the voice that makes her body shiver in excitement from head to toe? I promised her to pull the strings and get a telephone. She was still disconsolate; “it will cost a bundle for even the shortest call across seven seas.” Ramesh could not understand her mother’s grief. He told her again and again that he was coming back in two years. He promised to work hard and finish the course earlier if at all possible. He vowed to write a long letter every Saturday. Joti was not consoled. It was as if she had a premonition of disaster. Still, she pulled herself together as the day of departure approached. When he touched her feet at the station before boarding the train for Bombay, she blessed him, “May goddess Saraswati help you with studies, goddess Lakshmi look after your worldly needs and goddess Kali protect you from enemies. May Lord Ganesh fulfill all your wishes.” I pulled Ramesh up as he bent down to touch my feet, embraced him and held back the tear which was going to give my feelings away.
We received letters from him every week for the first few months. Joti gave the mailman a rupee whenever he knocked to hand over a letter from ‘Amrika’. There were at least three people now eagerly waiting for a letter with the bald eagle stamp. However the income of the poor mailman started declining after the New Year and had dropped to an occasional rupee a year later. Joti worried all the time about her son’s health; what he was eating, who was washing his clothes, cleaning his room and if he had started drinking alcohol and eating meat. Her biggest worry was American girls and she was certain that every one of them between the age of fifteen and forty was out to get him. Her relief after every letter could be seen from across the street.
Two years were nearly up. Joti bought new bed, pillows, sheets and blanket for Ramesh and redecorated his old room. She made me promise that we will go to Bombay to see him get off the boat. But his letters, full of news about the acclaim he was receiving from professors and fellow students, made no mention of any travel plans. On the second anniversary of his departure, Joti insisted that I call him on phone and find out the details of his return trip. It took several tries to get him on the line, and when I did get him the line was poor and it was difficult to understand what he said. But one thing was clear. Instead of reserving a place on the ship home, he was planning to stay there for a while longer to get some practical training. He would not be specific on how long his training would be and promised to write us a detailed letter explaining his situation.
It took a month for the letter to arrive. “From my enquiries I have learnt that there are no hospitals in India where my expertise can be useful. My contacts in the profession at home tell me that the people suffering from fatal diseases like cancer go for Ayurvedic treatment or have holy men pray for them rather than call a doctor or go to hospital even when they can afford to. They also confirm my suspicion that the government has no money to properly equip existing hospitals leave alone building new ones. You will not want your America returned son to come back and work as an ordinary doctor. Therefore, I will work here till things improve in India. I can earn more in a year here than I would earn in a long life time in India. I promise that I will come on a holiday next year, and every year after that to be with you. Please give me your blessings as you have done whenever I have taken a major step.”
Joti would like nothing better than to have her only son in town, as a lowly medical orderly if need be, leave alone a doctor. Her disappointment took a new turn. Now she took her frustration out on me, “You wanted Ramesh to be a big success. You spent all my dowry to send him to the doctor school. Now we don’t have a son. We don’t have any body to look after us in our old age. It is all your doing – you wanted your son to be what you didn’t have the brains to be.” This would be followed by two days in bed with headache and mild fever.
Ramesh came home for two weeks the next year. Several relatives had lined up prospective matches for our boy in great families with prospects of six figure dowries. Joti was too week for us to travel to Bombay and I could not leave her alone with the servants. He was shocked to see how thin his mother had become and cancelled plans to travel to Lucknow to renew acquaintance with his old professors and spent most of his time near her. But he refused to see any of the girls we wanted him to choose from. He assured us that there was no one in America he was involved with; just that he was not ready to settle down. It broke Joti’s heart. She became convinced that she had lost her son for good. Smile that had returned to her face when she greeted her son was now replaced by the look of deep sorrow. She took to bed the day before Ramesh left and did not get up to see him off at the door.
3.
My grief at the turn of events was no less than Joti’s but I had to put up a brave face to help her. We had long discussions, she in tears and I in a consoling tone. She told all our visitors that her son had turned his face away from his parents who had done their all for him. The expressed opinions divided along gender lines. The ladies agreed with her without exception and some even suggested that he “was in the clutches of a shameless white girl.” Gradually Joti also started believing it. Men, on the other hand, irrespective of what they really believed, told Joti that Ramesh had always been a good son and she should trust him. Her reply was always the same, “You men don’t have a heart, you can not feel and therefore you are taken in by the sweet talk. I can see behind the words of my son. He is in the clutches of the devil. He is not going to come back on his own.”
A renowned sadhu was visiting our town. I approached the organizers and persuaded them to have a prayer ceremony, yagya, “to free Ramesh from the devil.” Yagya was held on the holy day of Dussehera in the month of October. We set cross legged on the carpeted floor in the front row facing the sadhu who was clad in a saffron dhoti with his upper body covered in ash. He recited in a singsong voice Sanskrit shlokas which were mostly incomprehensible to us, and probably to him too. Without interruptions in the recital he threw spoonfuls of ghee in the fire, the flames shooting up dangerously as the offerings were accepted. The pot of concentrated butter lasted till the last shloka was pronounced after an hour. “Hare Ram, Hare Hare, Bhagwan ki jai” shouted the sadhu as he stood up and folded his hands in reverence before the fire. We raised ourselves on our feet with some difficulty, touched sadhu’s feet and he gave us his blessing, “May all your wishes be fulfilled.” Joti looked as if a big load had lifted off her back. Faith in our son had returned and we now jumped for the good news every time phone rang or the mailman announced a letter from ‘Amrika’.
Another year went by. After several perfunctory letters we had one with some news, though not what we had been anticipating. “I will arrive there on November 24 and I have a surprise for you. I am sure you will love it.” We were in suspense. What surprise could he bring? We lost several strands of hair scratching our heads but could not guess what it could be. Joti had a suspicion that it wasn’t any thing good. “Trust your son, he has never disappointed you” I replied every time, though with a little less conviction with each passing day.
4.
Joti was not well enough to go to Bombay this time either. It was unusually cold that day and we splashed to rent a motor car for the evening and drove to the railway station in good time. But the train was late and our suspense built up to an almost unbearable point. What surprise did our son have in store for us? Was it good as I had hoped or evil as his mother was certain? I must admit that by now I was secretly beginning to agree with Joti. Her suspicions are always well-founded and are proven true with only rare exceptions. Here we were, Joti sitting on a bench looking straight ahead with unseeing eyes and I walking up and down the platform, the coolie, a frail elderly man in tattered clothes and bare feet, standing next to Joti fidgeting a little. Suddenly Joti stood up and walked to the edge of the platform. She had heard the whistle of the engine. We looked along the railway track and saw the black smoke from the engine darkening the sky as it lumbered uphill pulling carriages loaded with hundreds of passengers.
The train stopped and I heard the shout of “Pitaji” from the window of a first class compartment fifty feet away. We walked towards him, the coolie following close behind. Ramesh jumped out, ran to us and bent down to touch her mother’s feet as she tried to hold back her tears. When he straightened up I asked him to show coolie the luggage. He went back and pointed out what the old man was to carry. After jumping on to the platform he turned around and held out his hand. What I saw set me shivering as if I was suffering from malaria. There was a tall slender white woman with very short red hair in a clumsily put on saree, ill-fitting blouse and men’s shoes cautiously stepping down the two steps to the platform. I looked at Joti. Her eyes were blank, face as white as that of the young woman leaning on our son’s shoulder to regain her balance. I held her to stop her from collapsing on the platform and whispered, “Have courage, Lord Ram will look after us.”
Ramesh and the girl walked to us holding hands. She bent down and touched Joti’s feet and then mine before being erect again with head modestly bent. Our son now delivered the final blow of his surprise, “Amma, Pitaji, meet your bahu. Sally and I got married last month. I am sure you will love her.” So we now had an American daughter-in-law right out of the blue. Thought in my mind was “Bhagwan ki jai, we don’t have a daughter. Who would have married her?” Joti, I am sure, was thinking, “He will never come back. I have lost my only son.”
The couple spent a month with us. Sally had not learnt any Hindi but Ramesh was a good translator. Bit by bit Sally won us over. The night before they were to leave, after the lights had been turned off and Joti was sure that Ramesh and Sally had gone to sleep, she turned to me, “Are you awake?”
“Yes. How can I sleep when my son is going away again, who knows for how long?”
“He will never come back. We have to get used to our lonely lives. We will never see our grandchildren. Only consolation is that Sally is a good girl. She will look after our Ramesh.”
“Yes, it is better than it could be. He could have married a woman who treated him as an inferior brownie.”
“We should thank Bhagwan for sending Sally to look after him if He was going to keep him there. Only He knows what He has in mind for them.”
Joti’s words calmed my fears and we fell asleep holding the other in our arms.
5.
Joti put up a brave face but she was feeling empty inside. As my luck would have it, flu’ epidemic spread all over India the following spring. People were dying like flies everywhere. It was the time of Holi festival when people splash every one in sight with coloured water. Joti got more than her share and was drenched. I asked her to change her clothes straight away but she was having too much fun to pay attention. In the evening, she started to shiver. During the night her throat became sore and she was feverish. I called the doctor in the morning but pharmacies had run out of the medicines he prescribed. I endured for a week the cries of physical pain and tears of emotional suffering of my beloved wife of thirty years before Lord Ram called her to His side. My grief was made infinitely more unbearable by the absence of Ramesh at cremation ceremonies.
After Joti’s loss I felt all alone. Every so often, at work or home, a vision of what life could be and wasn’t would float in front of me; my eyes would become wet, whole body would tremble and feel drained of all energy. I would ask myself why I was alive. Then the vision would pass, I would pick up what I was doing and carry on with a heavy heart. Must be good deeds in a former life, I kept my sanity through that difficult period.
My son and daughter-in-law visited twice over next ten years, for one month each time. First time they had a baby boy and second time two boys, one an energetic six years old and the other a bouncy toddler. I retired from my job just before their second visit. I loved my grandchildren. I took them to the playground where other nicely tanned children looked enviously at their fair complexion. We went to the circus that was visiting the town and swam in the river Jamuna a walking distance from home. It was the happiest time of my life since Ramesh was a boy.
Those were the days when air travel was becoming popular. I looked into air fares and found that if I managed with just Mohan to cook and clean and let the other servants go and rented out a room in the house, I could save enough in three years to visit my family. I set up a savings account and started putting every extra rupee in it. The time passed slowly but I could see my savings grow. At long last I could write to Ramesh to suggest a good time to visit. His reply would have perplexed most people but I was too pleased with myself to notice this. “Christmas is best for us, a month with us will be enough time” the letter said.
I spent the whole month in Boston indoors because it was freezing outside. But the house was comfortable and I did not need clothing warmer than a sweater. The boys were twelve and nine now. The family was out during the day for their jobs and schools. In the evenings the kids had home work and Ramesh and Sally their social engagements. I spent the time reading local newspaper and watching T.V. There was never any news of what was happening outside Boston and the TV was annoying because just when it got interesting the ads for all the things you don’t need would come on. But I enjoyed being near the family and I was sorry to leave when the month was over.
6.
The letters from America were few and short. I assumed that no news is good news and did not worry about them. I spent my time reading scriptures, praying at home and in the temple. I went for long walks in the evening and swam every day in the river. I looked and felt younger than my seventy years. Then the disaster struck. On my way home from the swim, a horse sprang loose from a horse cart and ran amok towards me. Looking back I was fortunate that it was content with just one kick. It did not kill me but caused serious injuries in the abdomen. The doctor recommended that I hire a nurse. Jaya, a widow my age, looked after me, tenderly replacing the bandages and washing and changing me when necessary.
I became very fond of Jaya and we continued to meet after I had completely recovered. I looked forward to being with her. When I prayed for wisdom from Goddess Saraswati it was Jaya’s image that would appear in front of me. The loneliness that was my constant companion since Joti left me was now replaced by longing to be with Jaya. I now wanted to live and make her part of what little was left of my life. One evening we were sitting on a rock on the bank of the river. It was a beautiful sunset, glowing clouds tinged with red and purple and a huge red ball sinking beyond the horizon. I nervously expressed my feelings while throwing pebbles in the water. The silence after I stopped speaking lasted an eternity. When she spoke I could barely hear her.
“I do not know what you see in me, a poor widow who has to work to make ends meet even at my age. More important, I am not as strong as I look. I had breast cancer ten years ago. Fortunately, it was detected early, the tumour was small and I did not need an operation. But the shock of my disease is what killed my husband; the poor man had always thought I was indestructible. Cancer is never cured for good. It returns after a few years and the older body often gives in to the disease. I am sorry my response to your affection has encouraged your feelings to become so deep. I was lonely and selfish and did not have the courage to stop when I should have. Also, the dictum of Tolstoy – Wretchedness shared makes one doubly wretched- is never far from my mind and it added to my reluctance to share my misery. You want to share what little of our lives is left. I do too. Only I know how miniscule it could be and how much grief it could cause you. I have killed one husband. That is enough.”
“I am sorry to learn of your sorrow. But I can handle my grief now that I have been forewarned. I will not give up on you. Why don’t we arrange for an oncologist to examine you and discuss the issue after his verdict? We have to die one day, whether it is tomorrow or in ten years. I am prepared to take my chances. But if my suggested course will make you feel better, we should proceed with it without delay.”
“All right, I will arrange the medical appointments and we will discuss it when the results are in. In the meantime please do not take my response as yes. I have several emotional issues to resolve. We carry a lot of baggage on our backs and we need to work out how to reduce its weight. May be men are different, they can consider the future without being bothered by the past. But I am a woman, frail one, and my past haunts me. Please understand my dilemma. I will be able to express myself better when I have thought a little more about it.”
“I understand. We will not talk about it any more till you are ready. You know what will make me happy; but only if you are happy as well. Martyrdom does not behoove people our age.”
We were silent for rest of the walk. It was pitch dark when we turned on her street.
7.
I lay in bed that night considering what could be done to raise Jaya’s spirits. My mind kept returning to the idea of whisking Jaya far away from the daily grind for a few weeks. I wrote to Ramesh the next day. I told him about her and asked whether we could spend a while with them. It was a couple of weeks before I received his reply. “Sally and I don’t think it will be a good idea to bring a cancer patient to the U.S. She won’t have any insurance and the treatment costs the earth here. Of course, you are most welcome any time that suits you. Kids love you and miss you. It is about time they got to renew bond with their Indian grandpa.”
I was disappointed. While it would be good for me and the kids, the purpose of the whole exercise was defeated by my going alone. I did want to see my family but I did not want to be away from Jaya either. Not after what she had told me about her apprehension of recurrence of cancer. I could not decide what to do. Ramesh did raise a valid point; it would have been horrible to watch Jaya suffer and not be able to get her treatment. After tossing and turning in bed on several nights I was feeling quite run down. Jaya noticed it and asked, “You are looking thin and tired. What is worrying you?”
“Oh, it is nothing, just can’t sleep in the night; may be the heat.”
“It has been quite cool of late. You are hiding something from me. You can tell me. May be I can help you.”
“Ramesh and Sally want me to visit them. They don’t think it will be wise for you to travel with your health concerns. I would love to see my family but I don’t want to be away from you for so long.”
“You are being silly. We are not teenagers; let us not behave like them. I will be all right. I will get checked up when you are away and the good news will be waiting for you on your return. You must go. As you said yourself, we are getting old. We don’t know how much time we have before our bodies give out. You have to go. I won’t have it any other way.”
It took a month to organize the papers and book the seat on the plane. We spent as much time as we could together. Jaya was able to book the appointments for her examination and the tests during the period of my absence. I was not comfortable with the plan but Jaya did not seem least bit perturbed. She was waving a green scarf cheerfully when the train for Delhi took off. I could barely hold back my tears.
It was autumn and the trees were laden with glorious golden leaves. Ramesh and Sally had more time for me than on previous visits and showed me around the attractions of the area. Grandchildren were now fully grown up, both taller than Sally, leave alone Ramesh and me. We played chess and ping pong and went for walks along the sea. The month in Boston flew by and soon it was time to leave. I was a bundle of mixed up emotions; sorry to be leaving my family but at the same time excited about being with Jaya again. For the last night in Boston and during the naps on the plane I dreamed of her smiling face greeting me at the station and her blabbering in excitement all the good results of the tests.
8.
The sun was making its way to the top as the train crept towards the station. Storm clouds, if any, were invisible from the train. I felt lively even after twenty four hours on planes and airports and twelve hours on the train as I peeped out of the window looking for Jaya in the milling crowd on the platform. “There couldn’t be confusion about the dates. May be I can’t see her in the crowd. May be she got held up in the traffic.” I got out, hired a coolie for my suitcase and waited near the exit for half an hour. The train left and arriving passengers made their way to their destinations. I was the only passenger left on the platform. The coolie was getting impatient, “Sahib, I need to be ready for the next train in a five minutes.” I gave in and followed him to a rickshaw to take me home.
Mohan took the suitcase inside and I carried on to Jaya’s house in the rikshaw. The house was locked. I knocked on the door of the neighbour. The kindly middle aged woman opened the door, looked at me, turned sombre and before I could open my mouth said, “Jaya had excruciating pain in the chest yesterday morning. She is in the hospital.”
“What kind of pain is it? How did they treat her? How is she feeling?”
“I don’t know. My husband called the ambulance that took her to the hospital. Visitors were not allowed to see her yesterday. We hope to see her in the evening.”
I thanked her and ran to the rickshaw. In spite of my constant urging to go faster, it took for ever to get to the hospital. Rickshaw wallah knew that I did not have time to bargain and asked for fifty rupees instead of the normal twenty. I gave him some ten rupee notes without counting and rushed to the reception desk. The receptionist was chatting on the phone and took her own sweet time to give me the directions to Jaya’s room. I ran to the ward shoving doctors, nurses, visitors and patients aside. The attending nurse looked blankly when I reached the nursing station. After many entreaties, she condescended to take me to Jaya. On our way to the room I learnt that Jaya had a double mastectomy last night, the operation had gone well but they were not sure all the affected parts were taken out. She told me to be gentle and not to cause any excitement. If I behaved I could have fifteen minutes with the patient.
At first glance Jaya looked as if she was asleep. When we got closer she heard our steps and opened her eyes. She was obviously in pain but forced a smile when she saw me. I sat down on a stool next to her and held her hand. She opened her mouth as if to say something. I had to put my ear almost on her mouth to hear her whisper “You see I was right. I am not here for long.”
“Don’t be so downhearted. It will be all right. Nurse told me that the operation was a success. You will be recovered enough to come home with me in a week. In a month we will be able to go for a walk along the river. I will take care of you.”
I don’t know how much of this registered with her. She waved to me and I leaned my ear over her, “Promise me you will find some one to love soon after I am gone. Remember what you said about us not having long to live.”
“We have, both you and me, many years yet. These will be good years. We will make a list of things we always wanted to do and do them together. You can’t give up. I am not going to let you leave me.”
“It is not in our hands. Whatever happens you have to live with it. I am so sorry our happiness was cut short like this.”
“Jaya, listen to me. You will be well again soon. We will be happy together. Think positively. It is all these painkillers that are making you downhearted. When I come tomorrow I want to see the smile that makes my heart jump with joy.”
The nurse returned with a tray of medication. My time was over. I gave her my address and requested her to promptly let me know if I could be useful. My head bowed, I made my way back home. I took my shoes off and lay down on the bed. I heard Mohan ask what I would like for dinner. I turned the other way without answering and sobbed till sleep took me out of my misery, albeit temporarily.
9.
Mohan woke up me when it was still dark outside. “Sahib, there is a message for you” and handed me an envelope. I looked at the envelope and jumped out of bed. It was from the hospital. I tore open the envelope. The message was short, “Jaya Malini passed away in her sleep. The cause of her death is being investigated.”
The sun did not rise that morning. Nor on any morning after.
If you enjoyed the story, please introduce your friends to the blog.
1.
Earth spins on its axis during summer and winter. Night and day even out over the year. Joy and grief take turns and even out over a life time. Perhaps they do for many. They did not for me.
2.
The year was 1950. The year of joy and sorrow. Joy because our son was on his way to a brilliant career that would bring fame and fortune to the family of this lowly civil servant in the government of newly minted Republic of India. Ramesh had graduated with a medical degree from the elite medical school in Lucknow and had won a prestigious scholarship to go to America to specialize as an Oncologist. Sorrow because our only child was going away for who knows how long. Joti was in tears most of the day. Her delight was going so far away, a letter took ten days to get there. When will she hear the voice that makes her body shiver in excitement from head to toe? I promised her to pull the strings and get a telephone. She was still disconsolate; “it will cost a bundle for even the shortest call across seven seas.” Ramesh could not understand her mother’s grief. He told her again and again that he was coming back in two years. He promised to work hard and finish the course earlier if at all possible. He vowed to write a long letter every Saturday. Joti was not consoled. It was as if she had a premonition of disaster. Still, she pulled herself together as the day of departure approached. When he touched her feet at the station before boarding the train for Bombay, she blessed him, “May goddess Saraswati help you with studies, goddess Lakshmi look after your worldly needs and goddess Kali protect you from enemies. May Lord Ganesh fulfill all your wishes.” I pulled Ramesh up as he bent down to touch my feet, embraced him and held back the tear which was going to give my feelings away.
We received letters from him every week for the first few months. Joti gave the mailman a rupee whenever he knocked to hand over a letter from ‘Amrika’. There were at least three people now eagerly waiting for a letter with the bald eagle stamp. However the income of the poor mailman started declining after the New Year and had dropped to an occasional rupee a year later. Joti worried all the time about her son’s health; what he was eating, who was washing his clothes, cleaning his room and if he had started drinking alcohol and eating meat. Her biggest worry was American girls and she was certain that every one of them between the age of fifteen and forty was out to get him. Her relief after every letter could be seen from across the street.
Two years were nearly up. Joti bought new bed, pillows, sheets and blanket for Ramesh and redecorated his old room. She made me promise that we will go to Bombay to see him get off the boat. But his letters, full of news about the acclaim he was receiving from professors and fellow students, made no mention of any travel plans. On the second anniversary of his departure, Joti insisted that I call him on phone and find out the details of his return trip. It took several tries to get him on the line, and when I did get him the line was poor and it was difficult to understand what he said. But one thing was clear. Instead of reserving a place on the ship home, he was planning to stay there for a while longer to get some practical training. He would not be specific on how long his training would be and promised to write us a detailed letter explaining his situation.
It took a month for the letter to arrive. “From my enquiries I have learnt that there are no hospitals in India where my expertise can be useful. My contacts in the profession at home tell me that the people suffering from fatal diseases like cancer go for Ayurvedic treatment or have holy men pray for them rather than call a doctor or go to hospital even when they can afford to. They also confirm my suspicion that the government has no money to properly equip existing hospitals leave alone building new ones. You will not want your America returned son to come back and work as an ordinary doctor. Therefore, I will work here till things improve in India. I can earn more in a year here than I would earn in a long life time in India. I promise that I will come on a holiday next year, and every year after that to be with you. Please give me your blessings as you have done whenever I have taken a major step.”
Joti would like nothing better than to have her only son in town, as a lowly medical orderly if need be, leave alone a doctor. Her disappointment took a new turn. Now she took her frustration out on me, “You wanted Ramesh to be a big success. You spent all my dowry to send him to the doctor school. Now we don’t have a son. We don’t have any body to look after us in our old age. It is all your doing – you wanted your son to be what you didn’t have the brains to be.” This would be followed by two days in bed with headache and mild fever.
Ramesh came home for two weeks the next year. Several relatives had lined up prospective matches for our boy in great families with prospects of six figure dowries. Joti was too week for us to travel to Bombay and I could not leave her alone with the servants. He was shocked to see how thin his mother had become and cancelled plans to travel to Lucknow to renew acquaintance with his old professors and spent most of his time near her. But he refused to see any of the girls we wanted him to choose from. He assured us that there was no one in America he was involved with; just that he was not ready to settle down. It broke Joti’s heart. She became convinced that she had lost her son for good. Smile that had returned to her face when she greeted her son was now replaced by the look of deep sorrow. She took to bed the day before Ramesh left and did not get up to see him off at the door.
3.
My grief at the turn of events was no less than Joti’s but I had to put up a brave face to help her. We had long discussions, she in tears and I in a consoling tone. She told all our visitors that her son had turned his face away from his parents who had done their all for him. The expressed opinions divided along gender lines. The ladies agreed with her without exception and some even suggested that he “was in the clutches of a shameless white girl.” Gradually Joti also started believing it. Men, on the other hand, irrespective of what they really believed, told Joti that Ramesh had always been a good son and she should trust him. Her reply was always the same, “You men don’t have a heart, you can not feel and therefore you are taken in by the sweet talk. I can see behind the words of my son. He is in the clutches of the devil. He is not going to come back on his own.”
A renowned sadhu was visiting our town. I approached the organizers and persuaded them to have a prayer ceremony, yagya, “to free Ramesh from the devil.” Yagya was held on the holy day of Dussehera in the month of October. We set cross legged on the carpeted floor in the front row facing the sadhu who was clad in a saffron dhoti with his upper body covered in ash. He recited in a singsong voice Sanskrit shlokas which were mostly incomprehensible to us, and probably to him too. Without interruptions in the recital he threw spoonfuls of ghee in the fire, the flames shooting up dangerously as the offerings were accepted. The pot of concentrated butter lasted till the last shloka was pronounced after an hour. “Hare Ram, Hare Hare, Bhagwan ki jai” shouted the sadhu as he stood up and folded his hands in reverence before the fire. We raised ourselves on our feet with some difficulty, touched sadhu’s feet and he gave us his blessing, “May all your wishes be fulfilled.” Joti looked as if a big load had lifted off her back. Faith in our son had returned and we now jumped for the good news every time phone rang or the mailman announced a letter from ‘Amrika’.
Another year went by. After several perfunctory letters we had one with some news, though not what we had been anticipating. “I will arrive there on November 24 and I have a surprise for you. I am sure you will love it.” We were in suspense. What surprise could he bring? We lost several strands of hair scratching our heads but could not guess what it could be. Joti had a suspicion that it wasn’t any thing good. “Trust your son, he has never disappointed you” I replied every time, though with a little less conviction with each passing day.
4.
Joti was not well enough to go to Bombay this time either. It was unusually cold that day and we splashed to rent a motor car for the evening and drove to the railway station in good time. But the train was late and our suspense built up to an almost unbearable point. What surprise did our son have in store for us? Was it good as I had hoped or evil as his mother was certain? I must admit that by now I was secretly beginning to agree with Joti. Her suspicions are always well-founded and are proven true with only rare exceptions. Here we were, Joti sitting on a bench looking straight ahead with unseeing eyes and I walking up and down the platform, the coolie, a frail elderly man in tattered clothes and bare feet, standing next to Joti fidgeting a little. Suddenly Joti stood up and walked to the edge of the platform. She had heard the whistle of the engine. We looked along the railway track and saw the black smoke from the engine darkening the sky as it lumbered uphill pulling carriages loaded with hundreds of passengers.
The train stopped and I heard the shout of “Pitaji” from the window of a first class compartment fifty feet away. We walked towards him, the coolie following close behind. Ramesh jumped out, ran to us and bent down to touch her mother’s feet as she tried to hold back her tears. When he straightened up I asked him to show coolie the luggage. He went back and pointed out what the old man was to carry. After jumping on to the platform he turned around and held out his hand. What I saw set me shivering as if I was suffering from malaria. There was a tall slender white woman with very short red hair in a clumsily put on saree, ill-fitting blouse and men’s shoes cautiously stepping down the two steps to the platform. I looked at Joti. Her eyes were blank, face as white as that of the young woman leaning on our son’s shoulder to regain her balance. I held her to stop her from collapsing on the platform and whispered, “Have courage, Lord Ram will look after us.”
Ramesh and the girl walked to us holding hands. She bent down and touched Joti’s feet and then mine before being erect again with head modestly bent. Our son now delivered the final blow of his surprise, “Amma, Pitaji, meet your bahu. Sally and I got married last month. I am sure you will love her.” So we now had an American daughter-in-law right out of the blue. Thought in my mind was “Bhagwan ki jai, we don’t have a daughter. Who would have married her?” Joti, I am sure, was thinking, “He will never come back. I have lost my only son.”
The couple spent a month with us. Sally had not learnt any Hindi but Ramesh was a good translator. Bit by bit Sally won us over. The night before they were to leave, after the lights had been turned off and Joti was sure that Ramesh and Sally had gone to sleep, she turned to me, “Are you awake?”
“Yes. How can I sleep when my son is going away again, who knows for how long?”
“He will never come back. We have to get used to our lonely lives. We will never see our grandchildren. Only consolation is that Sally is a good girl. She will look after our Ramesh.”
“Yes, it is better than it could be. He could have married a woman who treated him as an inferior brownie.”
“We should thank Bhagwan for sending Sally to look after him if He was going to keep him there. Only He knows what He has in mind for them.”
Joti’s words calmed my fears and we fell asleep holding the other in our arms.
5.
Joti put up a brave face but she was feeling empty inside. As my luck would have it, flu’ epidemic spread all over India the following spring. People were dying like flies everywhere. It was the time of Holi festival when people splash every one in sight with coloured water. Joti got more than her share and was drenched. I asked her to change her clothes straight away but she was having too much fun to pay attention. In the evening, she started to shiver. During the night her throat became sore and she was feverish. I called the doctor in the morning but pharmacies had run out of the medicines he prescribed. I endured for a week the cries of physical pain and tears of emotional suffering of my beloved wife of thirty years before Lord Ram called her to His side. My grief was made infinitely more unbearable by the absence of Ramesh at cremation ceremonies.
After Joti’s loss I felt all alone. Every so often, at work or home, a vision of what life could be and wasn’t would float in front of me; my eyes would become wet, whole body would tremble and feel drained of all energy. I would ask myself why I was alive. Then the vision would pass, I would pick up what I was doing and carry on with a heavy heart. Must be good deeds in a former life, I kept my sanity through that difficult period.
My son and daughter-in-law visited twice over next ten years, for one month each time. First time they had a baby boy and second time two boys, one an energetic six years old and the other a bouncy toddler. I retired from my job just before their second visit. I loved my grandchildren. I took them to the playground where other nicely tanned children looked enviously at their fair complexion. We went to the circus that was visiting the town and swam in the river Jamuna a walking distance from home. It was the happiest time of my life since Ramesh was a boy.
Those were the days when air travel was becoming popular. I looked into air fares and found that if I managed with just Mohan to cook and clean and let the other servants go and rented out a room in the house, I could save enough in three years to visit my family. I set up a savings account and started putting every extra rupee in it. The time passed slowly but I could see my savings grow. At long last I could write to Ramesh to suggest a good time to visit. His reply would have perplexed most people but I was too pleased with myself to notice this. “Christmas is best for us, a month with us will be enough time” the letter said.
I spent the whole month in Boston indoors because it was freezing outside. But the house was comfortable and I did not need clothing warmer than a sweater. The boys were twelve and nine now. The family was out during the day for their jobs and schools. In the evenings the kids had home work and Ramesh and Sally their social engagements. I spent the time reading local newspaper and watching T.V. There was never any news of what was happening outside Boston and the TV was annoying because just when it got interesting the ads for all the things you don’t need would come on. But I enjoyed being near the family and I was sorry to leave when the month was over.
6.
The letters from America were few and short. I assumed that no news is good news and did not worry about them. I spent my time reading scriptures, praying at home and in the temple. I went for long walks in the evening and swam every day in the river. I looked and felt younger than my seventy years. Then the disaster struck. On my way home from the swim, a horse sprang loose from a horse cart and ran amok towards me. Looking back I was fortunate that it was content with just one kick. It did not kill me but caused serious injuries in the abdomen. The doctor recommended that I hire a nurse. Jaya, a widow my age, looked after me, tenderly replacing the bandages and washing and changing me when necessary.
I became very fond of Jaya and we continued to meet after I had completely recovered. I looked forward to being with her. When I prayed for wisdom from Goddess Saraswati it was Jaya’s image that would appear in front of me. The loneliness that was my constant companion since Joti left me was now replaced by longing to be with Jaya. I now wanted to live and make her part of what little was left of my life. One evening we were sitting on a rock on the bank of the river. It was a beautiful sunset, glowing clouds tinged with red and purple and a huge red ball sinking beyond the horizon. I nervously expressed my feelings while throwing pebbles in the water. The silence after I stopped speaking lasted an eternity. When she spoke I could barely hear her.
“I do not know what you see in me, a poor widow who has to work to make ends meet even at my age. More important, I am not as strong as I look. I had breast cancer ten years ago. Fortunately, it was detected early, the tumour was small and I did not need an operation. But the shock of my disease is what killed my husband; the poor man had always thought I was indestructible. Cancer is never cured for good. It returns after a few years and the older body often gives in to the disease. I am sorry my response to your affection has encouraged your feelings to become so deep. I was lonely and selfish and did not have the courage to stop when I should have. Also, the dictum of Tolstoy – Wretchedness shared makes one doubly wretched- is never far from my mind and it added to my reluctance to share my misery. You want to share what little of our lives is left. I do too. Only I know how miniscule it could be and how much grief it could cause you. I have killed one husband. That is enough.”
“I am sorry to learn of your sorrow. But I can handle my grief now that I have been forewarned. I will not give up on you. Why don’t we arrange for an oncologist to examine you and discuss the issue after his verdict? We have to die one day, whether it is tomorrow or in ten years. I am prepared to take my chances. But if my suggested course will make you feel better, we should proceed with it without delay.”
“All right, I will arrange the medical appointments and we will discuss it when the results are in. In the meantime please do not take my response as yes. I have several emotional issues to resolve. We carry a lot of baggage on our backs and we need to work out how to reduce its weight. May be men are different, they can consider the future without being bothered by the past. But I am a woman, frail one, and my past haunts me. Please understand my dilemma. I will be able to express myself better when I have thought a little more about it.”
“I understand. We will not talk about it any more till you are ready. You know what will make me happy; but only if you are happy as well. Martyrdom does not behoove people our age.”
We were silent for rest of the walk. It was pitch dark when we turned on her street.
7.
I lay in bed that night considering what could be done to raise Jaya’s spirits. My mind kept returning to the idea of whisking Jaya far away from the daily grind for a few weeks. I wrote to Ramesh the next day. I told him about her and asked whether we could spend a while with them. It was a couple of weeks before I received his reply. “Sally and I don’t think it will be a good idea to bring a cancer patient to the U.S. She won’t have any insurance and the treatment costs the earth here. Of course, you are most welcome any time that suits you. Kids love you and miss you. It is about time they got to renew bond with their Indian grandpa.”
I was disappointed. While it would be good for me and the kids, the purpose of the whole exercise was defeated by my going alone. I did want to see my family but I did not want to be away from Jaya either. Not after what she had told me about her apprehension of recurrence of cancer. I could not decide what to do. Ramesh did raise a valid point; it would have been horrible to watch Jaya suffer and not be able to get her treatment. After tossing and turning in bed on several nights I was feeling quite run down. Jaya noticed it and asked, “You are looking thin and tired. What is worrying you?”
“Oh, it is nothing, just can’t sleep in the night; may be the heat.”
“It has been quite cool of late. You are hiding something from me. You can tell me. May be I can help you.”
“Ramesh and Sally want me to visit them. They don’t think it will be wise for you to travel with your health concerns. I would love to see my family but I don’t want to be away from you for so long.”
“You are being silly. We are not teenagers; let us not behave like them. I will be all right. I will get checked up when you are away and the good news will be waiting for you on your return. You must go. As you said yourself, we are getting old. We don’t know how much time we have before our bodies give out. You have to go. I won’t have it any other way.”
It took a month to organize the papers and book the seat on the plane. We spent as much time as we could together. Jaya was able to book the appointments for her examination and the tests during the period of my absence. I was not comfortable with the plan but Jaya did not seem least bit perturbed. She was waving a green scarf cheerfully when the train for Delhi took off. I could barely hold back my tears.
It was autumn and the trees were laden with glorious golden leaves. Ramesh and Sally had more time for me than on previous visits and showed me around the attractions of the area. Grandchildren were now fully grown up, both taller than Sally, leave alone Ramesh and me. We played chess and ping pong and went for walks along the sea. The month in Boston flew by and soon it was time to leave. I was a bundle of mixed up emotions; sorry to be leaving my family but at the same time excited about being with Jaya again. For the last night in Boston and during the naps on the plane I dreamed of her smiling face greeting me at the station and her blabbering in excitement all the good results of the tests.
8.
The sun was making its way to the top as the train crept towards the station. Storm clouds, if any, were invisible from the train. I felt lively even after twenty four hours on planes and airports and twelve hours on the train as I peeped out of the window looking for Jaya in the milling crowd on the platform. “There couldn’t be confusion about the dates. May be I can’t see her in the crowd. May be she got held up in the traffic.” I got out, hired a coolie for my suitcase and waited near the exit for half an hour. The train left and arriving passengers made their way to their destinations. I was the only passenger left on the platform. The coolie was getting impatient, “Sahib, I need to be ready for the next train in a five minutes.” I gave in and followed him to a rickshaw to take me home.
Mohan took the suitcase inside and I carried on to Jaya’s house in the rikshaw. The house was locked. I knocked on the door of the neighbour. The kindly middle aged woman opened the door, looked at me, turned sombre and before I could open my mouth said, “Jaya had excruciating pain in the chest yesterday morning. She is in the hospital.”
“What kind of pain is it? How did they treat her? How is she feeling?”
“I don’t know. My husband called the ambulance that took her to the hospital. Visitors were not allowed to see her yesterday. We hope to see her in the evening.”
I thanked her and ran to the rickshaw. In spite of my constant urging to go faster, it took for ever to get to the hospital. Rickshaw wallah knew that I did not have time to bargain and asked for fifty rupees instead of the normal twenty. I gave him some ten rupee notes without counting and rushed to the reception desk. The receptionist was chatting on the phone and took her own sweet time to give me the directions to Jaya’s room. I ran to the ward shoving doctors, nurses, visitors and patients aside. The attending nurse looked blankly when I reached the nursing station. After many entreaties, she condescended to take me to Jaya. On our way to the room I learnt that Jaya had a double mastectomy last night, the operation had gone well but they were not sure all the affected parts were taken out. She told me to be gentle and not to cause any excitement. If I behaved I could have fifteen minutes with the patient.
At first glance Jaya looked as if she was asleep. When we got closer she heard our steps and opened her eyes. She was obviously in pain but forced a smile when she saw me. I sat down on a stool next to her and held her hand. She opened her mouth as if to say something. I had to put my ear almost on her mouth to hear her whisper “You see I was right. I am not here for long.”
“Don’t be so downhearted. It will be all right. Nurse told me that the operation was a success. You will be recovered enough to come home with me in a week. In a month we will be able to go for a walk along the river. I will take care of you.”
I don’t know how much of this registered with her. She waved to me and I leaned my ear over her, “Promise me you will find some one to love soon after I am gone. Remember what you said about us not having long to live.”
“We have, both you and me, many years yet. These will be good years. We will make a list of things we always wanted to do and do them together. You can’t give up. I am not going to let you leave me.”
“It is not in our hands. Whatever happens you have to live with it. I am so sorry our happiness was cut short like this.”
“Jaya, listen to me. You will be well again soon. We will be happy together. Think positively. It is all these painkillers that are making you downhearted. When I come tomorrow I want to see the smile that makes my heart jump with joy.”
The nurse returned with a tray of medication. My time was over. I gave her my address and requested her to promptly let me know if I could be useful. My head bowed, I made my way back home. I took my shoes off and lay down on the bed. I heard Mohan ask what I would like for dinner. I turned the other way without answering and sobbed till sleep took me out of my misery, albeit temporarily.
9.
Mohan woke up me when it was still dark outside. “Sahib, there is a message for you” and handed me an envelope. I looked at the envelope and jumped out of bed. It was from the hospital. I tore open the envelope. The message was short, “Jaya Malini passed away in her sleep. The cause of her death is being investigated.”
The sun did not rise that morning. Nor on any morning after.
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Sunday, July 12, 2009
Flip of a Coin.
1.
I am excited. And with good reason. I have a date. First date in months. Such a fine lady too. Met her by coincidence. I had a spare ticket for the concert and she didn’t have any. The stars were aligned. We hit it off during our chat in the intermission. After a rather exciting concert I asked her if she was free some evening. “You set the evening, I will set the menu,” I said giving her my email address. Just when I had given up the message arrived setting today’s date. Lucky it was Saturday. I could spend the week deciding the menu and the right wines and the morning shopping.
I like to present myself as a man of simple tastes and limited talent, particularly so when I put on the chef’s apron with the drawing of flames shooting out of food on a saucepan. Accordingly, the menu is pretty run of the mill – start with cold zucchini soup, entrée of chicken cordon bleu with broccoli, carrots and roast potato and sherry trifle for the dessert. Two bottles of South African chardonnay of the right vintage and my carefully saved bottle of fifty year old port will help the food glide down the palate. The soup and the trifle with exactly one and a quarter cup of vintage dry sherry were prepared in the afternoon to the tunes of Carmen being broadcast on the radio. The vegetables are chopped and ready, chicken and blue cheese ready to go in the pan. It is still an hour before the scheduled time. Just enough time for a gin and tonic.
It is funny how gin sends me back to those days when I was young and foolish, though didn’t know it then. Having graduated from an elite business college in Bangalore where I had secured admission due to family connections, I found a job as an assistant to the assistant vice president of a company partially owned by an American multi-national. I was just getting my feet wet when Boston told us that they were sending an expert to train us in modern management techniques. On a beautiful morning in November Amanda Graves arrived in our office fresh as a daisy. She showed no signs of fourteen hour travel on three planes or the jet lag of twelve hours. We looked at her and wondered when she learnt all she was going to teach us – she looked barely out of her teens. Still taught us she did, a lot, for the whole week till our brains were full. We had a farewell dinner for her at the President’s palatial apartment. I had the great fortune of being seated next to her.
It is a short story, no point making it long. During the couple of hours we shared at the table, love was kindled in our hearts. I offered to drive her to the airport next morning and she accepted with alacrity – which I would have regarded unseemly in an Indian girl but found very flattering coming from an American woman of the world. On the airport when I was carrying her bag to the check in, she asked if I would like to be transferred to Boston. It took a second to flip a coin in my mind – servants versus dollars. Dollars won and I said it would be wonderful. Within a year I was in Boston. In another three months we were married and I moved in her apartment.
2.
Problems began as soon as we returned from the honeymoon. We woke up at the reasonable hour and there was time to relax and read the paper before breakfast and drive to work. Amanda suggested I made a pot of coffee. No one had ever expected me to do anything, leave alone making coffee. I had no idea what the women did in the kitchen to make coffee, or anything else on that matter. I was shocked. I gulped and asked, “What do I have to do to make coffee, never made it before.”
Now it was Amanda’s turn to be shocked. She sat up straight with a jolt which almost tossed me out of bed, “What do you mean never made the coffee before? You have coffee in India, don’t you? What do you drink when you get up?”
“We drink coffee of course. But the servant makes it. My mother would have been shocked to see me enter the kitchen.”
“Oh God” exclaimed the self-proclaimed atheist, “what have I got into?” She went down, made the coffee and thrust a mug in my grateful hands with scant grace.
When we got home from work she looked at the floor and remarked, “Two weeks away is a long time. The floor needs vacuuming.”
“What is vacuuming?” I asked innocently.
There was an explosion matching the one in the morning. “What do you do to clean the floor at home? Lick it!”
I disregarded the insult remembering the wonderful honeymoon we had. “Servant uses the broom and mop every morning after breakfast. No man of my class will be seen dead holding a broom.”
“One of us will be dead soon if the floor is not vacuumed before dinner. And you better vacuum it if you want any dinner. Go to the cupboard in the hallway, find the vacuum and work out how to use it. I want the whole apartment finished before I serve the dinner.” She issued the order and went to the kitchen. Fortunately, I worked out how to plug in the machine and use it to pick up the dust. I was amazed how easy the work was, though not as easy as it would have been to watch someone else do it. Amanda examined the floors, pointed a few corners I had missed and after I had done them and put away the vacuum we had the dinner. Amanda was a great cook and although the food tasted plane to my palate it was edible. She showed me how to make coffee and told me that making coffee morning and evening was my job.
We sat down and watched news on TV. It was doom and gloom as usual. We had got used to it and neither of us was depressed. After the news Amanda dropped another bombshell, “I have to prepare for a meeting tomorrow. Will you do the dishes and clean the kitchen?”
“Dishes, what dishes? I have never even dreamed of doing the dishes. I do not know how to do the dishes? We always had servants to do the dishes and clean the kitchen.”
“Well you don’t have a servant here. You do have a wife who is your superior at work. Every thing you need is under the sink. Surely you can work out what you need to do. You have a college degree, albeit from an Indian college.”
I swallowed this insult too and got down to the job. First time every thing was hard and my hands started to itch. But after a few days I worked out a system and the job became easy although there were times Amanda sarcastically showed me dried food on the pans which I had to scrub again. Over the months, the dried food problem disappeared only to be replaced by new ones.
A couple of days later Amanda looked at the dirty pile of clothes, looked me in the eye and asked, “What do you do with dirty clothes in India?”
“Dhobi picks them up every Monday and Friday and brings them back all clean and ironed.” I replied.
“Well, there is no dhobi here. You can take them to cleaners but it costs big bucks. We use washing machine here.”
“Washing machine! Is there something you don’t have machine for?”
“Let us not worry about other things at this time. I will show you how to do it once. Then you are on your own. If you pay attention, you won’t have to pay for my dresses or woolens that you spoil.”
Threat drove home. I listened carefully to the instructions, memorized them as if they were delivered at her management course at work and only had to pay for two dresses and four sweaters over next three years.
It was Saturday a few weeks later. We had finished a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and the newspaper. Taking the last sip of coffee which was now quite presentable Amanda remembered something I wish she hadn’t, “It is our turn to do the lawn. I will attend to the flowers if you cut the grass.”
“Cut the grass? How do I cut the grass? Never done it before.”
There was no explosion, just the witty repartee, “Of course servants did it at home. What a shame I didn’t get immigration papers for them too. You should have reminded me. Now that you didn’t, better get down to it.”
She showed me where the lawn mower was, how to fill the gas, check the oil, start the cold engine and hook the bag for clippings. I did the job, not perfectly but to her satisfaction except when the engine stopped because the bag was full and I hadn’t noticed it. She set me right, showing infinite patience even when I asked the silly question, “what do I do with the clippings?” and she answered with justified but suppressed exasperation, “Dump it in the compost, what else? And don’t just throw it on the top, mix it in with what is already there.”
3.
Now that I could clean the apartment, do the dishes, wash the clothes and cut the grass life became easy. I shopped for groceries according to her detailed list and she did the cooking and general home management. Life became a comfortable routine. If every one knows what is expected there are no arguments and days, weeks, months pass by pleasantly. But this pleasant routine must have started boring Amanda. One dinner time she said, “You should learn to cook. It is not fair that I do everything in the house even though I have a more stressful job.”
“My mother will turn in her grave if she knew that I was cooking my own meals?” I said rather lamely.
“But your mother is not in the grave. She was cremated, wasn’t she?”
“Indeed she was. But I have no talent in that direction. I will need detailed instruction.”
“No problem. I am a trained instructor,” she reminded me.
It started with washing and chopping vegetables and moved up to boiling, steaming, baking, frying them. Then it was grilling or frying chicken, pork and beef. In between there were lessons on boiling, poaching, scrambling eggs. It took a couple of years before I could serve an edible meal. But I must admit to a sense of achievement when I cooked my first meal from scratch. I was disappointed, though, when Amanda went to prepare for the meeting after the news leaving dishes in my charge.
4.
Now that I could do every thing an Indian man marries a woman for, I started protesting Amanda’s rigid rules. She was the boss at work and the example she set in the office had to be followed at home too. I had started to squirm a little when I ran into my old boss from Bangalore. He had started his own software business which had prospered. He was setting up an American subsidiary and asked me if I would like to run it. There was a problem though - he wanted the business to be set up in Silicon Valley. Again I flipped in my head the proverbial coin with two sides, be bossed or to boss. It came with to boss on top and I accepted then and there. When I told Amanda she blew up. “I am not leaving a great job and going to the wretched West Coast. My whole family and friends are here. My family has lived in Boston for generations. Why would I leave behind every one I know and go to live with strangers in a strange environment?”
Well, Amanda stayed behind and I moved forth. I returned once a week at first, then once a month and then not for six months. I spent the evenings developing my culinary skills and developed a taste for wines. For someone who couldn’t tell Red from White a few years ago I had become quite an expert. Of course I shared this expertise with Amanda when we were together. However, she was not impressed. One evening I got papers from her lawyer. Our days together were over. In due course the divorce was finalized. Thankfully there were no children to suffer from the break up.
Even if you are a man who regards modesty as the greatest virtue, and some may say I have a lot to be modest about, there comes a time when ego takes over and one wants to show off the newly acquired skill. This is why the musicians want to perform on stage, authors want to publish thick books, athletes want to climb on the podium. What can chefs do? They can open a restaurant. But not if they already run a company in Silicon Valley. They have to cook for some one special. That is what I am doing - cooking a special dinner to persuade someone to become someone special to me.
If you enjoyed the blog, please share it with your friends.
1.
I am excited. And with good reason. I have a date. First date in months. Such a fine lady too. Met her by coincidence. I had a spare ticket for the concert and she didn’t have any. The stars were aligned. We hit it off during our chat in the intermission. After a rather exciting concert I asked her if she was free some evening. “You set the evening, I will set the menu,” I said giving her my email address. Just when I had given up the message arrived setting today’s date. Lucky it was Saturday. I could spend the week deciding the menu and the right wines and the morning shopping.
I like to present myself as a man of simple tastes and limited talent, particularly so when I put on the chef’s apron with the drawing of flames shooting out of food on a saucepan. Accordingly, the menu is pretty run of the mill – start with cold zucchini soup, entrée of chicken cordon bleu with broccoli, carrots and roast potato and sherry trifle for the dessert. Two bottles of South African chardonnay of the right vintage and my carefully saved bottle of fifty year old port will help the food glide down the palate. The soup and the trifle with exactly one and a quarter cup of vintage dry sherry were prepared in the afternoon to the tunes of Carmen being broadcast on the radio. The vegetables are chopped and ready, chicken and blue cheese ready to go in the pan. It is still an hour before the scheduled time. Just enough time for a gin and tonic.
It is funny how gin sends me back to those days when I was young and foolish, though didn’t know it then. Having graduated from an elite business college in Bangalore where I had secured admission due to family connections, I found a job as an assistant to the assistant vice president of a company partially owned by an American multi-national. I was just getting my feet wet when Boston told us that they were sending an expert to train us in modern management techniques. On a beautiful morning in November Amanda Graves arrived in our office fresh as a daisy. She showed no signs of fourteen hour travel on three planes or the jet lag of twelve hours. We looked at her and wondered when she learnt all she was going to teach us – she looked barely out of her teens. Still taught us she did, a lot, for the whole week till our brains were full. We had a farewell dinner for her at the President’s palatial apartment. I had the great fortune of being seated next to her.
It is a short story, no point making it long. During the couple of hours we shared at the table, love was kindled in our hearts. I offered to drive her to the airport next morning and she accepted with alacrity – which I would have regarded unseemly in an Indian girl but found very flattering coming from an American woman of the world. On the airport when I was carrying her bag to the check in, she asked if I would like to be transferred to Boston. It took a second to flip a coin in my mind – servants versus dollars. Dollars won and I said it would be wonderful. Within a year I was in Boston. In another three months we were married and I moved in her apartment.
2.
Problems began as soon as we returned from the honeymoon. We woke up at the reasonable hour and there was time to relax and read the paper before breakfast and drive to work. Amanda suggested I made a pot of coffee. No one had ever expected me to do anything, leave alone making coffee. I had no idea what the women did in the kitchen to make coffee, or anything else on that matter. I was shocked. I gulped and asked, “What do I have to do to make coffee, never made it before.”
Now it was Amanda’s turn to be shocked. She sat up straight with a jolt which almost tossed me out of bed, “What do you mean never made the coffee before? You have coffee in India, don’t you? What do you drink when you get up?”
“We drink coffee of course. But the servant makes it. My mother would have been shocked to see me enter the kitchen.”
“Oh God” exclaimed the self-proclaimed atheist, “what have I got into?” She went down, made the coffee and thrust a mug in my grateful hands with scant grace.
When we got home from work she looked at the floor and remarked, “Two weeks away is a long time. The floor needs vacuuming.”
“What is vacuuming?” I asked innocently.
There was an explosion matching the one in the morning. “What do you do to clean the floor at home? Lick it!”
I disregarded the insult remembering the wonderful honeymoon we had. “Servant uses the broom and mop every morning after breakfast. No man of my class will be seen dead holding a broom.”
“One of us will be dead soon if the floor is not vacuumed before dinner. And you better vacuum it if you want any dinner. Go to the cupboard in the hallway, find the vacuum and work out how to use it. I want the whole apartment finished before I serve the dinner.” She issued the order and went to the kitchen. Fortunately, I worked out how to plug in the machine and use it to pick up the dust. I was amazed how easy the work was, though not as easy as it would have been to watch someone else do it. Amanda examined the floors, pointed a few corners I had missed and after I had done them and put away the vacuum we had the dinner. Amanda was a great cook and although the food tasted plane to my palate it was edible. She showed me how to make coffee and told me that making coffee morning and evening was my job.
We sat down and watched news on TV. It was doom and gloom as usual. We had got used to it and neither of us was depressed. After the news Amanda dropped another bombshell, “I have to prepare for a meeting tomorrow. Will you do the dishes and clean the kitchen?”
“Dishes, what dishes? I have never even dreamed of doing the dishes. I do not know how to do the dishes? We always had servants to do the dishes and clean the kitchen.”
“Well you don’t have a servant here. You do have a wife who is your superior at work. Every thing you need is under the sink. Surely you can work out what you need to do. You have a college degree, albeit from an Indian college.”
I swallowed this insult too and got down to the job. First time every thing was hard and my hands started to itch. But after a few days I worked out a system and the job became easy although there were times Amanda sarcastically showed me dried food on the pans which I had to scrub again. Over the months, the dried food problem disappeared only to be replaced by new ones.
A couple of days later Amanda looked at the dirty pile of clothes, looked me in the eye and asked, “What do you do with dirty clothes in India?”
“Dhobi picks them up every Monday and Friday and brings them back all clean and ironed.” I replied.
“Well, there is no dhobi here. You can take them to cleaners but it costs big bucks. We use washing machine here.”
“Washing machine! Is there something you don’t have machine for?”
“Let us not worry about other things at this time. I will show you how to do it once. Then you are on your own. If you pay attention, you won’t have to pay for my dresses or woolens that you spoil.”
Threat drove home. I listened carefully to the instructions, memorized them as if they were delivered at her management course at work and only had to pay for two dresses and four sweaters over next three years.
It was Saturday a few weeks later. We had finished a leisurely breakfast of pancakes and the newspaper. Taking the last sip of coffee which was now quite presentable Amanda remembered something I wish she hadn’t, “It is our turn to do the lawn. I will attend to the flowers if you cut the grass.”
“Cut the grass? How do I cut the grass? Never done it before.”
There was no explosion, just the witty repartee, “Of course servants did it at home. What a shame I didn’t get immigration papers for them too. You should have reminded me. Now that you didn’t, better get down to it.”
She showed me where the lawn mower was, how to fill the gas, check the oil, start the cold engine and hook the bag for clippings. I did the job, not perfectly but to her satisfaction except when the engine stopped because the bag was full and I hadn’t noticed it. She set me right, showing infinite patience even when I asked the silly question, “what do I do with the clippings?” and she answered with justified but suppressed exasperation, “Dump it in the compost, what else? And don’t just throw it on the top, mix it in with what is already there.”
3.
Now that I could clean the apartment, do the dishes, wash the clothes and cut the grass life became easy. I shopped for groceries according to her detailed list and she did the cooking and general home management. Life became a comfortable routine. If every one knows what is expected there are no arguments and days, weeks, months pass by pleasantly. But this pleasant routine must have started boring Amanda. One dinner time she said, “You should learn to cook. It is not fair that I do everything in the house even though I have a more stressful job.”
“My mother will turn in her grave if she knew that I was cooking my own meals?” I said rather lamely.
“But your mother is not in the grave. She was cremated, wasn’t she?”
“Indeed she was. But I have no talent in that direction. I will need detailed instruction.”
“No problem. I am a trained instructor,” she reminded me.
It started with washing and chopping vegetables and moved up to boiling, steaming, baking, frying them. Then it was grilling or frying chicken, pork and beef. In between there were lessons on boiling, poaching, scrambling eggs. It took a couple of years before I could serve an edible meal. But I must admit to a sense of achievement when I cooked my first meal from scratch. I was disappointed, though, when Amanda went to prepare for the meeting after the news leaving dishes in my charge.
4.
Now that I could do every thing an Indian man marries a woman for, I started protesting Amanda’s rigid rules. She was the boss at work and the example she set in the office had to be followed at home too. I had started to squirm a little when I ran into my old boss from Bangalore. He had started his own software business which had prospered. He was setting up an American subsidiary and asked me if I would like to run it. There was a problem though - he wanted the business to be set up in Silicon Valley. Again I flipped in my head the proverbial coin with two sides, be bossed or to boss. It came with to boss on top and I accepted then and there. When I told Amanda she blew up. “I am not leaving a great job and going to the wretched West Coast. My whole family and friends are here. My family has lived in Boston for generations. Why would I leave behind every one I know and go to live with strangers in a strange environment?”
Well, Amanda stayed behind and I moved forth. I returned once a week at first, then once a month and then not for six months. I spent the evenings developing my culinary skills and developed a taste for wines. For someone who couldn’t tell Red from White a few years ago I had become quite an expert. Of course I shared this expertise with Amanda when we were together. However, she was not impressed. One evening I got papers from her lawyer. Our days together were over. In due course the divorce was finalized. Thankfully there were no children to suffer from the break up.
Even if you are a man who regards modesty as the greatest virtue, and some may say I have a lot to be modest about, there comes a time when ego takes over and one wants to show off the newly acquired skill. This is why the musicians want to perform on stage, authors want to publish thick books, athletes want to climb on the podium. What can chefs do? They can open a restaurant. But not if they already run a company in Silicon Valley. They have to cook for some one special. That is what I am doing - cooking a special dinner to persuade someone to become someone special to me.
If you enjoyed the blog, please share it with your friends.
Friday, July 3, 2009
The Eulogy
It will not be wholly inappropriate to say that Ravi was suffering from depression, mild may be, but depression all the same. In fact it would be unrealistic to expect otherwise. Over last five years he had survived many serious illnesses of the family members. Thanks to his and the family’s good fortune, his superwoman wife Deb handled the situations, including her own encounter with death, with amazing grace, competence and courage. Therefore, he did not do much to help. If the truth were to be told, he did hardly anything. Yet, the strain of keeping a brave face in dire circumstances was getting to him. As if this was not enough, the financial meltdown of the fall of 2008 reduced the worth of their businesses to zero and brought the retirement savings to such a miniscule level that he contemplated what the disgraced financiers have done for centuries: end his now worthless life. He did make an attempt, a feeble one he readily admits, and all it brought him was more humiliation. To come to the point there were enough reasons to lead a stronger man than Ravi to an analyst’s couch. Unfortunately, the psychoanalysis is not cheap and Ravi struggled with his emotions on his own almost as well as any one in his situation would have.
So it did not surprise Deb that he started mumbling incoherently about what he would like to be said in the celebration of his life after his timely death when he was lying in the hospital hooked up to an array of fancy machines, his neck in a brace – he called it noose – and head lower than the body. How did he get to be in the hospital? Did he jump off a cliff? Fair questions; and please accept my apologies for not being straight up with you. I have this bad habit of skipping over vital parts of the story; always had it and my English teachers at school could never get a straight tale out of me. Any way, Ravi was in hospital because, as Deb tells it, he did a reverse somersault, landed on his head on a steep slope, bounced off and finally landed on all fours. He did that with his eyes closed without any warning to Deb. Actually, he did that without knowing he was doing it. He had never done a somersault, not even as a child. So this reverse variety was a miracle of sorts.
It is hard to explain how Ravi managed such a skillful act of gymnastics but not what led to it. Deb and Ravi were celebrating the wedding anniversary, fortieth if you really want to know. It was a bright hot day, first warm day of the spring after a long cold winter. They had carried the cool box loaded with a variety of buns, cold meats, cheeses and tomatoes on the vine to their favourite picnic spot. Champaign was chilled just right as were the flutes. They spread a soft rug on the flat ground about five feet from the steep slope with marvelous views of snow-capped mountains. Deb pointed out that the slope became shear cliff after ten feet and threw a pebble that splashed in the creek far below but not so far that they could not hear the melodious singing of the fast flowing water. The happy couple enjoyed the celebratory lunch, toasted to their good health and deep love and sipped the bubbly luxuriating in the nature at its best and the company of their dearest one without adding much to the sounds of nature.
The direct sun started to bother Deb and she suggested that they move to the shady spot a few feet away. Ravi emptied his glass, carefully balanced it on the grass and got up just as Deb began to pull the rug. No sooner was Ravi on his feet he felt wobbly and in need for support. He saw a tree a few feet away and intended to move towards it. Poor Ravi, most of his good intentions come to nothing and this one did not either. Next thing he knew he was laying flat on his stomach with his face inches away from the cliff. He heard the screams of panic stricken Deb and looked up. She saw him raising his body on his limbs and offered a rolled up towel to grab. But he preferred to crawl up on all fours rather than stand up on the steep slope and in no time at all was walking towards her on the flat ground as if nothing had happened. He appeared normal but for shallow scratches on top of his bald head and on the knees. Every thing was shallow about Ravi, even the scratches after such a heavy fall in dense scrub. But Deb was not deceived. She made him drink most of the water bottle and lie down. She felt his pulse. It was irregular. She put her ear to his heart. It did not sound right. That was enough warning for a concerned wife with medical training. They packed up and headed for the emergency ward. The staff promptly attached him to a variety of flashing machines and put the noose around his neck. He lay there, Deb holding his hand, waiting for the doctor to come and examine him.
With his head fixed to stare at the grainy white tiles of the ceiling, his mind wandered. First he observed that he had already sent his daily letter to the Editor of the national newspaper. Then he thought of some silly puns for the ‘smile if you please’ column. He asked Deb, “Why do I find the song ‘I am sixteen going on seventeen so moving’? Deb knew that he did not expect an answer and did not provide any. He continued, “Because I am sixty feeling like seventy.” “Not funny” said Deb.
After the brush off, he should have got used to it by now but had not, Ravi was reminded of the case of the celebrity who fell on a ski hill, went to the hotel feeling fine and died a couple of days later of internal injuries. This possibility led him to think of a similar fate for himself. He imagined what the memorial service for him would look like and what would be said in it. He hadn’t done much for the family, having been an absentee father most of the years when the children were growing up. He had written numerous technical papers of doubtful merit and overall his professional achievements were negligible. He was too busy making a living to do any volunteer work and too insecure to donate any money which he later lost on his ill-conceived ventures any way. When the family was struggling through a series of crises, he was largely a spectator and did nothing to support Deb and other members of the family although he had no qualms demanding their full attention when he suffered even a minor cold. Ravi mumbled about leaving instructions that these facts should be acknowledged in the eulogy which must be honest in word and spirit; nothing cooked up to make him appear what he is not. One positive thing that could be mentioned about him would be that he intended to do good deeds when he had time and money to spare. But even a remote acquaintance could not say so with a straight face: every one knew that Ravi made sure he had neither.
Deb heard this melancholic monologue and was upset. But her husband was a tough nut and not about to waste a tear at the thought of the wasted life he had led. Fortunately for Ravi, the curtain parted just as Deb opened her mouth to tell him to put a stop to his silly chatter. A young but competent looking doctor stepped in, greeted them and looked at the pointers on the dials. After examining every inch of patient’s upper body, he prescribed X-Rays and CT scan and prescribed complete rest and instructed others to make sure the patient was not disturbed. The visit ended Ravi’s morbid thoughts and he concentrated on how he could make a story out of this experience. But not for long. Doctor’s advice had hit its mark and loud snoring of my dear friend was causing acute embarrassment to Deb and much annoyance to the patients in nearby rooms.
The tests showed no damage to Ravi’s numbskull and he was released from the ward at midnight. He had already forgotten the mumblings about the memorial service and Deb knew the futility of reminding him of it. I am afraid that when he has run out of proverbial nine lives, much though I love my childhood friend, there will be no reason for the eulogy, if there is any, to be any different than what he postulated that evening.
If you enjoyed this story, please share the post with your friends.
It will not be wholly inappropriate to say that Ravi was suffering from depression, mild may be, but depression all the same. In fact it would be unrealistic to expect otherwise. Over last five years he had survived many serious illnesses of the family members. Thanks to his and the family’s good fortune, his superwoman wife Deb handled the situations, including her own encounter with death, with amazing grace, competence and courage. Therefore, he did not do much to help. If the truth were to be told, he did hardly anything. Yet, the strain of keeping a brave face in dire circumstances was getting to him. As if this was not enough, the financial meltdown of the fall of 2008 reduced the worth of their businesses to zero and brought the retirement savings to such a miniscule level that he contemplated what the disgraced financiers have done for centuries: end his now worthless life. He did make an attempt, a feeble one he readily admits, and all it brought him was more humiliation. To come to the point there were enough reasons to lead a stronger man than Ravi to an analyst’s couch. Unfortunately, the psychoanalysis is not cheap and Ravi struggled with his emotions on his own almost as well as any one in his situation would have.
So it did not surprise Deb that he started mumbling incoherently about what he would like to be said in the celebration of his life after his timely death when he was lying in the hospital hooked up to an array of fancy machines, his neck in a brace – he called it noose – and head lower than the body. How did he get to be in the hospital? Did he jump off a cliff? Fair questions; and please accept my apologies for not being straight up with you. I have this bad habit of skipping over vital parts of the story; always had it and my English teachers at school could never get a straight tale out of me. Any way, Ravi was in hospital because, as Deb tells it, he did a reverse somersault, landed on his head on a steep slope, bounced off and finally landed on all fours. He did that with his eyes closed without any warning to Deb. Actually, he did that without knowing he was doing it. He had never done a somersault, not even as a child. So this reverse variety was a miracle of sorts.
It is hard to explain how Ravi managed such a skillful act of gymnastics but not what led to it. Deb and Ravi were celebrating the wedding anniversary, fortieth if you really want to know. It was a bright hot day, first warm day of the spring after a long cold winter. They had carried the cool box loaded with a variety of buns, cold meats, cheeses and tomatoes on the vine to their favourite picnic spot. Champaign was chilled just right as were the flutes. They spread a soft rug on the flat ground about five feet from the steep slope with marvelous views of snow-capped mountains. Deb pointed out that the slope became shear cliff after ten feet and threw a pebble that splashed in the creek far below but not so far that they could not hear the melodious singing of the fast flowing water. The happy couple enjoyed the celebratory lunch, toasted to their good health and deep love and sipped the bubbly luxuriating in the nature at its best and the company of their dearest one without adding much to the sounds of nature.
The direct sun started to bother Deb and she suggested that they move to the shady spot a few feet away. Ravi emptied his glass, carefully balanced it on the grass and got up just as Deb began to pull the rug. No sooner was Ravi on his feet he felt wobbly and in need for support. He saw a tree a few feet away and intended to move towards it. Poor Ravi, most of his good intentions come to nothing and this one did not either. Next thing he knew he was laying flat on his stomach with his face inches away from the cliff. He heard the screams of panic stricken Deb and looked up. She saw him raising his body on his limbs and offered a rolled up towel to grab. But he preferred to crawl up on all fours rather than stand up on the steep slope and in no time at all was walking towards her on the flat ground as if nothing had happened. He appeared normal but for shallow scratches on top of his bald head and on the knees. Every thing was shallow about Ravi, even the scratches after such a heavy fall in dense scrub. But Deb was not deceived. She made him drink most of the water bottle and lie down. She felt his pulse. It was irregular. She put her ear to his heart. It did not sound right. That was enough warning for a concerned wife with medical training. They packed up and headed for the emergency ward. The staff promptly attached him to a variety of flashing machines and put the noose around his neck. He lay there, Deb holding his hand, waiting for the doctor to come and examine him.
With his head fixed to stare at the grainy white tiles of the ceiling, his mind wandered. First he observed that he had already sent his daily letter to the Editor of the national newspaper. Then he thought of some silly puns for the ‘smile if you please’ column. He asked Deb, “Why do I find the song ‘I am sixteen going on seventeen so moving’? Deb knew that he did not expect an answer and did not provide any. He continued, “Because I am sixty feeling like seventy.” “Not funny” said Deb.
After the brush off, he should have got used to it by now but had not, Ravi was reminded of the case of the celebrity who fell on a ski hill, went to the hotel feeling fine and died a couple of days later of internal injuries. This possibility led him to think of a similar fate for himself. He imagined what the memorial service for him would look like and what would be said in it. He hadn’t done much for the family, having been an absentee father most of the years when the children were growing up. He had written numerous technical papers of doubtful merit and overall his professional achievements were negligible. He was too busy making a living to do any volunteer work and too insecure to donate any money which he later lost on his ill-conceived ventures any way. When the family was struggling through a series of crises, he was largely a spectator and did nothing to support Deb and other members of the family although he had no qualms demanding their full attention when he suffered even a minor cold. Ravi mumbled about leaving instructions that these facts should be acknowledged in the eulogy which must be honest in word and spirit; nothing cooked up to make him appear what he is not. One positive thing that could be mentioned about him would be that he intended to do good deeds when he had time and money to spare. But even a remote acquaintance could not say so with a straight face: every one knew that Ravi made sure he had neither.
Deb heard this melancholic monologue and was upset. But her husband was a tough nut and not about to waste a tear at the thought of the wasted life he had led. Fortunately for Ravi, the curtain parted just as Deb opened her mouth to tell him to put a stop to his silly chatter. A young but competent looking doctor stepped in, greeted them and looked at the pointers on the dials. After examining every inch of patient’s upper body, he prescribed X-Rays and CT scan and prescribed complete rest and instructed others to make sure the patient was not disturbed. The visit ended Ravi’s morbid thoughts and he concentrated on how he could make a story out of this experience. But not for long. Doctor’s advice had hit its mark and loud snoring of my dear friend was causing acute embarrassment to Deb and much annoyance to the patients in nearby rooms.
The tests showed no damage to Ravi’s numbskull and he was released from the ward at midnight. He had already forgotten the mumblings about the memorial service and Deb knew the futility of reminding him of it. I am afraid that when he has run out of proverbial nine lives, much though I love my childhood friend, there will be no reason for the eulogy, if there is any, to be any different than what he postulated that evening.
If you enjoyed this story, please share the post with your friends.
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