Like always, I sat besides my grand mom to say good bye, while returning from my week end visit back home.
Like always she fails to recognize me at the first go……
“ Nan arrane manasillayio, Muthune”( Do you recognize me, granms) I ask her.
She stares at me with an expression devoid of any emotion.
Alzheimer’s can be crippling… it eats away ones memory , the treasure that’s painstakingly collected over a life time. The one thing that makes life’s journey worthwhile.
It kills the soul but leaves the body.
I take her hand in mine.
She is lucky to have caring children. And a daughter and son in law as doctors. They do their best. Give her strong medicines that peps her mind. But which have rather debilitating effect on her body
” Its me, your grand son”
At first she smiles. Then as usual She cries and complains about her illnesses. As usual she tells me that my mother doesn’t care for her anymore. As usual she speaks of how she thinks that the servant aids are conspiring against. She speaks of the man who she always sees standing behind the curtain……
Then, unusually though, she stops crying and stares at me in silence. In her eyes I could see my ever so caring and ever so loving “Muthu” trying to reach out to me.
She takes my hand in hers and strokes it gently………
She tells me that she no longer has any control over her bladder. Sighs and then says that she has to take the help our Man Friday to take her to the loo, a revolting thought for the woman in her….. but she smiles, with a tear in her eye.………
“ Your mother takes good care of me, but what more can she do.” …… and smiles with a tear in her eye………
“ pakshe ni veshmikaruthe to, sookshichodikanne… poitt wa” ( But you don’t be saddened by all this…… you be happy…. And please drive the car carefully… now you go……”
There she was reaching out to me, from with in her delirious mind, fighting against the strongest of sedatives, just to show that she still cares………
Friday, May 26, 2006
Saturday, May 20, 2006
" The Unspoken Words"
Huf Huf Huf ……. He gasps for breath as he runs for the mango orchard. Its early May. The road that leads from the house to the garden has an alarming red hue. The mayflowers have come full bloom.
In his right hand he has his seventh grade textbooks.
He climbs up the mango tree with an ease which his simian friends would be envious of. He hides all the books in a hollow in the branch, the safest place he knows, his safety locker. ‘ This should keep it safe from her’ ……. He thinks to himself. He would have enjoyed burning up all of them but he requires them next year when the school reopens. That would be the second time he would be a seventh grade student, all his friends would have moved to the next grade. But he had no qualms about that after all its not the first time he has failed in an exam.
Satisfied with the safety precaution he has taken he was proud of his uncanny ability to provide solutions to the most complex of problems, he smiles . ‘ even Sherlock homes wouldn’t be able to find those’…. He boasted to himself and goes off to play with his friends…
Not far away a small girl clad in a pink shirt and polka dotted frock, searches for her elder brother frantically. She runs up to chandu the Karyasthan who is busy directing water into the garden through the network of channels that he had dug up.
‘ Chandu Chandu, Ramettane kando.’ ( Did you see Ramettan ?)
Chandu stops his work deciding to take a much needed break. This summer has been extremely hot. Sweat trickles down his forehead and drops on to the ground.
He liked ejemanan’s (master’s) daughter. It seems she is always first in her class. Somewhere with in him, he wanted his little one also to be like her. Grow up and become a dakitar (Doctor) or something. But he always blamed himself for not being able to send her to school.
‘CHHAANDUUU, ramettane kandone’. The shriek jolts him back from his day dream.
‘Manthopillku odan kandu, kaill pustam pidiche'…..( Saw him running into the mango garden, with books in his hand.
She spares not a second. Runs off into the mango orchard.
Cahndu shouts,
‘Sookshikanne molutti. Manthopillu muzhuvan pamba’ … ( Be careful dear , the place is full of snakes)
He voice carried genuine concern.
As she walks in to the garden piles of dead mango leaves rustle under her feet. The air gets cooler. She stops. its now that Chandu’s warning really falls into here ear. she was afraid of snakes. More so because of its slimy texture than the fact that they were poisonous and the eerie places that they usually inhabit.
Its awfully painful when they bite, she was told. She remembers little Raghu spitting up frothy saliva and convulsing uncontrollably. They say that it was a miracle that saved him.
But today she had to go in. She had to find those books. She has to finish reading them before the school reopens. That’s how it has always been.
She was really mad at Ramettan. She always wondered why he behaved so rudely to her.
Chitoor gramam in Early sixties was not exactly the place were women were taken seriously. Being in a family with five other siblings did not make things any better.
But she loved her father. He was different from the rest. She knew that he loved her very much but never would let it be known that he liked her more than the others. She knew that she was the apple of his eye.
Years pass by………………………
Its August 11, 1998……… she felt as if a part of hers was being plucked from with in her and removed against her wish. Tears roll down with in her but she cant let it out. She wouldn’t let it come out, that is how she has always been. Strong, fiercely independent………… but she couldn’t really stop or even slow the tears that were rolling down with in her.
She waives her hand and says “Call us when you reach…”
As they drive back home form the railway station she realizes that she had just let him free, she hoped that she has taught him every thing to make him a good man. Or should she have spent more time with him, cared more. But how…………
Her thoughts wander back to that day when he came into her life. A little, dark bundle of joy. “ Oh was he cute…” a flicker of smile flashes on her face a stark contrast to the tear drop just about to fall of her eye . She turns her face away and stares aimlessly through the window, partly to catch the wind on her face and partly to hide that trickle of tear from her co-passengers.
She still remembers how unwillingly she had left her li’ll toddler with his grand mom, to pursue her MD in Gynecology. But most of all, she remembers the way, after six months when she visited him, he first clung on the his grand mom and looked at her with his big round eyes wide open, as if she were a stranger and then all of a sudden with a big happy sunshine grin came running to her and just clung on to her feet saying “ Ammmmma “ …… Oh, that was the sweetest sound she heard in quite a while.
The car stops in front of a house, sight of a familiar facade jolts her back to reality.
“Oh, we have reached home…. So fast… got more important things to do…….” Its surgery day tomorrow. Got a few major cases case posted for the day. Goes to her chamber and starts reading. That’s how it has always been…………
In his right hand he has his seventh grade textbooks.
He climbs up the mango tree with an ease which his simian friends would be envious of. He hides all the books in a hollow in the branch, the safest place he knows, his safety locker. ‘ This should keep it safe from her’ ……. He thinks to himself. He would have enjoyed burning up all of them but he requires them next year when the school reopens. That would be the second time he would be a seventh grade student, all his friends would have moved to the next grade. But he had no qualms about that after all its not the first time he has failed in an exam.
Satisfied with the safety precaution he has taken he was proud of his uncanny ability to provide solutions to the most complex of problems, he smiles . ‘ even Sherlock homes wouldn’t be able to find those’…. He boasted to himself and goes off to play with his friends…
Not far away a small girl clad in a pink shirt and polka dotted frock, searches for her elder brother frantically. She runs up to chandu the Karyasthan who is busy directing water into the garden through the network of channels that he had dug up.
‘ Chandu Chandu, Ramettane kando.’ ( Did you see Ramettan ?)
Chandu stops his work deciding to take a much needed break. This summer has been extremely hot. Sweat trickles down his forehead and drops on to the ground.
He liked ejemanan’s (master’s) daughter. It seems she is always first in her class. Somewhere with in him, he wanted his little one also to be like her. Grow up and become a dakitar (Doctor) or something. But he always blamed himself for not being able to send her to school.
‘CHHAANDUUU, ramettane kandone’. The shriek jolts him back from his day dream.
‘Manthopillku odan kandu, kaill pustam pidiche'…..( Saw him running into the mango garden, with books in his hand.
She spares not a second. Runs off into the mango orchard.
Cahndu shouts,
‘Sookshikanne molutti. Manthopillu muzhuvan pamba’ … ( Be careful dear , the place is full of snakes)
He voice carried genuine concern.
As she walks in to the garden piles of dead mango leaves rustle under her feet. The air gets cooler. She stops. its now that Chandu’s warning really falls into here ear. she was afraid of snakes. More so because of its slimy texture than the fact that they were poisonous and the eerie places that they usually inhabit.
Its awfully painful when they bite, she was told. She remembers little Raghu spitting up frothy saliva and convulsing uncontrollably. They say that it was a miracle that saved him.
But today she had to go in. She had to find those books. She has to finish reading them before the school reopens. That’s how it has always been.
She was really mad at Ramettan. She always wondered why he behaved so rudely to her.
Chitoor gramam in Early sixties was not exactly the place were women were taken seriously. Being in a family with five other siblings did not make things any better.
But she loved her father. He was different from the rest. She knew that he loved her very much but never would let it be known that he liked her more than the others. She knew that she was the apple of his eye.
Years pass by………………………
Its August 11, 1998……… she felt as if a part of hers was being plucked from with in her and removed against her wish. Tears roll down with in her but she cant let it out. She wouldn’t let it come out, that is how she has always been. Strong, fiercely independent………… but she couldn’t really stop or even slow the tears that were rolling down with in her.
She waives her hand and says “Call us when you reach…”
As they drive back home form the railway station she realizes that she had just let him free, she hoped that she has taught him every thing to make him a good man. Or should she have spent more time with him, cared more. But how…………
Her thoughts wander back to that day when he came into her life. A little, dark bundle of joy. “ Oh was he cute…” a flicker of smile flashes on her face a stark contrast to the tear drop just about to fall of her eye . She turns her face away and stares aimlessly through the window, partly to catch the wind on her face and partly to hide that trickle of tear from her co-passengers.
She still remembers how unwillingly she had left her li’ll toddler with his grand mom, to pursue her MD in Gynecology. But most of all, she remembers the way, after six months when she visited him, he first clung on the his grand mom and looked at her with his big round eyes wide open, as if she were a stranger and then all of a sudden with a big happy sunshine grin came running to her and just clung on to her feet saying “ Ammmmma “ …… Oh, that was the sweetest sound she heard in quite a while.
The car stops in front of a house, sight of a familiar facade jolts her back to reality.
“Oh, we have reached home…. So fast… got more important things to do…….” Its surgery day tomorrow. Got a few major cases case posted for the day. Goes to her chamber and starts reading. That’s how it has always been…………
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