A Chapter

It was the May of 1985. Dad bought the first car of his life , old rugged 1962 model ambassador. He used to work in central India then. And he bought the car from a doc in Kerala. He had this adventurous idea of driving it all the way up to Bhilai where our native town, Thrissur, covering more than 2000kms. So we got ourselves a mechanic and started off.

Summer in the Deccan is not one of the most pleasant regions to travel in a non Ac car. But there we were, driving through little villages with a trail of amused children and dust. We tasted all kinds of cuisines on the way from wayside little hotels and somewhat better restaurants. It was fun.

Well, we reached Hyderabad around 2 AM. And the town was asleep. We were new to the city and we did not how to get to the main road to the better hotels. We tried one or two, but they were kind of unwilling to take in late visitors and said"No rooms available". so we finally ended up in an old house converted into a hotel. It had one big squarish inner courtyard, around which the rooms were set. That night was horrible. The room was full of gigantic mosquitoes who made sure that we did not sleep a wink.

The next day we started off in search of a better hotel and found one. And we saw the Golconda fort and the Salar-e- jung museum. Drive to Bhilai from there took another two days. By the time we reached Bhilai, the driver had Chicken pox and I had fever.

The fever I had was peculiar. I ran high temperatures every alternate day and only at night. After about three cycles , I was hallucinating, seeing peacocks from my window, Amitabh Bachchan dancing by the bedside and so on... Soon, I ended up in the hospital in a double room where the other bed was occupied by a woman. I drifted off to sleep with IVs injecting medicines into me. I regained complete consciouness only by late afternoon. I had opened my eyes earlier and seen my mother talking with the woman on the bed. Now, she told me that her name was Kamala and that she had kidney failure.
" How are you feeling now?", Kamala asked
" Better", I managed.
" Oh! It's nothing. Look at me, I have dialysis twice a month but Iam OK".

I smiled. Mom took over the conversation part.
Suddenly, there was a commotion in the adjoining room. A girl my age was being given Oxygen. I saw her some moments ago as she peeked into my room from the small corridor that joined the rooms. She was a bubbly, beautiful Punjabi girl. And when mom said that she being given oxygen, I did not believe it. She had a serious cardiac problem.

Next day, Kamala had a visitor. Her husband, a trucking businessman, had come over. They spoke in hushed tones. He was crying and she was trying to comfort him. And when he left, she told us that he would return the next day with the kids. She showed some photos of the kids - a three year daughter and a five year old son.

"Cute children, are'nt they?", asked Kamala.
" And who is this?", mom asked
"That's me. I looked beautiful then. It is at a wedding."
Tears welled up in her eyes. She was lost in thought.

Later she told mom that her treatment costs were getting out of hand and that her husband was the youngest brother and he could no more take money from the family business to treat her. But she held nothing against her in -laws. She believed in God and fate.

Next day, Kamala was up early, all dressed to see the kids. Soon, we heard chattering voices in the passage. The kids were here. They came and leapt at Kamala in joy.

"Come home", they said.

I was a witness to the poignant moment. Her husband and her eyes were happy and sad at the same time. The husband had brought some food. She fed the children with her hands. The elder was telling her about school, the younger one about her cousins. It was the first time I realised, the value of life.

That evening, she was mum, unlike her chattering self. By night, she said that she asked her husband not to show her body to the kids. She wants them to remember her as an active mother.

I got discharged the next day. Later we came to know, she was soon paralysed and her systems shut down one after other and she died. She was cremated nearby and not taken home as per her wishes.

I will always remember this chapter of my life.


P.S This post was originally published in overacuppacopy.blogspot.com

Accident Prone Kilometre

Driving down the National Highways of India, you get to see these boards now and then. Usually you find it near to a busy junction or sharp bend or blind turning the road. Similarly there are some people who can be called accident prone kilometer themselves. Things just happen to them in the most incredulous way, sometimes again and again. Let’s see what happened to Guptaji.

1. Guptaji and wife go to the railway station to receive some relatives. He wears a new kurta. As they stand on the platform, a train just leaves in the opposite direction and someone throws a pack of half eaten idli sambhar on to the platform or say directly onto Guptaji.

2. Guptaji buys a new car and parks it on the street. A coconut falls on a passing truck, gets deflected smashes the front screen.

3. Guptaji is going to home town by train. He has got himself a top berth so that he may sleep whenever he wishes to. In wee hours of morning, Guptaji tries to get down and discovers that someone had left the turkey towel to dry on the ladder. He jumps and promptly lands on to a fruit knife in open bag below.

4. Guptaji takes a holiday to Kerala. He is happy to see the greenery and fresh air and rolls down the windows of the taxi a take a fresh breath and gets splattered with puke. Someone has put his head out of the window to do so on the bus the taxi is overtaking.

5. Guptaji goes to enquire what the commotion is about in the marketplace. It seems a thief is being given the thrashing. And when the crowd wants to know who the accomplice is, he points to Guptaji and …

6. Guptaji comes home late after a party, changes clothes and goes off to sleep. In the morning, he goes to answer the doorbell and gets a queer look from milkman. He has his wife’s kurta on( all floral prints).

7. Guptaji( I.K Gupta) is a candidate at club election. And all the votes intended for him goes to L.K Gupta because the “L’ was written as ‘l’.

8. Guptaji’s Patient health card is borrowed by brother to avail free medical checkup and he eventually develops complications and dies. The PSU records now consider Gupta dead though he is very much alive. If he told the truth, he will be taken to court and his family will not get even a penny as compensation.

The Eternal Truth

Speaking volumes were the silent
Yet, steady undercurrents
Briefing the long life
Were the flowing currents

Ashes of another abode
Scattered on the face
Of the moving waters
Registered a past phase

I witnessed another name
Losing its meaning
Dropping into the ocean
Meeting the omnipresent

Yet we strut, we fight
Selfish of the worldly possessions
When the inevitable is that
None has any in the end

Written on the banks of Ganga where it comes a full circle- Life, death and everything in between and beyond

Life (1988)

All through childhood
We were in a playing mood

In the youth
Full of Spirits

But as Youth was gone
There was a lot to be done

And as old age came
To take its place
There was no more grace

The sins and untruths of Life
Played before the weary eyes
And suddenly, we were as poor as church mice

At the end of the Yellowing meadows
Nobody was there except for one’s shadow
The painful countdown
Came to an end by Sundown

Death came at last And they called me Late