When She Left...

I could see it coming. Closer and closer each dark night, as I lay on my bed, helpless, in a different country, so close yet so far. She knew it the day she quit playing badminton...

The calendar said that day was auspicious. I remember now, in hindsight, my mind had lingered on that date. 24th of March 2021. Was I missing an important event, I had wondered…?

That was the day She chose her own freedom.

I feel grateful for that precious last moment that my sister and I experienced with her. It was the strongest spiritual bond that had kept our minds tied to hers just like our umbilical cord connection.

I knew she had been waiting just for me, but at the same time, she knew I was not the strongest person to handle her loss. That morning, she had slipped into the unconscious state. I could see her breathe heavily like a baby asleep, slightly titled on the side, but not completely sideways. That was her most comfortable sleeping position. She was as though halfway out, waiting in the wings. My sister and I were by her side.

Just a few days before, I was reading the book written by my mother, reliving each short story that she had read out to me before her book was published. We had our shared relationship with words. I used to assist her in making up the characters for her stories. She used to read out her freshly handwritten works to me while I sat at the drawing board, completing my architectural designs, back in college days.

I picked up the book and started reading it out aloud to her. Though it was written in my mother tongue, the language kept flowing with a miraculous fluency with each printed word… heavy, profound, choking a sob. She had dedicated the book to me and my sister. I kept reading, teardrops rolling down, carrying an ocean of memories.

We drifted back in time…to the happy days. “I’m going for a walk”, she used to announce, waiting for us to join. But my sister used to be drowned in the mysteries of her thick novels, refusing to look up. I used to be immersed in my architectural submissions. “You go ahead, Aie. Don’t wait for us. We’ll come later”, we used to say. And that’s exactly what we conveyed to her that moment. We didn’t want her to suffer more than she already had. She understood. And the minute she chose her freedom, her wings appeared. Her spirit flew back to her favourite blossoms. She looked more beautiful than what her body had become.

Comfortable in her home clothes, she lay asleep, letting fire engulf her body. Who would have thought, she would take her last exit from my sister’s house in Bangalore and not from our childhood home? Somehow, I feel now, each of us has had a very strong connection with the city of Bangalore. I recall that scene, back in 2003 when my sister and I, took an overnight bus to Bangalore together, for our internships, and bid farewell to our mother from the bus station, watching her hide a teardrop behind her sunglasses. Both farewells, so similar yet so different.

After a few days, we drove all the way from the city to the ghats of Shrirangapatna, in the vicinity of Tipu Sultan’s summer palace. My sister drove skillfully on the dirt road along shaded fields of full-grown jackfruit and almond trees. Our mother’s urn of ashes was with us and our father sat on the rear seat. It was like a scene from artistic Irani movies, we used to watch at the film festivals in Pune.

When we travelled as a family, it was always my mother who would be at the driver’s seat on all occasions, with my father as a grumpy navigator, complaining about high speeds and wrong turns. But this was a totally reversed day, though beautifully sunny, it was tinged with an empty heavy silence. If it were not for the reason we were going there, it would have been a perfect road trip, just as my mother would have loved. She would have taken the lead to drive all the way, like she used to on all our road trips together.

The old temple stood under a grove of aged Peepal trees with leaves rustling fiercely in the wind. Stone steps lead to the waters of the Kaveri river flowing calmly alongside large boulders. The opposite bank was a thick green forest. The serene setting was intercepted by occasional temple bells pealing through the afternoon sunshine. Life went on, as eventful as any other day for the riverbank.

She merged with the waters and the earth beneath. We sat on the steps, knowing not what to do next…

On our way back, I kept thinking if I had left something very important behind…

When She left, the innermost part of me has gone missing.

My thoughts find no space to flow out or to contain themselves.

But the parrot on the branch will continue his usual song, clueless…

Who will tiptoe from behind the curtain to hear him sing…