Wrote this last friday on small scraps of paper fished out from my bag....for reasons obvious after u read this post, I just got time to post it...A thousand words and thoughts are swimming in my head and the urge to put some of them down has never been stronger. And yet strangely , I am struggling.
No matter how much you try to dress up a hospital's waiting room, its purpose or rather its cause, always manages to tone it down, make it seem grim and cheerless. And so it is, with this one that I am sitting in. Blue-grey chairs all lined up, a sleeping man almost slipping out of his chair trying to find comfort in a chair that has none to offer, groups of relatives huddled up together- some cheery, some glum but all sharing the same look of anxiety and a similar rythm in looking at the entry door expectedly. The TV in the corner buzzes to life, trying desperately hard to add momentary cheer to the worried faces but manages to elicit nothing but a perfunctory glance. A solitary mosquito darts in and out between the people and the chairs, its buzzing drowned by the hum of the AC. I am in the waiting room at Fortis Hospital in Delhi. And I suddenly burst into a short mirthless laugh, which wakes up the sleeping man who decides to give up trying to sleep and busies himself with his phone.
The irony of the name 'waiting room' just hit me; for that's what we have been doing for the past few hours, past few days, past few weeks. Waiting, watching and hoping that my dadima would get better, that she would show signs of the possibility of coming back home with us.
And here I am now, standing with dad n
bua, while they try to decide and finalize the arrangements for
dadima's last rites.
My mind keeps trying to organise its emotions, to identify them. This is not grief (its not nearly extreme enough), its not sadness (much as that may sound wierd) for like birth, death too should be venerated (for it's the beginning of another journey). This what I am feeling is simply a deep sense of loss.
Snippets of my memories of her keep coming to my head. The earliest one, being one, when because I was playing with her chunni she was running behind me shouting
'agar meri chunni phat jayegi toh mujhe nayi kaun leke dege' to which my standard reply was
'papa hai na!'
I remember all the time I would run to her knitting needles and a ball of wool in hand-
'Dadima sikhao na' 'Dadima dekho theek se nahi ho raha'. And no matter how busy or unwilling she was she would always help me.
Everytime I got lice in my hair (which was more than once), dadima would sit with me out on the verandah, a fine toothed comb in hand and patiently wage war on the lice.
I remeber her recounting to me her days as a little girl in Pakistan and my subsequent promise to her that I would take her back there with the salary of my first job. And I realise with a pang now that, that promise will never be.
And now that I had come down to Delhi, every weekend when I would come over she would make and get all that I liked to eat. I remember with fondness having the most surprising conversation with her about love, marriage, life and everything in between.
Yes, She was my dadi of awesome love (and ghee)-filled
parathas, my dadi of
sarson da saag and
kaale gajar ki kaanji, my dadi of
khatta aam achar, my dadi of '
bhajans on diwali', my dadi of
'koyi nayi galla kar'.
Yes. She was my dadi and I will miss her so so much.
currently listening- Hemorrhage-Fuel, music by Holly Brook, Breathe me (Mylo remix)- Sia
Wts scary is that on reading this.. I remebered occasions (in the last 2 months) when I have sounded somewhat like the second chicken in the strip....
