Wednesday, 7 November 2012
A great go merry jolly time, watching a musical concert got coalesced with a feeling of despair. Someone was at the door, It was dad…He got in and asked Grandma to serve him dinner. Everything seemed fine but, the lump in my throat turned heavier making it hard for me to even swallow water. The onomatopoeia of my ringing phone interrupted this whole feeling of disrupt. It was a call from grandpa’s meditation group, enquiring if he had left as he hadn’t reached. On hearing this dad said he had dropped grandpa to the railway crossing long back, he alighted himself from the chair and rushed, I overheard our neighbor telling my dad about an old man who succumbed to a train accident….wearing an orange dhoti. I turned blue all that flashed in my head was the very SCENE that occurred in the morning…grandpa clutched his hands to either sides of his ORANGE DHOTI and told dad “this is all I need I have many unstitched pieces of formals, so you can get them stitched for yourself.”
It was just a hope that kept me calm. But, I knew for sure God had been brutal to his own adherent…taking him in such a ruthless way. Tears rolled down my cheeks as my neighbors made their way home and sat next to my grandma…it was something decidedly fishy. According to my Grandma it was our neighbor who was battling for life…in short people who came to console her were being consoled, she then neatly draped herself in sari and festinated to the kitchen and came out with a container of Gangajal (The holy water from river Ganges.) and asked me to open it. It was awkward to tell her that it was my APAPPA who probably needed it…I really had no clue I stopped her from going. I pulled my neighbor inside my room, her eyes were filled all that she uttered was “Mama has left us.” I turned numb it was a feeling of pure devastation, a critical loss: of a Philosopher, Teacher, Guardian , Friend, An Ideal and more over My Grandpa. I told myself I ‘am not supposed to cry in front of grandma. I gave her an excuse of going down to check if our neighbor was fine I sat on the staircase and cried my heart out soon I heard my mother she came in and told grandma that grandpa had gone. She missed out on the word grandpa and said “I know I told Nidhi he was dying and she dint let me go to him and feed him gangajal” mom repeated ‘It’s our APPA no one else’ she hushed and calmly asked if mom was joking, she turned pale when mom said how it all happened … for my grandma it was not just a companion whom she lost it was her GURU…she wept aloud and said how grandpa met everyone before he left today, about how for the first and perhaps the last time in his life did he wave her a bye, about how he told her to keep chanting and praying, about how he indirectly prepared her in earnest…people started coming home, dad was at the hospital he had to go there to get the postmortem done. I peeped outside the window I saw a crowd of people waiting to hear from us about grandpa’s demise. I hastened to the building compound; numerous questions were bombarded at me. I told them everything like a heard lore and headed back home. By 3 early in the morning dad came home and said at 11 am apappa’s body would come; dad gave me a bag that had grandpa’s valued possessions…I put my hand inside the bag and found a box that had two elliptical lingas immersed in water; a rudraaksh mala that he used…I put it around my neck; a packet of polythene that had his wrist watch, two rings of which one ring had blood on it, it looked cut or broken to get it out of his finger; I shuddered, I could feel the pain he would have felt, I quivered…I put everything into my drawer. Grandpa always told me I was his heir…with all these thoughts I walked up to my bed and gazed outside my bedside window. It was a feeling of spookiness, I closed my eyes and turned nostalgic, thinking about how we indulged in brainstorming, debating, arguing and even fighting like how friends do…he was blessed with abundant experience and knowledge, wherein the dictionary application in my cell phone would confuse me but he would give me a very prompt and accurate meaning of any word. He was like this army officer, who kept things going in a protocol, he was my personal alarm clock, he used to motivate me to get rid of my slumber and start working; he was my tissue whenever there was an issue, if I shed tears he would stop me. He was everything to me…I am not sure if I could grasp all the qualities he had in fifteen years but I am sure, I might have imbibed some values and qualities.
I dozed off thinking about it and woke up with a vague dream that does not last in my memory any longer but for sure, I know it was Apappa who woke me up on time. Relatives and friends flooded in. I sat on my bed till I gathered courage to face people. I felt lost, I burst out crying. Soon I heard apappa’s body was being brought home. I feared even seeing It! Hiding in my kitchen I peeped out…I was no longer scared.
His face looked like that of a legend, he was draped in surgical paper, there was no trait of fear on his face…a shine of vigor…the very fact that he was home for the last time made me cry…I heard people murmuring, “Look he’s still bleeding.”; “The train went over mama’s legs.”; “He suffered.”…all I knew HE never had words like pain, fear, suffering in his dictionary…he did not look like he suffered. He never wanted to stay on bed and die of an ailment…he told me I don’t want people to serve me, I want an instant death! That is exactly what happened…He had this style of walking the talk, he was a man of his words, I guess he knew he was going. Apappa and God had this whole dramatic conspiracy set up…of which I wanted a sneak. After a few days of rituals and all I went to Tilaknagar railway station and spoke to the person who sold peanuts and asked him if he knew something about what exactly happened…he said…
“I used to see this man cross the tracks very often he never crossed the tracks without looking at the signal. But that night a teen was crossing and probably it would have been the young boy in his place. He saved the boy, slipped and fell, screamed SAI RAM and that was it he didn’t even move when the train started.” The postmortem reports also said poly trauma it wasn’t the accident that he succumbed of, he did not suffer, he panicked. But I ‘am sure it was just a reason to quote…and I ‘am a granddaughter of a legend…And I ‘am certainly Proud.
Sainidhi Iyer
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I don't even know what to write here, nothing would be good enough. This piece of writing was the perfect tribute you could have given your Grandpa. I never met him but I'm pretty sure his values and qualities are alive in you today and if he's reading this from heaven, he'd say to himself "That is my granddaughter".
ReplyDeletevery nice ... it was an heart touching one !!!
ReplyDeleteThanks a ton Dinesh and Takla!!!
ReplyDeleteIm sure appa must be very proud nidhi
ReplyDeleteKind you are cristin...
DeleteI salute you for this piece of writing Dear. Truly a great tribute to your Grandpa. A wish from deep inside my heart. May He always rest in peace.
ReplyDeleteyour words are far too kind Epsita...
DeleteThank you!
ONE OF I IDOL.....
ReplyDeleteI ALWAYS WANTED 2 B LIKE... BUT CAN NEVER BE N WILL NOT ABLE 2.....
:) A fitting tribute to a great man..
ReplyDeleteI'm sure he meant it when he called you his heir.. that you would be a great human being..a great source of pride to him..
He lives..In all the lessons he taught you, in all the arguments, in all the beautiful traits he passed on to you by example and by word.. He lives in you
SuperApappa.
ReplyDeleteHis aura was felt in these words. Sis , thanks for showing your emotions here in this way.
ReplyDelete