Until Death did us Physically Apart...

Two months of unending interviews, trials and dead-end results are making me frustrated and so thought should get back to what I enjoy the most – reading. Going through my already read collection, I came across Tuesday’s with Morrie – Mitch Albom. A book that I was introduced to by a colleague in V2Solutions, Rohit Menon; it is a cute and emotional story of a student and his teacher. The most interesting part is the Climax and it is the most emotional too. I cried a lot after reading book cause I have experienced that pain of seeing someone you love the most, leave the world in front of your eyes and you can’t do anything.

It was my grandmother, who was my best friend and was the closest to me. She meant the world to me; we both never needed anyone else. For me, she was my mother, father, best friend, sister and a lot lot more than grandmother. On my birthday, she was the first one to kiss me, wish me and bless me. I always thought that she will be with me till the end of time. She also always wanted to be with me, infact we had even decided that she would come as dowry in my marriage and if I go anywhere she would be with me. We have done a lot of things together, I have seen a lot of places in India with her, gone on pilgrimages, chatted like college girls do, pulled each other’s leg.

Everything was fine until Feb 6, 2005, it was a Sunday and my mother and sister had left for Mahabaleshwar in the morning, papa was with his friends and my uncles; grandfather also was out. It was me and grandmother at home. There was Hum Aapke Hai Kaun coming on Zee Cinema and we were watching that movie. At 4 in the afternoon, she asked me for tea, I made tea for her and myself and when I came to give it to her, she was shivering. I was shocked and did not understand what happened. There was my maid and she said that she is getting fever and that is why she is shivering, cover her with a blanket. But I knew somewhere that it was not fever, cause she was perspiring in a very different way and was getting unconscious too. So I did what I could and called my neighbor, put her on a chair and we both carried her down from our 2^nd floor house to the ground floor, into the cab and local hospital.

By the time she reached hospital, her condition was worsened, perspiration had increased and she had lost bladder control. Authorities admitted her to the ICU and she was under observation that was the first time when I was scared and thought to myself that I HAD LOST her. But I did not want to give up and so was ready to do anything to get her back. I finally succeeded in getting her back home after a span of 20 days and while discharging her, the doc had assured us that they did what they could and we could take her home.

After she came home, she was not the same. Something had changed somewhere, she did not chat to me. As a matter of fact, she started ignoring me, which made me annoyed and I used to ask my mom and she used to tell me that since granny is not well she is behaving this way. For 3 months she was this way, but on the other hand she was absolutely fine in terms of her health. Her blood pressure was normal, her diabetes was under control so everything was fine.

31^st May, 2005 was my cousin’s birthday and we had a lot of fun with all my family members. That night granny did not sleep a bit; she was sitting at my bedside near my feet and looking at my face. I interrupted her couple of times but she did not listen. Then she started looking at the whole house as if she had never seen it before. Next day was a routine day for me, office and back. On coming back home, my mom told me that granny had fever during the day so family doctor had given medicine. She also informed me that my papa’s best friend had passed away at a very young age and his funeral was at night. That evening, papa was also hesitant to go don’t know why but my granny persuaded both mom and papa to go.

That night me and my sister were at home with my granny. In the last 3 months she had never taken her dinner from anyone except my mom, but that night she asked me to give her dinner as she was hungry. So I served her some daal and rice, I got it to her bed and saw that she was too weak to eat by herself. And so my sister held her and I fed her, we even gave her water with spoons. We gave her medicines of fever after which she said that make me lie down, put blanket over me and sit here besides me. I did what she said, my sister was standing in the balcony and I was sitting besides her. My granny had a vomit and so me and my sister cleaned it and she went into sleep. My mom came home in sometime and was shocked to know that granny had dinner and was asleep. She asked me about the medicines and I said that I had given her all except hypertension medicine as I was not sure. So mom wanted to wake her up for that tablet, and she was lying there without any response.

We called our neighbors and took her to the hospital but at the entrance only the doctor told us to take her back as she was no more. Imagine, how you feel when you have just fed someone, made them go to sleep and suddenly people say that they are dead. I still don’t have the guts to feed anyone after that incident especially a loved one, because I fear that I would lose them. After that what happened is something that I don’t remember.

What I think today is that I had actually lost her on Feb 6^th that year but she knew somewhere that I won’t be able to take that. So she came back with me for 3 months and tried to distant herself from me by ignoring me and not loving me as she used to. And when she thought that it is the right time, she went away. She was awake the whole night before just looking at my face cause she knew that after that she will never be able to see me. But it was not fair cause I never knew this, if I was aware I would have spent all my time looking at her, fulfilling her wishes that she wanted me to do.

Still, I feel that she is there somewhere up watching me and is always with me in my decisions, my problems, my happy moments. Even though she is not present physically but emotionally no one can tear us apart. She lives in my thoughts and memories.

LOVE YOU CHAIJI!