To Nani…with love…

For most people childhood is the time they cherish the most. Given a chance they would like to relive that part of their lives. For me, I always thought that it was different. There weren’t many events from my childhood that I could term as ‘phenomenal’ and yet there were some humdrum incidents that are deeply ingrained in the memory.

When I got the news of my nani being in the ICU on the 6^th of june 2010, each one of those ‘humdrum’, mundane events started flashing infront of my eyes. It was a surreal experience. It is said that when a person dies, the events of his life flash before his eyes. But I wasn’t dying, someone else was, had already died perhaps. So what was it? It felt like a part of me was going away and I could not do anything about it. It was flashing infront of me- how she loved to cook for me, how she loved spoiling me with obscene amounts of gifts and money, how she always treated me like her unofficial favorite grandchild.

As everyone in the house rushed to close the doors, giving up their unfinished chores to leave for the hospital, I did the unthinkable. I, an atheist picked the “hanuman chalisa”(a book of prayer for overcoming fear and obstacles). I was ready to believe in god so that nani could live. In between the memories of my childhood with nani in the picture continued to flash before my eyes.

And then it happened.

I was still in the car when my cousin called me to say that nani was no more with us and requested me to maintain my cool infront of my mom. They wanted to delay telling her that her mother had died for as long as possible. My mom could live in hope till then. To know is not always the best and ignorance is at times, the bliss indeed.

God, I loved her so much. It actually hurt physically. It was hard to believe that this could happen. And even though nani was 76 and had lived like a queen all her life she deserved a little more time. She wanted to live. She wanted to see me get married and have kids. It wasn’t fair that she would go just like that. She was suffering from no ailment that could claim her life. The whole thing seemed so unjust.

When I looked at nani that day, she looked unbelievingly young. Her skin had no wrinkles and she lay there calm as though she was taking a nap. I noticed how beautiful she was.

The flashes continued.

She once stitched a pink and golden dress for me which I was so much in love with that I refused to take it off! She thought that I looked pretty in it and her opinion was all that mattered. Me, being the only dusky skinned child among the hordes of my fair skinned cousins, I never saw myself as “beautiful” when I was a kid. But to nani I was the prettiest of them all. I can never forget that. A child can never forget something like that.

Never before in my life had I held a dead body so close to me or seen a funeral pyre. But the body felt alive and pyre was just pieces of wood. Me, my mom, aunts and the married cousins were adorning nani like a bride as per the Hindu traditions as my grandfather mutely watched from a distance. He had stopped talking much a long time back but that day when I looked at my grandfather I knew that he’d never speak again.

The flashes would not leave me alone.

Nani loved celebrating my birthdays with great gusto and I was with her on the first nine birthdays of my life. And last year most unexpectedly I ended up being with her on my 23^rd birthday. Nani was sick and I had gone to see her but she couldn’t stop herself from getting excited about my birthday. She instructed the servants and scolded my mom to get the “preparations” right for my birthday party. And here I was, watching her being taken to the funeral pyre.

I saw her burn and wished that she would get up due to the heat but it did not happen. I could not feel anything as I witnessed that sight. Its unimaginable seeing a person on fire. But it was cathartic too. I had been crying uncontrollably before that but as I saw the flames drowning her and the smoke turning the sky into grey, it calmed me down. It finally occurred to me that this was it.

My nani was a little like me. She loved to dress up and she wanted a little attention. All her illnesses got cured when her five kids and my grandfather stood surrounding her and asking if she was ok. And THAT made her OK!! My ever social, ever loving and ever kind nani pulled everyone towards her for her last rites for one last time.