Crossroads.

Standing at the crossroads not for the first time in my life. While the clueless, spirit dampening insecurities I face for the first time in my life, I ask myself again, repeatedly, Am I too scared to take risks? Am I not worthy of the future I seek? My heart tumultuous, plays tricks with my confused, worried, harried mind. My brain tirades endlessly. Doubts about a wrong decision, wrong timing, wrong person swarm the remains of my once sane and safe territories of life. Ideas about my future are foggy, almost fiendishly so. In the eerie wastelands of this thing I call my life, a lot of doors have shut with an utter refusal by the new ones to open up for me. What do I do? continue looking for new doors and open them myself, or just look for a window?

My Morrie.

The story said that the heavens cry with you when a loved soul departs this world.

Nice story.

"Right, then hardly any African or for that matter Indian souls were ever loved! Bloody the countries live in continuous state of droughts."

I take back my words.

The 13th day of mourning my Morrie. The day the soul departs the realms of this world and enters heaven. The day you say your final goodbyes...

... it rained!

Mourning My Morrie.

They did not call me to come to the hospital in the morning. I thought they had a replacement and I would probably be needed in the evening. Ma and Pa came back and just as we were getting ready to go meet him, Pa's cell-phone rang. It was from his cell-phone. I did not have to hear anything after that. I knew. It felt like a lightening had struck me. I felt numb and then tears ran uncontrollably.


I was flustered.


For a long time I sat outside his house waiting for them to get his body, all the time wishing I had known yesterday that that would be last time I ever spoke to him. They knew it in the morning, but she could not make herself to call me and tell me the bad news. Everyone thought I am too young to watch him die. In a way I agree with them. Now I will only have happy memories of him. They saved me his trauma.


He looked peaceful today, as if he was meditating as usual, as if he was sleeping and dreaming of something beautiful.


It felt surreal looking at him like that. He seemed a different person. For me, it wasn't my Morrie lying there, I wasn't saying goodbye to him. The goodbyes were for someone who resembled him, that's all.


I keep visualizing him in his white kurta-pajama and blue bata slippers coming down the stairs, seating himself on the sofa and asking me, "Kay mag, sadhya kay navin challay?"
He was the only person who could understand and speak my tongue. I still need him. I hope he knew.


It's weird talking about him in the past tense.

I am happy that he is free. I don't know what happens after death, if the soul is reincarnated, if there is heaven?! But I am sure of this, whereever that is, he has gone to a far better place. His soul will rest in peace.

I do believe it's true
That there are roads left in both of our shoes
If the silence takes you
Then I hope it takes me too
(Death Cab for Cutie)

Of Memories With My Morrie. #3

I sit and stare at him all day. That's pretty much all that anyone can do at this time.
He moves. He tries to make sounds that finally die away in painful moans. His lips are dry, he cannot speak properly. All the time he's awake, it seems that he is thinking. Seems he wants to say something but somehow words evade him. These days words shy away from everyone else around him. Seems like what needs to be said doesn't need the help of words.
A silent encouraging smile, a gentle caress, a warm slight pat on the shoulder, a sad look, a tearful eye sums up most conversations I have with my Morrie. Sometimes all he does is try and recognize people that come to visit. He looks hard at them, I think he tries to focus his vision and then says the name of the person looking down on him with sorrowful and sometimes pitiful eyes. (I personally hate all those with the pitiful looks!) I wonder how important recognition is in terms of defining his cognition of other matters?
There are times when he says absurd things. Today he wanted to tell me F2's name (?!), said he wanted to meet Dinkar Gangal (none of us have ever heard of this person), wanted to exchange gas cylinders with Reliance Power (now there's a thought!). You know, how does one define cognition, coherence of thought with recognition of people?! I think people like to please themselves by the knowledge that he still remembers them.

Seeing him today, the number of bed-sores and bruises on his body, the morphine patch, the butterfly with needles stuck in him, the saline bottle (the only thing that's keeping him alive) made me want him to pass away now. I might sound like the most wicked person that ever walked this planet, but it's far better than seeing him go through all the hurt and pain. I was holding his hand and caressing it today when I saw how different they looked; his looked deathly pale yellow and mine pink. I thought it was like comparing the hands of death with life. When I realized this I felt his hands warm in my hands and that warmth comforted me. The thought that he is still breathing makes me feel better. I know I am being selfish feeling that, but I don't want it any other way.

I don't cry anymore. I don't see the point. It's fate. I agree with him now, what is meant to happen will happen. He said another thing some days back, when he could still speak a little, he said, "I still want to do so many things, but now I've realized that life doesn't work that way; we don't live to do things. We live, therefore we do things." For me, that was a profound lesson and after that day, I had taken it to be his last lesson.
I was wrong. I was terribly, horribly wrong. His final lesson is a prolonged session of understanding death, of accepting it gracefully, of facing it as if it were life and most importantly, it is a lesson in letting go. "Letting go of the carnal pleasures", he had said, "is the most difficult thing. You cannot leave your flesh and body that have defined *you* since the day you came into existence."
What I've taken from this is that memory stays and I am bent on making every last minute with him as memorable as the all the other happy times we've had!

My Morrie wanted to do a champagne party on his and my parents' 25th wedding anniversary. They had planned on doing the Europe tour, leave a day before his anniversary and come back a day after my parents'. Go to the Jules Verne on the Tour Eiffel and open a bottle of Champagne overlooking the most romantic city in the world. His wedding anniversary is on this 15th and I'm praying to God that he stays until after 15th or he goes before that (my concerns are now mainly for his wife).

Of Memories With My Morrie. #2

I used to go to the hospital every alternate day, sometimes less often. Now I go there everyday. Everyday counts. Everyday is important. He wants to see me everyday. "There is so much I want to say to you", he said. No tears came to his eyes. There is no water left in his body. But for the first time, after a long time, I did not stop my tears. I let them flow, unhindered...
He said, "You cannot cry. I thought you were on a different level than everyone else. I know you are stronger than that." I wish I could explain to him that I wasn't different at all. I was a selfish little girl who did not want her Uncle to go off to Neverland. That him leaving like that was going to affect her more than he knew. She wanted him to stay for her sake, so that he could tell her stories of far off lands, of a prince who would one day sweep her off her feet and take her away, of fairies who looked after her, of giants that he would fight to keep her safe. She is selfish. Very selfish. She wants him to stay at any cost. And she refuses to understand the pains he would have to endure to make her wishes come true.

In his efforts to make me understand he spilled his secret. He was giving me hints before, but I only accepted the facts when he told me in so many words. The doctors think that any treatment will have only two effects; maintain status quo or further deterioration of his system.
He had already made his choice. He wasn't going to take any treatments. I suppose he is more in touch with his insides than most people, he knows best. Besides there was the question, "Do I wither up and disappear or do I make the most of my time left?" He does not have time, he was not waiting for answers. He already knew the answer. His relatives have started pouring in and I now realize how loved he is and how love matters more than anything.

This year he celebrates 25 years of his marriage. He said, "25 well-lived, happy, and satisfied years are far better than 50 spent fighting and bickering". "Besides one keeps repeating similar motions for the rest of one's life anyways. The 80/20 principle: Only 20% of your activities are responsible for 80% of productive work." He said he has lived a full life and he would not want it any other way. He has no regrets and he is proud of that fact. I know how loved he is and somehow knowing all this, I find acceptance of facts easier...
Acceptance is easy, letting go is not.

Of Memories With My Morrie. #1

He is not Morrie. Morrie was old, he is not! And it's terribly hard for me to accept Morrie's fate as his fate. I refuse to! He is someone who means a lot to me, Morrie meant a story.

I realized for the very first time the FACT that he is *my* Morrie.

My Morrie says, "Separate your FACTS from EMOTIONS; Facts + Emotions = Fiction. If you can't do that, you cannot get results."
He explained this to me, his voice reduced almost to a squeak, his hands swollen, on the side, his jaundiced face and eyes, desperately looking at me, trying to keep them open so that he could talk to me. The man was frozen inside his own flesh.

And, like a fool I could not comprehend what he was saying. I felt like a wretched being who was making him go through hell to explain this simple Fact.

My Morrie began teaching me his lessons a very long time ago. I met him for the first time in the summer of 1990 and now, sadly, I see the lessons coming to an end. It has been more than 18 years of teaching, teaching and discussing, dicussing and arguing, arguing and accepting and then be done with the topic (...only till sometime later. I want there to many laters. Many many more laters). Discussing inane matters is always fun with him. I learnt to talk about philosophy like a grown-up from him. He questioned me, grilled me to no end. He made me read books, gave me examples from my life, he explained away and I enjoyed listening to him irrespective of whether or not I understood what he was talking about. I know no-one else understood us. I don't suppose anyone was as foolish as the two of us, our philosphical pair.
He has understood me more than any living mortal can ever boast of and he has influenced me in more ways than I can think of en ce moment. He has been a part of all the major decisions I have taken in my life and wanted it to stay that way...

I am writing this series to chronicle the final lessons he is teaching me, so that I won't forget anything. Anything and everything he says to me from now will be his last words to me. Immensely precious.