Last week, my wife said, I, emotionally, was not as strong as I looked. I unquestionably agreed with her. In fact I would never want her to be wrong. Emotions are unsung tunes of melody and misery and unvented expressions of glee and glum generated in heart with empathy. I would never want to suppress my emotions, especially when someone very close to heart breathed their last.
It was 4:30 AM; I woke up early to catch live action between India and West Indies in world cup cricket. As I turned off my alarm, I observed that a message was waiting in my inbox. I opened the message up only to learn the fact that my Babayi had passed away few hours ago. I was shell shocked to say the least. The essence of the message was so stunning that I had to read more than couple of times to get grips on my balance. I immediately called home and got it confirmed. He was suffering from brain hemorrhage and was bedridden for quite a long time.
Babayi had always been a determined and kindhearted person (Some might not agree and I don’t wrong them either). If I ever made a list of well wishers in my life, He would make it in top five, indisputably. I remember my childhood days in Hyderabad (late 80s and early 90s), so very filled up with His footprints. He was very instrumental in every decision, every aspect and every step we took in our lives (siblings). He was our strength and we were his world. He would turn the lives of many upside down to see the smiles on our faces. Sometimes, in achieving smiles of His beloved, in attaining his goals, in accomplishing tasks, I feel, He might have failed to understand the consequences and troubles others had sustained. Perhaps, He was ignorant to these situations or grew nonchalant in overwhelming satisfaction rewarded in smiles on His beloved faces. Either way, His loving nature and compassionate heart should never be undervalued. His way of living was achieving the desired goal at any expense, at least up until he turned 55 years, up until he fell down for first time and, also for last time and He could never pick Himself up again.
Even though threads between families of us are not as binding as they used to be and memories of togetherness does seem fading away, but His influence on us is so powerful that a message of His death unstoppably brought buckets of tears. In retrospection, life seemed very different with Him being our forte, and we being His joy. But, as time went on, life made us to drift away from His path of possessiveness. And today, news of death made me realize, I could never be detached from Him.
I felt putting these words on the paper might console me, but deep down a voice haunts me that I never made an effort to pay a visit when He was lying on the bed, when He was hapless and when He truly needed our smile to rejuvenate Himself. My wife was very fortunate to have met Him in her latest visit to India. Her description of Him, a disheartened, speechless, helpless and motionless person left me aghast and compelled me every opportune to picture Him, but I couldn’t and I hope, I wouldn’t. My memory is so full of joyful Him. It’s impossible for my brains to picture Him vulnerable. But in the hands of death, we are all vulnerable and so was He.
He was our inspiration and He was our Babayi, He is and will always be.
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