Dates with the Departed

Everyday is not Sunday. If last Sunday we were party to a joyous Ekatva-2019, consecutive three days thereafter were time for mourning.  Yes, happiness goes hand in hand with unhappiness as light with darkness or day with night. We had to be in three different places to pay last respects to two family friends and one relative who became dearer to God.

“I say, we must go and see Mrs A. She has been on ventilator the last 10 days,” said Aunty with concern. “But the hospital won’t allow us in ICU,” I replied. “We can see her from outside the glass partition,” she concluded.

We rang up her relative for the visiting hours Tuesday morning. “Mama, she passed away in the early hours and we have since brought the body home.”  So the proposed visit to the hospital in North Bangalore to wish her speedy recovery turned into a visit to the West - Vijayanagara - to pray for the soul to rest in peace. She was 52. What an age to be snatched away.

“She must be unwell,” you might guess. No, far from it, she was full of life. She had just returned from Trichy after a pleasure cum religious trip when she contracted some kind of infection and experienced difficulty to breath.

I couldn’t help recalling the infection that I too had a month before, and after a visit to the same Trichy - again for a pleasure cum religious trip.

The next day it was to Indira Nagar - the East. Here Mr K had breathed his last a couple of months ago. We couldn’t go for condolences earlier. He was the husband of one of my six sisters in law’s sister in law.

He leaves behind a 60 x 90 mansion sandwiched between two educational institutions, one a renowned High School with branches all over the city, and the other a Nursery school of a business magnate. Both are vying with one another to persuade the lady either to sell or offer the property on long-term lease to them. A very capable lady, she knows which side of her bread is buttered. 

It is inevitable at such times that we recall his traits. While on a visit to Tirupati with family, he saw TTD officials escorting a minister for VIP darshan. He tagged along with the party raising his hand high up in the air clinging his car keys, misleading the officials to think that he was the driver of the minister.

In another instance, he was heading for a shrine with family and his aged mother. One had to necessarily park the vehicle way behind and walk up to the temple. His mother was too fragile to do that. Fortunately he saw a minister’s car driving right up to the doorstep of the temple. He managed to get his car just behind. Lowering the glass window he indicated to the policemen on guard that the car just behind him was the last of the minister’s convoy. Though a bonus to the unknown car behind, it was a masterly stroke.

The third visit was to Domlur where my relative, Mr V passed away the previous evening. He was not keeping well for some time. After 60 years I met him last year for his daughter’s marriage.

It’s another Sunday today, and time perhaps for happiness again – not that it is a weekly cycle. One of my co-brothers-in-law had just bought a Honda car. Added to that his wife, my sister in law, had just retired from service. They rang up to ask, “Jijaji, why not the four of us drive up to Ooty in our new car?”  “By all means,” the couple-for-all-seasons in us reassured them. So here we are, off to Ooty tomorrow morning for a few days.