“Don’t play in the rain, Arushi!”
“When will the rain stop, mama? I want to play in the garden.”
She would smile and tell me to go and see whether the rain was falling in the form of cups and saucers or bubbles. I would watch the raindrops very carefully as they hit the floor. I would then run back to report the shape of the falling raindrops to my mother. ‘Cup and saucer rain’ meant it would stop raining shortly and raindrops falling in the form of bubbles meant that it was going to rain for a while. I would keep sitting on the verandah, watching the raindrops falling on the ground, intently, impatiently willing them to change from bubbles to cups and saucers and finally stop. Even now when the rain falls, I watch it carefully, trying to see which way it falls. Mummy is no longer with me.
But I remember you, Ma when I see the rain and I smile…
January 2009
There must have been some divine force at play that brought Soni Aunty to our house with Sai Chalisa in hand. An angel whom I had hardly met but known about all my life. Thus began a daily routine of her reading aloud from this Holy book to Mummy every afternoon.
The cancer had relapsed. The radiation therapy had been very tough and Mummy didn’t want to go ahead with surgery that gave her only a forty percent chance of survival. We had visited the doctor in Delhi who told Mummy not to go ahead with the surgery as it did not guarantee that the cancer wouldn’t come back. But a dear friend in Phoenix, a renowned oncologist, was advising us to go ahead with it with a specialist in Mumbai. If we didn’t, Mummy would go away, anyway. We were all going through hell in our heads, not knowing what to do.
Soni Aunty’s coming home and reading Sai Chalisa had become a ritual now. Housework that I have never been very good at and a three-year old toddler kept me on my toes. This coupled with the fact that I am not a very religious person ensured that I never sat with Mummy and listened to it. Yet, the rendition of Sai Chalisa in Soni Aunty’s loud yet calm voice would fill the whole house with positive energy. I felt it. There was no negativity for that one hour. It felt as if God had sent her. She had good things to say to calm our distressed souls. Her saying that everything would be alright made us believe her.
Hitesh was travelling to Australia for work and I was filling in for him. He was equally concerned about Mummy’s health and our conversation that morning had only transferred more of my worry to him. He called in the afternoon . He was at a restaurant with a friend who had brought his business partner, Marina along with him. Hitesh asked me if we had mint in our house.
“Mint?“ I asked him, incredulously. “Mint?” Such a strange question! He said, “Just go and look”. I told my maid to check in the refrigerator and vegetable basket. There was no mint. But Hitesh insisted that I look again. The maid then remembered that a lot of mint was growing in our terrace garden. Hitesh next asked me if any purple flowers were growing in our backyard. “Yes.” There were purple flowers there. I hadn’t even noticed them before. All this while, Sai Chalisa was being read aloud in the house.
I asked my husband why he was asking these strange questions. He told me that during dinner, Marina had suddenly sat down just the way Mummy does. I had not even realized before then, that we all sit in a certain way. Marina had never been to India and had never met any of us. She took on Mummy’s posture and said, “There is an old lady in the house who has a problem here”, pointing to her mouth. She said, “Throw away the mint”. Hitesh told her that there was no mint on the table. She turned towards Hitesh and told him there was an old lady in his house who had a problem. She started touching her mouth again. She told him that she could see purple flowers growing in our backyard. It was strange how she knew all that. She told him that we needed to get rid of the mint and purple flowers growing in our house as they weren’t good for Mummy. This was my first encounter with something that defied logic. I thought God was sending a message through her that everything was going to be alright.
She came to India after a month. It was her first visit to India and she told Mummy that she had come just for her. She asked Mummy if she could hold her hands. She held Mummy’s hands in hers for some time and told her that she had healing powers and would help lessen the pain. She told Mummy that she should get operated though there were chances that the disease might recur. She also told her that the number four would follow her all her life. She looked at me and said that she could see a lot of prosperity coming to our house. She helped us with the difficult decision of going ahead with the surgery. I felt optimistic. I thought her mentioning prosperity was God’s way of telling me that Mummy was going to be okay and cancer-free forever.
As it turned out, the doctor gave us an appointment for the 22nd of March. Mummy was operated on 4th April. After the surgery, she was shifted to many rooms. The room numbers were 13, 22, and 4. All these added up to the number four. Our house number was 4. Soni Aunty’s factory number was 4. All their car numbers added up to 4. Mummy’s best friend’s house number too… so many coincidences. Mummy went away on March 22, 2011 – another 4.
22nd March 2011
The night mummy went away, I had been with her almost the entire day. Mummy had not been well for three or four days. She had been forgetting things and would get up all of a sudden from the bed. She had a feeding pipe attached to her stomach since December 9, 2010. I remember the date clearly as this procedure took place on my wedding anniversary. I don’t think my husband and I even wished each other that day. She was very weak and I was by her side every hour of the day. At night, I would sit on a chair with my feet up on one side of her bed so that I would know if she wanted to get up.
Coming back to that day…
It was 10:15 pm. The cook called me to put some starter in the milk he had warmed, to make curd. Our kitchen was just ten steps away from Mummy’s room. I was in the kitchen when I heard bhuaji call out Mummy’s name over and over.
I ran into her room and knew she was gone. I remember shouting for Papa and Hitesh and running around trying to find the keys to Mummy’s cupboard from where I took out a silver coin and ran to the kitchen to make a diya out of the dough. I could hear Hitesh shouting in the background. He thought I had gone mad. I put the coin in her left hand and the diya in her right hand but didn’t know I was supposed to light it too. I heard Hitesh holding me and saying, “What are you doing? She’s gone.” But I did it anyway…
Ma prepared me for her death
I think she prepared me bit by bit for her death too. In December 2010, Papa and Hitesh were away to a wedding. The children were asleep and I was sitting with Mummy. She wrote that when it was time for her to go, I must keep a silver coin in her left hand and a diya in her right hand. I remember crying out loud that night for the first time in front of her. I had hitherto put up a very brave front when I was with her.
A day before she went away, she hugged me very tightly and then told me that she wanted to lie on the floor. When I understood what she was trying to say, I started crying. She wiped my tears with her beautiful, frail hands and wrote to me “No beta, It’s good for me.” Before this, she had always told me that she was going to be alright.
That night, half an hour before she went away, she sat on her bed and I felt she told me in the way she looked at me that she could not take the pain anymore. I think she said goodbye to me then.
So many times before this when I could not help myself and asked her if it hurt too much, she would look at me and say “Not at all”. I believe she was a saint.
By the time she went away, she had no lips. The cancer had eaten away a part of her chin as well and was going towards her ear.
She went away at 10:15 that night. I held her hand the entire night. She never really left me. She gave birth to me. I grew up inside her but I feel she lives in me now.
Healing
Marina came to our house in April. We knew that she was coming to India and I had been so sure that Mummy would not go away without meeting Marina. We were all sitting at the dining table having lunch. I was sitting next to Marina. Suddenly she said that she could sense Mummy’s presence and that she was trying to say something to me. She turned towards me and said, “Your Ma is thanking you for looking after her the way you did”. I didn’t know how to respond. She continued, “Your Ma is happy with what you did with her hands.”
I was stunned because I had not discussed this with anyone, not even my sisters. She asked for pen and paper because she said Mummy was trying to say something but she could not understand it. She told us to get the diaries Mummy wrote in. Mummy could not talk to us for over a year before she went away. She would communicate by writing to us. I got a few of those diaries. She picked one and randomly, or so it seemed, placed her finger on a few lines in the diary. I saw that in those lines Mummy had written that she loved me and would always be there for me.
She asked for a blank page and made a drawing quite similar to the drawings my elder son who was five years old at that time, used to make. She drew a sun and pointed towards it and told me that Mummy was saying that she would communicate with me through my son’s drawings. She told me that she could sense Mummy’s presence near the stairs and the place she pointed to was the same spot my son used to sit on and draw all the time after Mummy went away. We had many guests staying with us during the mourning period and I remembered that I used to keep telling my son not to sit there as he was in the way.
A few days before Mummy went away, she wrote letters to Papa, me, my sisters, her siblings and four of her closest friends. Marina told me that Mummy wanted me to give a message to Papa. She said, “Tell Papa that when he has that red thing in his hand, I am with him.” I couldn’t understand what she meant. Initially, I thought it was the Sai Chalisa which was wrapped in a red cloth but Papa never used to hold it or read it. It took a minute for me to comprehend that Mummy had written a card to Papa. The envelope of that card was red. Papa would keep reading the card again and again and put it back in the envelope after reading it. That card was his constant companion for many many days.
She turned to me and said that Mummy was telling me to get lots of plants as she wanted to see flowers blossoming in our house. In March, when Mummy had become very sick, I had called up some workers from the factory and got all the plants removed just in case, some plant was troubling her. I had hoped that by removing them, I could help Mummy recover. I know it doesn’t make sense but I had done it anyway.
A few days before Mummy went away, I started feeling that something, like a thin invisible thread, connected us from a point in the middle of my chest to her chest. After Mummy went away, every time I thought of her, I would get a strange but comforting sensation at that very point. I told Marina about this strange feeling. I had not told anyone about it because I did not understand it myself. That was the first time I heard about Chakras in our body. Marina told me that I was talking about my Heart Chakra. She said it meant that Mummy’s heart and my heart were connected. I had never heard of such a thing and didn’t believe that such things existed but I guess as we grow older, we start understanding and accepting many things because of our experiences. I got a lot of answers that day. Marina’s visit to India after Mummy went away made sense now.
Mummy was a very special person, full of life, always there for her friends and family and anyone who needed her. She was a very gentle soul. I never heard her raise her voice in anger, not once in my lifetime. Mummy would be so calm and loving, despite the terrible pain she was in. It led me to think she was a goddess. No one who met her could understand how she was going through her sickness so calmly and gracefully. Many of our friends and family would come out of her room and start crying after seeing her plight. I would be there telling them not to worry, Mummy was going to be fine. I fervently believed that but would still cry a lot when I was alone. It was very painful to see my Ma in pain. One day Mummy beckoned me and wrote that she understood how difficult it is to see someone you love in so much pain. I think however much I might have tried to pretend, she knew me better than I know myself. She was my mother after all.
Despite the terrible suffering she was undergoing – her voice had gone, her hearing was not very good, her eyesight was deteriorating, her stomach had a feeding pipe attached to it – despite her unbearable pain, I was still not ready to let her go. I was selfish. When Mummy went away, I felt deceived and cheated.
Why did Ma go away the minute I left her side?
It took me a long time to understand that it was her way of protecting me. Maybe that moment would have been too much for me to handle. Maybe Mummy didn’t want me to have that memory of her. She only wanted me to have good memories of her.
The gentlest of souls
My mother she was
Always content with a smile on her face
No grudges none
Very happy in her world with her family and friends
A husband who loved her dearly
Children who adored her in every way
She found happiness in everyday things
She had a lot of patience
Never heard her raise her voice ever
She had the sweetest voice and spoke so well
Got my values from her
Some say I look like her now
While some say I am just like her
Makes me happy but isn’t really true
Haven’t met anyone like her
Some may think I am biased but people who knew her know what a lovely person she was
Our hearts were connected, I could feel the tug even after she left this world
I grew up inside her but I think she lives in me now
Take your own time to heal
Many years after Mummy went away, I told one of my dear friends that I didn’t understand why I would still get so emotional when I talked about Mummy. I told her I felt very embarrassed about it. I was an adult and as everyone said I should accept what had happened and remember her with joy. I wanted to and tried my best to do it. I told her about the time I had been speaking about Mummy with someone close to me and she told me that worse things happen to people and she wondered why I was not able to get over what had happened. That day I had felt ashamed of myself and guilty about being so weak.
But my friend told me that I had every right to grieve and take whatever time it takes to heal. I had the right to cry if I wanted to and not feel embarrassed about it. She told me I had lost someone who loved me more than anything in this world. She said a child is a part of the mother and her love is unconditional no matter what happens in the child’s life. She said, “Whenever you feel sad, don’t feel that you’ve failed her or yourself. It’s a very natural emotion.”
Thank you, my dear friend, for giving me the answer to something I was not able to work out for myself.
Signs
She came to me in a dream that night.
This dream was different. It was December 2011. My closest friend, Ninie was in town and we would end up talking about Mummy. Those days I would dream of Mummy almost every day but that night, the dream was different. It was both sad and special. It didn’t make much sense though. I dreamt that one of our relatives had died and I was crying. I remembered the dream vividly when I woke up. I felt a little strange as the person I had dreamt of, wasn’t even close to me. I could understand my being disturbed or slightly saddened by the death but could not understand why I was crying so profusely in my dream. Mummy had been there with me by my side, in my dream. She had hugged me tightly while I had wept in her arms. When I woke up, I could still feel her hug. It was as if she had been there with me. I felt very light and happy as if some weight had been lifted off my chest. But I could not understand it till a few days back.
While driving back home from my last ‘Writing For The Soul’ session, I understood the meaning of that dream. It was my mother I had been mourning and sobbing for in my dream and it was truly Mummy who had comforted me that night. She had been there with me, hugging me so tight.
She spoke to me
I had joined a Yoga class and Dolly Aunty, the yoga teacher asked us to close our eyes and think about someone. Eyes closed, Mummy’s face appeared. She had a lovely smile on her face. When I started Yoga and met all these wonderful women, many of whom were my Mummy’s age, I used to think how much Mummy would have enjoyed meeting them and doing Yoga with them. That day when her face appeared while meditating, I missed her terribly and cried silent tears of sorrow. I had to drop off Dolly Aunty at her house and I remember telling her about Ma when she asked me what had disturbed me in the class that day. Later when I was driving back home, my tears would not stop falling. I was at a traffic light and there was a long traffic jam. I was willing myself to stop crying when I turned on the FM radio. An old, popular Bollywood song drifted into the car, “Tu Jahaan Jahaan Chalega…”. I had never liked this song but I let it play. The words that hit my ears made me feel as if Mummy was talking to me. “Kabhi mujh ko yaad karke, jab bahenge tere aansoo… Tu agar udaas hoga, to udaas hongi mein bhi, nazar aaon yaa na aaon tere saath hoongi mein bhi….”
I think she made her presence felt.
Scent of Ma
August 20, 2018
Do people really go away?
I don’t think so. Cancer ate away Mummy’s skin and a strange odour would emanate from her in the last few months before she went away. There are times when I am in Mummy’s room and I can smell her peculiar scent. It’s so strong at times that I can’t breathe.
I could smell that peculiar scent today. It was like an aura around me. It travelled with me upstairs to my room, to the kitchen, the lobby, everywhere. She made her presence felt after a long time today. She’s here.
Has she come to tell me that she is with the departed soul? My paternal uncle passed on today and I am very upset. Is she trying to tell me that they are all together up there? Or has she come to offer comfort and just be with me?
I read somewhere, a story about twins in a womb who thought differently. One was excited about the new life he was going to get once he got out of the womb and the other was scared and believed that getting out of the womb would mean the end of everything. This is how the author explained life after death.
I believe people don’t go anywhere. They just change their form. I believe this Earth is another womb we leave, to get a new life.
It’s safe in one of the boxes in my cupboard, I think it’s my most prized possession
Something I cherish and value beyond any other worldly possessions I’ve ever had
It’s the letter that you wrote to me Ma, a few days before you went away
Written on a simple piece of paper
With the most lovely words
Can feel your love in them
I’ve folded it and kept it in a box
I think I’ve read it only twice in the last eight years
Why don’t I have the courage to read it again and again like Papa, I don’t know
Why I can’t get it framed like my sister, I don’t know
Just shows how different we are
I open the box whenever I feel low
Just seeing that letter in the box comforts me
It’s as if you are telling me that everything is going to be fine
And this too shall pass
I open that box when I miss you
I touch the folded letter very gently
And feel as if I’ve touched you…