Have I told
you how much I love solving The Hindu’s crossword? Every morning. Unfailingly. Even
if I miss a day’s puzzle, I faithfully pull it out the next day to solve it! The
only grouse I have is its placement in the paper - generally above the
obituaries section. Why would you want to begin your day by looking at
obituaries?
On the 4th
of June, I opened the paper very hesitantly. I pensively turned to the
crossword page. But today was not for the crossword, it was to look at an
obituary – that of my maternal grandmother’s.
There she
was. A much healthier picture of her smiled at me from the paper. Very unlike
the scrawny frame she had been reduced to in the recent past. I had almost
forgotten what she looked like in better times. Despite her age and her
atrophied body, she did well to fight a form systemic scleroderma. A condition
that is easy to mis-diagnose and also a condition that has no complete cure.
I would have
liked to spend my last few moments with her by sitting next to her, holding her
hands or just looking at her, in silence. But that was not to be. In our
culture, the most precious moments of one’s life are generally dictated by
people who do not matter. What an irony! It could be a wedding, a birth, a first
birthday, the final rites, or even breastfeeding for heaven’s sake! A sea of
people invaded the house. Along with paying their respects, also very
generously dropped unnecessary advice and rendered unwanted help,
over-complicating the already complex set of rituals. Isn't it just so incongruous in the larger
scheme of things?
She passed
away on the same day that I heard about a tech guru’s death after a valiant
fight against cancer and a frivolous suicide. I mean, how ironical can life
get? There are people who will do anything to hang on to one hidden ember of
life, and then there are those others… Damn! Frustrating, to say the least.
Sad, yet beautifully written.
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