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| Source: Ahead's Notice Board Student's Art |
It was just fever initially, during Christmas in 2013 and that lead to hospitalization, tests, learning about good cells and bad cells in our body, that if the bad cells increase, hemoglobin count invariably goes low and it is called Cancer. When I had watched Rajesh Khanna in Anand or Jaya Bhaduri in Mili years back, it was very different then learning about cancer, however when you know it is your own mother – one who single handedly raised me and my daughter till she was almost 17 due to the proximity of my father’s and in laws house, took care of my father who suffered from Parkinson for years, managed the domestic chores all by herself and was my support system all my life – my world collapsed.
As I was grappling with this reality unable to share this with her and constantly lied to her about her illness, it seemed like my father who was fully dependant on mother for his daily needs, was annoyed being taken care by my husband and me, as mother was often in hospital for transfusion – and he was clueless why. Two weeks into 2014, one day just after breakfast, he passed away. I looked at him, took mother to hospital as her hemoglobin had dropped to 5 while he lay in his room with everyone around him mourning and he waiting for me to return from the hospital to do the last rites. How dramatic! Did he leave us so that I can focus on mother? It so seemed like that. As I was back from the funeral that night, my cousin sister called me from Bangalore.
Being single with no sibling, I was close to this cousin who was just one and half years older to me. I choked when she called but managed to say – “Chole aay na” (Come) – as I wanted my mother to be surrounded by relatives in this hour of crisis. Against all odds, she managed tickets and came to Kolkata two days before my father’s 13-day ritual. The day she reached, as she combed my hair, she spoke about a lot of things – the world is an extended family, rebirth, natural laws, God has a reason – I had heard other versions of these lines several times since my father’s death – none of which made sense – but was soothing nonetheless. She was very positive about my mother’s health and showered me with names that fought cancer.
It is strange, even as my mother was in the hospital on 19th Feb with convulsions, abnormal heart beat, losing sense every 15 minutes, she rushed to the nursing home and continued to tell me based on some faith healing that mother will survive. I almost believed her only to be shattered the following morning. The minute I saw her after mother passed away – I screamed at her “Tui Bole chili Bhogbaan Ache” (You told me God is there) – and I cannot recall what else I told her almost triggered by insanity having lost both my parents in a span of one month.
My maternal uncle works for an NGO AHEAD in Golf Green dealing with Autism. My cousin told him that she wanted to visit the center. We both went there, met the teachers and students, saw their classes in progress, the auditorium etc. My cousin was glad that I joined her to visit the center and I had also started reading her books for spiritual initiation. She asked me to blog my experience how I was trying to move ahead after the vacuum that was created in my life.
My uncle had been working in AHEAD for over two decades and I never visited the center. Just one day before my mother’s 13-day ritual, we did and when one of the students with autism sang for us and demanded we clap and cheer her, our smiles merged to make the most of what we have rather than what we don’t. After all, the world is indeed an extended family. I continued to argue with God and still do, to take both my parents away unless my mind got gradually diverted to place called Brotochary Ashram for old people in the vicinity of my residence. Do we need a permanent setback in life to think of the world as an extended family and other seniors as your own? God forbid!! Believing in a social cause is not a fashion statement for me any more. Its existence!
Soma Manna is a resident of Kolkata with 17 years of corporate experience.
