It is her first birthday today after her passing away on 21st December 2007.
The flower ‘torans’ shall decorate the gates of the houses in Mumbai and Delhi. Her bedroom shall get a fresh bunch of red roses, her favorite, decorated in a vase on a prominent table by her bed. Her little ornate temple in one corner shall be lit, the ‘agarbatti’s’ will be ignited. Downstairs in my Father’s room the sound system will play the Ramayan as it does every morning. My Mother’s room will remain the same. The bed is now empty and on the wall above it, hangs a framed photograph with a garland adorning the face of the most beautiful woman in the world.
We are all in New York in the midst of our Concert tour and having completed 7 venues are getting set for the next on the 15th here at the Nassau Coliseum.
Not being at home and in the vibrations of my departed parents at this moment has detached us emotionally. We are all a little quiet and contemplative – Jaya, Abhishek, Aishwarya, Bhim my nephew who works here – as we come together in my Hotel room.
No one is saying anything. Perhaps there is nothing to say.
I gather everyone around and decide to read in prayer, a few pages from the Ramayan and the Jan Gita, a translation from the original Sanskrit into the meter and language of Tulsidas’s Ramayan, by my Father.
It feels strange.
My reading is hesitant and weak. Not as resonant and strong as when the three of us, my Father and Mother and I used to recite it together in one voice early every morning at home in Delhi in Mumbai and Haridwar and Lakshman Jhoola and…
So many memories..
Now.. two of those voices silent. The sound of their support absent.
My Mother.
The dreamy yet powerful eyes. The perfect oval face. The gentle, tapered, soft hands. The most elegantly attired at any time of day. The trail of her perfume wherever she walked. The ever optimist. The ever protective. The ever fiercely possessive towards her husband and us. The brightness in a dark room. The strength in adversity. The exuberance in celebration. The believer in faith. The anger of a lioness. The stubbornness in the given word. The honor in equality. The giver of life in any situation. The teacher of integrity and morals. The fighter.
Lost today to us and to the world.
I finish the reading and put away the Ramayan and the Gita into the case that accompanies me throughout, glancing inquisitively, perhaps for the millionth time, at the words written on the first page of the Jan Gita; hand written by my Father dedicating the copy to me with his desire that I read it every day, even it were to be a few lines. I have not been obedient to him for some months now. But I shall catch up soon.
Jaya has disappeared to a corner and is delving deeply into a bag in the luggage section. I am a little disturbed by this disinterest on her part. She returns to join us with a bunch of papers in her hand.
They are old letters written by my Father to my Mother on her birthday !
Poems specially designed for the 12th of August. Some, 40-50 years back. Some, after their grandchildren and our children came in. I am touched by Jaya’s thought. We all sit around and read them. The paper fragile and brown with age. Jaya has been digging out all this valued material from Delhi, where my Mother had stored it all.
There are references to times gone by. We smile and laugh at some of the contents. Comments by my Father on an essay I have written and asked him to correct. Its titled ‘Review of my Day’ and its when I was in School in the 50’s. Goodness ! I am doing much the same thing with my blog these days am I not.
My Father has marked me too. Given me 22 out of 50 ! Not even half good ! There are little notes on the side. How the beginning should be, where the middle and the end. The stress on words, the content, the grammar, the spellings.
And the hand writing. Like little pearl drops in ink. Refined, perfectly formed and beautiful.
Jaya wants me to play the Hanuman Chalisa that I have put to music and sung, for Bhim to hear. Every one goes quiet again.
My Mother loved Hanuman ji and loved reciting the Chalisa every day. That, and the Granth Saheb. Hours of the Holiest of the Sikh scripture has been poured into my ears from her melodious voice, an attribute that was recently documented by a Pakistan journalist in her column in one of the main papers in Lahore, she having studied with my Mother in Government College there.
My Mother.
She was a strong and independent lady. Never accepted defeat even under the most trying circumstances. Her own Mother died soon after she was born. Brought up by English nannies around my grandfather’s affluent life style, she never experienced the care and love of a Mother. It is remarkable for her to have been the epitome of one, despite this great vacuum in her own life. She left the comfort of my grandfather’s riches to marry my Father, a lower middle class professor in the Allahabad University and a sensitive poet. He earned Rs 500/- per month. Because her Father was unhappy with her decision to marry, he gave her nothing when she left his home. She wanted nothing either. Packed a small bag of her immediate belongings and left along with Sudama her closest and trusted servant, who refused to not be with her. Sudama had a son, Manwar, a little older than me. We played together and spent time together. Traditionally or should I say under normal circumstances, Manwar should have taken Sudama’s place as he grew older, but my Father opposed this practice. He educated Manwar initially through his own expenses and then encouraged him to go further into higher studies. Manwar, worked hard and became a qualified engineer in the field of aeronautics and ended up with an important job with Indian Airlines. But despite his son’s elevated social status, Sudama remained that loyal and committed servant in the house. Such was his love and his loyalty towards my Mother. When age caught up with him, he left, tears streaming down, unable to do any physical work.
Manwar and he came many years later when we had moved to Mumbai and in Prateeksha, to visit us. Manwar was now a senior and important executive with the Airline, but at Prateeksha both Father and son refused to sit on the couch in the drawing room when my Father directed them towards one. They sat at my parents feet on the floor, refusing to acknowledge their enhanced social position.
Old customs and loyalties had a life of their own. The time of those times was so different. Reverent, respectful. Unlike today’s aggressive, materialistic and at times arrogant demeanor. There was aggression then too, but for different reasons. Aggression to fight for one’s right, one’s principle’s, one’s belief’s. Aggression to fight fear, to not succumb to injustice or inequality.
Beaten up my friends in the neighborhood when I was out playing with them one afternoon in Allahabad, I ran back home bawling into my Mother’s arms. She asked what had happened and on learning my sob story, pushed me out from her lap and asked -
“How many are they ?”
“Four”, I mumbled through my tears.
“And you got beaten up by just four boys ? Get back to them and don’t come back till you have beaten them up !”
It was not the command of her voice, but the strength of her conviction that made me confront my four adversaries again with renewed vigor. I came back home victorious that day, leaving behind a bunch of bewildered and bruised friends. It was the last time that they would ever take me on again. My Mother had made a champion out of me.
She made me many other things too.
She made me aesthetic. To be able to see and appreciate the finer qualities of life. From the clothes we could afford to wear, to the music we heard or the books we read. To respect not just my Father’s stature and his creativity, but the stature and standing of his contemporaries and his elders. The exposure to theatre and museums, to art and things cultural. To personalities of great talent and to forums of great discussion and debate. To the incessant hunger for things novel and new and progressive. To the acknowledgement of good deeds and the concern for charity. To the prevalence of truth and of just beings. To the power of tolerance and the bearing of pain. To the goodness in life and the exuberance of living it. And to films.
Javed Saheb, Javed Akhtar of Salim-Javed, writers of some of the most brilliant scripts in Hindi cinema, Javed Akhtar lyricist, father to Farhan Akhtar a director of eminence from the new generation, once in the late 70’s asked me, somewhat impudently, I thought -
“How are you able to give such a good performance ?”
“Because my aesthetics compel me to appreciate Mr Dilip Kumar, when he performs” I answered.
He looked at me for long with his patent mischievous smile, as is his wont, when he discovers that the person he was talking to has made a point beyond which there can be no further discussion.
I chose; the aesthetics ingrained in me chose, Mr Dilip Kumar as the ultimate performer. There has never been any doubt or debate on the exquisite quality of his work.
An artist will do good if his choice of ‘good’ is exquisite. Exquisite to the rest of the world. Exquisite to the connoisseur.
My Mother.
The lover of nature. Of nurturing flowers and the green grass of a lawn with her own hands. Of excelling in producing the best quality of red roses. Of winning every year, the first prize at the Annual Flower Show at the Alfred Park in Allahabad. Of the smell of the ‘mogra’ and the ‘bela’ in her hair. Of the stemmed ‘nargis’ in her dressing room. Of the baskets of ‘harshringar’ she meticulously collected in the early morning dew. Of the ‘raat ki rani’ she planted in each home we lived in, by the bedroom window. Of watering the flower beds in the murderous summer heat of Uttar Pradesh. Of the smell of the parched earth as it received the first spray of water from her hands.
My Mother.
Of the piping hot cup of tea first thing in the morning. Of the quilted tea pot covers in varied hues, to keep the tea hot. Of the strainer in metal, sitting over her favorite china set. Of espresso coffee in the evenings, when it first got discovered in our land. The excited visits to coffee bars with friends and with her elder son if he had finished his college home work in time – La Boheme, Gaylords, the Oberoi Intercontinental coffee shop, in Delhi. The love of sweets. ‘Boondi ke laddoo’, ‘baysan ke ladoo’ from her visits to the Hanuman Mandir. And chocolate ! What a great love for chocolate ! Suffering acutely in illness, the bars of chocolate I would bring for her from my foreign trips, were the only reason for the smile on her now gaunt face. She would guardedly place them under her pillow, for fear someone would pinch them. In the later years when she was losing her faculties we would often discover, early in the morning, an unfinished piece of the milk bar dribbling out from her mouth. An indicator that she had fallen off to sleep without finishing the portion she may have taken the night before. Teasingly, when we would ask her to give us some of her goodie, she would give us a long distasteful glare and after almost a lifetime, break a small piece and reluctantly hand it over. Immediately after, she would ask us to leave the room.
My Mother.
Who taught me ball room dancing. The waltz. The fox trot. And who would in order to test my learning skills take me to Gaylords in Connaught Place, New Delhi and drag an embarrassed me to the dance floor.
My Mother. First off onto the lawn in Prateeksha as the ‘dhol’ set up its rhythm on Holi, dancing in the spirit of the festival with gay abandon.
My Mother, who taught me how to drive a car in the driveway of our house, when I was still 4 years under age and who told me she would slap me blue if I ever attempted to venture out on the roads without a license.
My Mother who would dump a whole lot of us kids in the car and take us for a drive on 26th January, Republic Day, to see the wonderful lights of Rashtrapati Bhavan, having kept awake with us the previous night in front of a log fire peeling and giving us to eat ‘chillgozas’, ‘moamphali’ ‘kishmish’ ‘kaju’ and ‘akhroat’, because we all had to be up to leave early for the parade at India Gate.
My Mother who would pick up a ‘dholak’ and spoon without reason or event and sing Punjabi ‘tappaas’ combining it with the folk songs of UP being strung up by my Father.
My Mother, with so much laughter and spirit and joie de verve…
My Mother.
Now almost comatose. Weak and gaunt. Just an assembly of twisted bones. Hardly any skin. Lies there in front of me every morning and evening. There is no voice and no sound. Her eyes do not open. She does not respond to any sound. A monitor indicates that she breathes. Injectibles on either hand keep switching, leaving behind harsh dark stains. Nurses at regular intervals lift her and change her lying position. Heightened dementia and Alzheimer’s for years has made her silent and incommunicable. She is unaware that she has lost her husband, my Father. She is unaware that her grandson has got married. She has not been able to see and bless her grand daughter-in-law.
She has been in this state for years and in the Hospital for the past two.
Every morning before reaching the studio I enter the Hospital to be with her. She lies there motionless. Just a body with no connection with the outside world. I keep looking at her and gently whisper the first two lines of the Hanuman Chalisa –
‘Jai hanuman gyan gun sagar, jai kapeesh tihun lok ujagar’ !
This had been our greeting mantra first thing in the morning, the first words she wrote at the top of the letter she sent to me in her later years, the only words she completed in voice when she had lost most of her faculties.
I take a deep breath and leave after discussing with the doctors and nurses her condition and her treatment.
At work there is at times a happy song to enact, an emotional scene to perform, a camaraderie with colleagues and crew to be maintained, interviews with media to be addressed, their continuous text messages on mobile to be given immediate response, well being of family and dear ones to be monitored, television game shows to be kept at optimum. But all along the heart and mind, stuck with my Mother lying inert in that Hospital bed.
After the days’ work is over I return to her in the Hospital, sit by her side and just stare at her face. Then come away.
Every day for two years I do that. The most anxious moments being the night. Some how night brings with it its own fears and apprehensions. And I was right.
On the 21st of December 2007, early at around 3am the phone rang by my bed. It was the call I had been dreading to receive.
Her private nurse in tears – “Please come quickly Sir ! Ma is not looking good, we are shifting her to the ICU !”
It’s a dead moment.
You know what you should do yet you can’t do it. Its like those moments in a dream at times when you are in the midst of an adversity – falling off a cliff, being chased by monsters – you know it’s a dream, you know you can pull out of the situation, yet you find it difficult to do so.
I do not know whether to make calls to near ones or drive or put on clothes or contact the specialists, nothing. I just feel her entire life going past my brain. In the car another call. It’s the Hospital. I am numb. Hurry sir, her heart stopped, they have revived her, but its…
I run into the ICU with Jaya. Equipment, doctors, several of them, nurses rushing about hurriedly with concerned expressions, urgent instructions being passed around..
And there in the middle of all this surround, almost invisible and drowned in pipes and tubes and multiple hands working on her. My Mother. Lifeless. Almost.
Her heart stopped, we tried, she fought back. At 90, she is a tough lady. Ya. I know. She is my Mother.
Abhishek, Shweta, Aishwarya out of town, now catching urgent flights in.
They arrive. I fill them in. A quiet strength creeping in seeing family together. My brother, nieces, cousins now at the bedside. She is normalizing. No she is going again. The commotion of the team of doctors starts again. Her frail delicate body being pummeled to get her heart working again. She fights again. The graph on the monitor moves again. Doctors pumping her chest tire and take turns. We stand behind and hold hands and embrace each other – Jaya, Abhishek, Aishwarya, Shweta, Namrata, Bunty – giving strength to ourselves. Shweta pulls out her little booklet of the Hanuman Chalisa. Starts chanting. Tears swelling up in her eyes. Namrata cries.
I just stare. Stare at my Mother.
She fights again. Heart comes back.
Phone calls coming in frantically. Amar Singhji from Delhi. Upset and annoyed that his flight has got stuck in the morning fog. I should be there with you. Now. What is the point of you calling me your brother if I cannot be with you.
The graph on the monitor showing some regularity. Doctors ask us to wait in a room outside. We all huddle and sit there. Quiet. More people coming in now. Cousins, Aishwarya’s family, other close friends.
I saunter out of the room and walk towards my Mother’s section.
Frantic activity again. We will not be able to keep on like this sir. Be prepared. I am sorry. We can only do this much.
I run back to the room where the others are. She’s going, I pant out.
We are back with her. Doctors laboring. Giving everything they can. Intermittently looking up towards me with defeated expression.
She still fights. Her body bouncing on the bed with the chest- pummeling.
Ok. Stop. Let her be. Let her go now. I am disturbed to see her body being treated like this. She has suffered enough.
The doctors step back. I move forward and stand by her. My hand goes to her forehead. It is cold. Cover her with the blanket I say and remain motionless looking at her.
The monitor beeps inconsistently. And then.. the singular drone..
Straight line. A nurse utters softly.
She has gone.
The most beautiful woman in the world. My Mother. Has left us.
We bring her home to Prateeksha. Jaya and the ladies had left the Hospital earlier to prepare for the rituals. My cousins from my Mother’s elder sister who have come over from Punjab sit by her side as she lies on the floor and recite the Granth Saheb all night. I remain with them, awake and pensive. Next morning we take her to the cremation ground close by. The same spot where we took my Father. She had wanted it this way. We collected the ashes and immersed them at the relevant spots – Sangam, Allahabad where she used to take us for boat rides and early mornings dips in the sacred river, Haridwar, where we had spent many days with her at an ashram in prayer, Varanasi, Chitrakoot, her favorite place of worship. And when all the immersions were over entered Amritsar, the Golden Temple.
As we walked into the sanctum sanctorum, the strains of the Granthi’s singing from the Granth Saheb touched a chord within me.
And for the first time since her passing, I break down.
She had brought me here to Harmandir Saheb when I was in College, reminding and igniting in me my Sikh genes. And everything just came back. The dip in the Holy waters of the Lake surrounding the sanctum. The ‘kada prasad’. The food at the ‘langgar’. Everything. As though it had happened just yesterday.
My Mother.
Her wedding photograph that you see in the blog, now framed and put alongside my Father’s framed photograph in his room in Prateeksha.
All her belongings in her room just as she left them. She hardly had any. Her generosity had prompted her to give away all that she possessed. To people not necessarily of the family. To her nurses, to the driver that took her for her daily drives, to the ‘mithai wala’ she visited for her evening coffee and snacks, to her servants who served her devotedly. To her acquaintances she took an immediate liking to and to hundreds of the poor that she encountered wherever she went. I know who they are. For they come even now to the house. Not to ask, but to give. Give their gratitude to her kindness and compassion.
I visit my Mother’s room every day. I say a prayer at her little temple corner – the Gods all decorated in their finery on one end and the photographs of the Sikh Guru’s on the other.
Every morning before setting out to work I visit her framed photograph, the one you see above, and that of my father. I touch her beautiful face and smile at her. I do not ask for anything.
Simply wish that I could spend my life just one hundredth of the way she spent hers !
My Mother.
Srimati Teji Bachchan
