Of late I have
been having visitations of various forms of death – permanent silence,
permanent darkness and permanent absence. And of being alive but not being able
to reach out, or being communicated to.
Last year when
Chaklada passed away suddenly, I was suddenly extremely shaken. It is not the
first death that I have encountered in my life of 46 years. And in this case I
was not even physically near to that tragic departure. But I think for a long
time, no death has moved me so much. It’s not that I used be in touch with him
very regularly. An occasional phone call, sometimes as rare as once a year or
so; an even rarer meeting during one of those trips to Kolkata. Birthday text
messages, as his birthday was on my birthday alarm database. That’s it. But when
I suddenly got the call, I broke down. In the office. Chaklada was an immensely
likeable guy. And the exceptional quantum or degree of his geniality dawned
upon all of us when we realized he is no more. As and when I talk to Natu, my
friend and Chaklada’s brother-in-law, these days, even after six seven months
of the sad event, I realize that even if we are not discussing him, a bluish
grey patina of the reality of his absence is hovering in the airwaves that is
carrying our conversation. And I start to wonder, how is he and Chaklada’s wife
and daughter dealing with the fact that he is no more. I met him around 18 months back; a few months
after his bypass surgery. He looked his affable usual, although a little bruised
from battle with the illness and perhaps more with the mundaneness of life. I
told him that perhaps this surgery was a good idea as it may bring in much
needed discipline in his life style, and that I have seen much older people get
a fresh lease of life from this surgery. I did not think that I will not see
him again. That I will not be able to pick up a phone and talk to him for two
minutes on some obscure trivia. That he will not address me as “Ponting” as the
way always does and tells me that he cannot forget the similarity my face has with
that of the former Aussie skipper. I cannot understand how Koli-di or her
daughter deal with that absence, which was so unexpected, sudden and most of
all permanent. Irretrievable. An absence which will never be filled.
While death is
something from which we are hidden in the beginning and from which we try to
turn our eyes away all our life, it slowly lets us know that it is inevitable.
And we, sort of make an uneasy truce with that knowledge.
But another form
of absence that I came to observe, and get completely traumatized by, is what
happened to my uncle – Nanukaku. Last July, on a Saturday I got a call from his
brother in Bangalore that Nanukaku had a massive cerebral stroke and it is
doubtful if he would survive. This was out of the blue. I had met him just a
few months back in his residence in Dubai. A man with immense joi de vivre, he
has been insisting that I visit Dubai with family and enjoy the riches of the
city, before he departs from there to return to Kolkata permanently. That never
happened – our visit with family. But I managed to go and see him and Renu
Kakima, his wife during one of those hectic business trips and managed to spend
an evening with them. While we hadn’t met for a few years, it did not feel like
it. Comfortably ensconced in the airconditioned comfort of their small
apartment, scotch in our glass, we forgot the hot desert city outside, and it
felt like Kolkata of 70s, only him playing my father's role, and I playing his,
in a manner of speaking. He showed me his small refrigerator where he stored
his perfumes and deodorants, something for which he had passion and he was
quite famous for. He gave me his tips and theory about pairing deos and
perfumes. We reminisced about Kolkata, about which both of us had love but not
steamy eyed and impractical romanticism. He certainly wanted to go back to
Kolkata and settle there after being all over India and Middle East most of his
life. He was looking forward to it. But what I noticed most in him was that he
did not have that fatigued demeanour of someone who has worked for too long and
cannot wait to hang his boots. He seemed to be enjoying his job, and although
he was in his mid sixties, He did not seem to be lacking the vitality, which is
missing even in me quite frequently these days. He complained when I stopped
after two whiskeys, and insisted to come out in that stifling heat of the
desert night to put me in a taxi. I remember him standing on the curb in his
creaseless white kurta-pyjama, his nightdress for years, looking as dapper as
he did in his suits in the 80s or as trendy as he did in his Saibaba hair and
multi colored shirts in 70s. Those are the indelible images of him in my
mind.
Which is
irreconcilable with what I faced when I went to visit him and to meet Kakima in
a hospital in Dubai. I was not prepared for what was waiting for me. I had not,
till the previous evening, heard about anything called permanent vegetative
state, till my other uncle, the medic in the family menioned it over phone. As
I was led to his enclosure and bed by Kakima, I saw the body of a man in an
unusual slumber on a reclined complex bed, with tubes going in his nose and
mouth and underneath the sheet. After sanitising my hand I approached the bed
and Kakima gently rubbed his hand and shoulders and started saying in his ears,
"See, who has come to see you!! From Bombay! Has come to see you!"
The mouth was open with dried dribble at the corners. The face sunken to
another face that I do not know. There lay a body which was perhaps completely
oblivious to outside world. Or perhaps not. As Kakima continued to talk to him,
and tried to relax his stiffened shoulder muscles and arms, and kept on saying
my name, I saw the eye moving. Without any focus or visible recognition,
without a meaning, without that warmth, vivacity and conviviality that it was
always filled up with. My doctor uncle explained to me that unlike coma, some
of the parts of the brain is functioning, but it is not known which parts. It
is not known if he can see, hear, feel the external world. If he has some or
all cogitative powers left intact. There lay a body which perhaps knew that
there was an outside world but could not reach out anymore.
This thought is
a choking fear that keeps revisiting me in various forms. When I have my
morning shower and wash the soap off my face under the streaming water, I
suddenly start wondering, in that momentary helplessness and breathlessness,
what if I turn blind? What if can't see this world anymore? And then I have
been having this dream or vision or thought which reminded me of the medieval
practice of throwing people in deep dungeons under the earth and cover the
mouth of the hole. What or how would have they felt? Fear of death. Thirst.
Hunger. And not being able to reach out to the world or to be reached out to.
And still be alive. At least for some time.
But this
darkness is as much true as the light if not more. This permanent absence is
perhaps truer than the tactile presence we live with everyday. Perhaps this IS
the ultimate destination, the ultimate truth.
For ages, man has sought meaning and has sought to throw light on things
that we do not know. All spirituality is thus likened with light. But the truth
might be that there is no meaning, and this eternal darkness, stillness,
quietitude and absence is the reality, is the real presence. The God, without
the halo.
