2021 - The surrender

 

Even when 2021 was started, we had got news from Tezpur that Baba is not doing well, he is having chest pain and difficulty in breathing, so mid of Dec 2020, I and Sanvi decided to travel to Tezpur and look after Baba and try to make the situation stable. It was only on the 24th Dec (Rupa’s birthday), when we had to take Baba to the hospital, thankfully the situation was under control soon, and within 3 days we could come back home, and when the new year happened, we asked Baba to come with us to Bangalore. Back of my mind I knew that this year is not going to be easy and it’s gonna give us a lot of surprises.

After the death of Pradeep, there was a huge setback to Baba, because of many reasons, and I think the most prominent reason was Pradeep’s attachment to Baba, and he was quite a charming guy to make the surrounding positive. Pradeep’s death brought a huge amount of shock to Baba and the whole family. Baba was highly affected because of his attachment and his old age expectations. After his death, when Dilip started taking a decent amount of responsibility  and his care toward Baba and the family, gave him hope, gave him a ray of light, some more joy was added by the birth of Pari, and he was becoming much better. I still remember Dilip and Munu’s visit to Bangalore in 2019, which was beautiful. We had spent a very good time here in Bangalore and I was becoming a little more confident that Dilip can handle the family and will be able to take care of things at Tezpur. 

In my married life, At what point of time I became part of this whole family, and Tezpur, I also don’t know, but naturally they all became pretty close and attached to me, and so do I. I used to consider Tezpur my second home, the first one is definitely Bangalore. Pradeep's death brought a big void, as if I lost my own small brother, Pradeep was more to me like a child, I used to enjoy his company.

Baba and Pari were having good company along with Dilip’s growing maturity, He was trying hard to become worthy and a deserving husband and father, and I am sure in time he’d have figured that out, but the 2nd shock was March 2020, when all of sudden we heard the news of Dilip in the morning, super unfortunate, it felt like everything is shattered and someone is snatching our loved ones with hard cruelty, and this was my feeling, so I can’t imagine what would be feeling of Baba. For a father how impossible and non-digestible it would be to accept the death news of two young sons, and they were only sons.

I do not understand the reason behind all this, it didn’t happen because of covid, it happened because of silly stupid reason and lack of medical infrastructure at Tezpur. It happened as if someone is playing the role of Yama and snatching out the souls, and we are left with no answer, we are left with puzzle and big void, the void which does not answer anything, doesn’t show any direction, just make us numb and kneel down to accept the fact that death is certain and it is pre-written, there is no explanation behind it, it just happens and we are suppose to accept it with force. 

Death is inevitable, we all know that, but we also believe that the entire rationale of life is having certain meaning, and certain purpose, but death brings a big question on this rationality of purpose, and it shakes our entire school of thought, it push down everything back and takes the front seat and ask one simple question that, One day you are gonna die, everyone is gonna die, and we don’t have the control over it, so figure out your piece of life before it is too late.

After’s Dilip’s unfortunate death, Baba was super shocked, and his emotional and mental health was heavily affected, I knew that it would be very difficult to digest this news by Baba, but somehow he was able to survive a little, maybe because of Maa and Pari, someone should be there to take care of them. But the financial instability and lack of support system from the closed family brought a lot of stress and anxiety to him, which caused a lot of impact on his physical health. Another big reason was we were forced to stay away from Baba and the family because of Covid, after March, we could not visit Tezpur for a long time, we could not get time to even mourn on Dilip’s death, even Rupa had to come back almost immediately because of entire India lockdown situation, and Baba became super lonely. It happened as if it was again pre-written, totally irrational, and we were forced to accept it. 

When in Dec 2020, we gotto know about Baba’s health, Me and Sanvi went to Tezpur and I tried to stabilize Baba, but in the last 9 months, his health had taken a big set back, his creatinine was already at 3.4, which means the major damage was already done. There was only one hope to bring Baba to Bangalore and provide good medical care, so we brought him to Bangalore and started the treatment, within 20 days creatinine was at 8.4, we were super worried when the nephrologist, Dr. Hareesha Babu said that the only choice left is Dialysis. I did some research and figured out that Dialysis is very very painful process for the old ones and life expectancy is not good, and on top of that Baba won’t be able to take it, it would be very painful for him to go to hospital twice in a week for the Dialysis and spend hours, and he’ll have to live on controlled water and diet. So we decided to defer the Dialysis and try the alternative medicine, we met Dr. Kalaranjini, whose connection from Mysore (Dr. Prasanna), and homeopath connection (Dr. Rajeev) gave some confidence that creatinine can be reduced with the health of Ayurved, combined with Homeopath with continued support of allopathic medicine, and definitely with controlled water and food. Within a month, we could bring back creatinine to 5.4, we were super happy, we were confident that we'll be able to reverse it and Baba can be cured now, yes won’t be as good as earlier but with a certain water and diet management, he’ll be able to live the normal life.

When Baba, Rupa and Sanvi went to Tezpur in March, again there was a major lockdown due to 2nd wave of Covid, which made Rupa stay at Tezpur for 2 months, during that duration creatinine was fluctuating but it was not increasing, Rupa was able to take care, but someone Baba was losing hope to survive, and his affinity toward health became weak, and somehow he was able to manage, when Rupa came back to Bangalore, his control on water and diet became poor and that deteriorated the health further. In the Aug 2021, Rupa again decided to go to Tezpur, because Baba needed hospitalization, I was very worried and anxious because we were completing our home construction and we were planning for House warming in the month of September, but when Rupa went back, he could recover and I think realized that his blessing are very important for our house warming pooja, though he became quite weak he was strong enough to decide to come to Bangalore, along with Munu, Pari and Babita. It was a great moment for us to meet all of them, and we lived a great one month together. The House warming happened, we got the blessings, we enjoyed, Baba enjoyed a lot, though his control on food became very weak, but we didn’t object much, we thought let it be now, if he feels happy, let him feel happy. I think He was just waiting for House warming to get over. They went back to Tezpur and the process of distancing started, the last 1 months has been very painful for Baba, creatinine shot up, the whole body became toxic, the whole time body pain and lack of control over the motion, brought a lot of misery to Baba, it started becoming that we’ll have to accept to let go Baba now, Rupa decided to travel to Tezpur in the end of the October, so that she can be there with him in the last moment.

At home, when Baba saw Rupa come, he had a certain smile, but when Rupa saw him she had tears, his weight loss, his painful body, his inability to move much. We knew that Dialysis is one of the ways, but we also knew that it will create more misery to him, so we deferred it. Last option to work on to release the toxin, so Rupa carried from Bangalore Ayurvedic and Homeopathic medicines, so that some toxins can be reduced, and we’ll try best to bring Baba’s health to a stable state. After 4 days only, Rupa found in the night that his body is getting cold, sugar level was reduced a lot, She was mentally prepared that it is good for him to let go now, because more medicines, more treatment will only cause more pricks, distress and misery to him, so it’s better to let go. 

I can not imagine the situation when a daughter who is deeply attached to her father can think of letting him go, but we all learn and grow in our life, which is very important for us to survive, it’s the path of knowledge and surrender. Most of our knowledge and growth is acquired during our tough and painful time, and in that miserable time, when Rupa found that Baba’s body is getting cold and knew that we are going to lose him, she was mentally prepared that now we’ll have to let him go, that needs a lot courage to control yourself from emotional trauma. But as a last possible optimistic option, She asked Baba whether you wanted to go to the hospital, he said yes, even when we knew that it is going to be even more miserable and possibility of cure is less, but we did not want to deny the hope, so she took him to the hospital. As a quick solve, we got one dialysis done and some blood transfusions to bring improvements, but I guess body had decayed a lot and there was a time when he was so restless and annoyed with hospital thing that he said, I want to go home, he also accepted that end time has come and I don’t wanna die in hospital. She took him to the home and he passed away...I guess he was just waiting for his home, for the soil, plants, sky and the water of the home to have the last smell, and breath stopped slowly. He left the body in the search of a new journey.

7 Nov 2021 - Baba is no more

Baba is deeply attached to Rupa, he always wanted Rupa to be nearby to him, which practically became impossible, as we live in Bangalore. Rupa has been special to him, it was his first child, and very kind and caring nature gave a lot of pride to him, that Rupa is my child, and she can take care of the family pretty well. And for a daughter I think her father is always special. She always appreciates the way Baba has raised her and kids, took care of the family and extended family also is highly commendable. His kind nature, his ability to give away anything, his nature to be super humble, which helped the kids to become good humans.  Now in front of her eyes, losing 2 young brothers and now losing Baba is a huge shock for her also, and I am sure that void will never be filled with anything, the entire home has suffered so much that it sounds brutal.

I am sure this loss is unrepairable, and we’ll always have to live with this void, but one good part is Baba’s misery is over now. He lived a pretty decent life except the ending part where he had to face the death of two sons, and from the last one year he was on a lot of medicine which was again terrible. He was a foodie and controlling the food annoyed him a lot, and I think it happens with all of us. We are attached to one thing in life and if that thing goes away we get annoyed a lot. We wish him all the best for the new journey, and we are always gonna miss him, cherish him in our heart and feel great about the chance to live with him.

Baba, love you a lot.

I think, looking at the life journey, this is one of the toughest things to go through, and I believe because of 2 major perspectives. The first one is when we live with someone for a long time, we understand them so much, they become part of our life, they become part of our habit, so many things we tend to develop in that companionship, for example with Baba we used to enjoy good food a lot, he used to love good food, even prepare and serving good food was Baba’s forte, now that thing from Baba is forever gone, this hurts a lot.

And second perspective is, it somewhat reminds us that we are also gonna go away, that unknowns, that fear of losing everyone at some point of time, makes the whole life, the home, the food, the morning and evening, everything becomes meaningless. I take it as a good question to ask ourself that, what we need to know that never goes away, what is eternity, and that question is so profound that we should ask it everyday, every time. 

I also believe that, the memory, the touch and the love of Baba which he has given to the family, will be there with us forever, that will be imprinted in our soul forever.

2021 came to us as just a surrender, we tried doing a lot of thing, but we ended up in just surrendering and accepting the wish of time or fate.

Rest in peace, Baba.