પહેલું પાનું The Beginning
We – all 5 of us -
Our apartment was near the seashore – a park that was almost 15 Km long, and very well organised and maintained. Pappa tried to take up the reading to blind students activity here, but it was not to be. He would wake up as usual early morning, make his tea, and go for a walk on the beachfront park. He loved the environment because it was loaded with various trees, and plenty of bird life. There was a road to cross, and then safely onto the park walkway. He would come back by 8. We had brought along a number of cassettes from Mumbai, and soon arranged a player for him to listen to music. But a few weeks into this routine, he came back from his walk and said he could not see clearly. Turned out his macula degeneration had caught up with him – it had started in Bombay, and the doctors had warned us that it may flip suddenly, and as is often the case, that was the day it happened! It wasn’t dark as in blindness, but a white blurred patch in the centre. Fortunately, he still had peripheral vision, he could see the ground, and the trees and foliage around him, and would recognise the person only when he came close, and pappa turned his head to see the person better. He could walk safely, but could not see traffic or pedestrians straight ahead of him. He had developed a mind-
So, we worked out a system that I would help him cross the road at 6, and he would wait on the other side on his return at 8, when I would fetch him back across that road on my way to work! In a typical Indian way, he would try to way lay any person he managed to see while waiting, and ask them to help him across! Some did, but others saw him, and went around him! When he saw another person walking towards him in the park area, and he sensed that the person was of Indian origin, he would greet him with a “Hari Ohm Tatsat”, else a good morning or evening. Of course, many a time, non Indian people also got the “Hari Ohm Tatsat”! At home he would make his own tea, and while occasionally he spilled it, the milk boiled over or the rate melamine dish got burnt, we felt that doing his own thing was a greater good.
Singapore is a fairly secure society, and even high officials go about with minimum security drama. The President of Singapore was a Tamil gentleman of a calm and quiet demeanour – as President. He would regularly take his morning walk – accompanied by just one security person – on the same stretch that pappa walked along – and they would greet each other with a namaskar, and a quiet greeting.
Occasionally, Anju and I would be with pappa on his evening walk, and the regulars recognised us as his children. One of them stopped us once, and said “your father greets me with some words, what does he say?”. We explained, and he tried to repeat it correctly. I will reply to him the next time, he said.
He filled his days with music. We got him a cassette player, and expanded our music collection the next time we went to Bombay, with many a Hindustani classical music cassettes. His joy was the copy of Gujarati poet laureate Nanalal’s songs sung live by Ninubhai and team. He was wearing more and more towards gujarati songs, and to him, Ninubhai and his group were the masters of that domain. He was a bit hard of hearing already… read his Surat exploits… so he played these songs at a fairly loud volume, and the whole house could follow those songs! Must have heard each one a thousand times at least!! The coating on the cassettes would become thin, and I would make a copy from the preserved master, and replace a copy!
Once in a while he would want to write a letter or the words of a song he recalled. I got him some used computer printouts from the office, and he would write on them in inch long letters with a thick felt tip pen.
It was some time in 2003-
It was 1997, we had just moved house (we have done so 7 times!) and with a week to go for Diwali that year, pappa got his second angina attack. Dr. Baldev Singh – his cardiologist – had done an angiogram and decided that 3 by-
We were warned about swellings, and other post surgery events, but nothing happened, and pappa had even forgotten about his surgery in a few years.
Once Anju and I also went to the park for a walk. Pappa had gone on his own earlier. We had just changed houses, and the new place was separated from the park access path by a small infrequent traffic road, so pappa insisted that he could well go by himself. He was always clad in white pyjamas, and a paheran – a thin loose half sleeve collarless shirt. He would typically finish his walk, and sit on a bench by the sea, just across the end of the access path. He sweated a lot, and would take off the paheran, and cool himself in the sea breeze. Woe to anyone who occupied “his” bench. When we got to the park, we saw his speaking to a couple who was sitting on “his” bench, leaving space for a third person. Soon he sat down and whipped off his paheran, and the poor embarrassed couple got up and went away. We chided pappa for such behaviour, and he retorted, “I asked their permission to sit here. If they went away, it was their decision, I had nothing to do with it”! factually true, but the trigger? A bare chested sweaty old man?
Similarly, all three of us were walking together. A stranger stopped us, and said, “you guys look like this old man’s children. Two days ago, I saw him standing in front of that (points) tree with folded hands, and saying something. Do you folks pray to trees?” We asked pappa about it, and he said, “ it is a Rosa Tabubia” tree, it was in full bloom and there was a thick carpet of lilac flowers on the ground below the tree. So, I was thanking and praising the tree for being so beautiful, and giving such lovely flowers and hence the pleasure of its beauty. (Rosa Tabubia of which there are many on the East Coast park, flowers suddenly covering the whole tree, hiding the leaves so you see a ball of lilac, and sheds all the flowers in a couple of days, carpeting the ground below in the same lilac). Pappa had a conversation with this lovely tree!
One Saturday morning, he was late coming back, and just as I was about to go look for him, a friend called and said, I have carted “dada” off to my house for tea, and I will drop him back later. This friend was almost 40 years younger than pappa, but pappa loved to talk with people of all ages, and a huge stock of stories about his Himalay treks, and hikes around Bombay. Many Gujarati people would stop and spend a few minutes with him while on a walk on East Coast park. I am sure the number of people who knew him was twice the number who knew me – Anju’s is a different story of course!
Ishwar signalled that pappa’s stop was nearing. His knees started failing him, and after a short time with a walker, he became wheel chair bound. A mild stroke followed an Alzheimer diagnosis, which grew into full blown dementia. His last few years -
In Singapore
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