There never really is a good time to write this. Most often, it strikes you like a tight resounding slap to the cheek, when something life-altering happens, either when you meet the love of your life, or lose one of them. < Something comes along, that changes everything.
One minute you are heading in one direction, and the very next you spiral out down a helix, and are ricocheted elsewhere. Either for better or for worse, till death do us apart. Yes. Death. Funny how it seems so larger-than-life, so dark and dreary, but yet it comes along, and goes, in the blink of an eye, in a heartbeat, faster than light, and thought, like the blink-and-miss role of a junior artiste in a B grade pot boiler, like a flickering light bulb which fades back to black.
My grandmother was an exceptional woman, and in so many ways I can say that she singlehandedly raised her four children. Simply because she knew that if she didn’t, my grandfather wouldn’t do half a decent job doing his share. But that’s probably the plight of women everywhere. Where they put themselves after everyone else, resolving themselves to a fate of a caretaker, and a giver of love, without any expectations of receiving it at the other end. She worked tirelessly around the clock, inside the home, the children were replaced by grandchildren, the number of rotis doled out was doubled, and the buckets of water filled increased exponentially. Time flied, and hair greyed, but the zest remained the same. A constant figure in everyone’s lives, it’s a wonder the impact she managed to make in a patriarchal society. She was spunky, she was spontaneous, toughed by years in the infamous family, strengthened by layers of memories, wizened by generations worth of experiences.
It’s funny how people become just that -people, when they are alive. A part of the family, someone you have to respect, someone who is a casualty, someone in the background, someone who gives you money during Diwali, someone who made homemade chocolate for you when she came over home, someone who lashed out against dad for scolding you, someone who told you secretly that you were their favourite. Someone. Silly word. Most often, these ‘someones’ remain stagnant, while you go on with your own life; hazy figures in the background, wispy and smoke-like. But when they die, everything changes. One moment they are here, living it in the backdrop, the next moment, they are a flash and they are gone. They are remembered, they are mourned, they are thought of, and they are cried over- everything post-death.
But is it necessary to realise a person’s true worth only once they are gone? Why do we only end up lauding them posthumously? Does regret need to be such a life changing lesson? Pity you realise your wrongs, when nothing else is right. Can an epitaph or a eulogy ever undo all your words, can beautifully written verse deflect the worst? Can a Facebook note or a blog post ever define love, or the anguish of losing a loved one?
Probably not.
But the most I can do is try.
This one’s for the woman. She was everything. A mother. A wife. A grandmother. A sister. An aunt. A daughter.A survivor. A revolutionary. And like my mum says from time to time, she survived the Mahale family, with a long history of delinquents. That really counts for something. So many titles, one woman. She left our side two days ago, and nothing’s been the same ever since. All my problems seem insignificant now, choices to be made, jobs to be taken, a book to finish, and secrets to tell. And now my only regret is never telling her how much I loved her. Life’s like that.
Amma, this one’s for you. Rest in peace, and watch over all of us. We all need us our guardian angel, especially right about now.
