but no more...10 months

that my grandmother has been away from me. not that she's going to come back ever.
one day she left home and the homies to travel and reach a place far far away. where everyone stays in harmony. nobody falls ill. there is enough money there. and you can sleep as much as you want.

i was a kid, barely 6 years old when my mother used to drop me to my granny's house every saturday morning. my mother is a working woman and i couldn't hold my head then.
my grandfolks have their own gurudwara in delhi cantt. my mom used to shoo me into the sacred home as early as 6am when my grandpa used to read out the scriptures to please more of himself. a lot of people from the surrounding places were regular visitors especially the 60+ retired types. my favourite spot was close to where my grandmother used to sit. most of the times i used to snuggle up and sleep there like a pup.

on our way back, she used to feed the dogs with the prasad from the temple. the mere sight used to stun the hell out of me. i always thought that dogs had a timer fit into their pyramid shaped heads which buzzed exactly when my granny was about to walk out. this scene reminds me of a short story by my favourite author Kushwant Singh.

breakfast @ home used to be my all-time favourite half-fried eggs, sunny-side up with crisp toasts and butter. lunch was all about black daal, ultra-thin chappatis and truckloads of gajar ka halwa. exactly @ 4 was tea time. but wtf? i get milk and *** cookies. (*** is the secret cookie name that would never leak).

and then i grew up to forget her. saturdays were all about movies and friends. suddenly i vanished for a few years from her sight. it was engineering time. each time i was back home from college, she would call to check on me. the best part was when she used to call me; she would just clear her throat over the phone and let me recognise her voice in the first go ALWAYS.

then one (un)fine day she fell ill. very ill. we took her to the hospital. and then.... just in a few days time she was all OK. it was a saturday when i was supposed to get her discharged and take her back home. the nurse gave her an IV shot. suddenly she started feeling unconfortable. she was shaking like tin-house in an earthquake. i saw her stick out her toungue as though she tasted something bitter like hell. i rubbed her feet till the streacher was pulled along with the oxygen kit. she was rushed to the ICU.
there had been an overdose. an overdose of life. an overdose of love maybe. the doctors said that there was a lot of CO2 accumulated around her brain. she stayed inthe ICU for almost 4 days, drowsy like a dopehead.

she had a weak heart which kept sinking by the second. finally they put her on a "life support system". they basically stick a pretty broad pipe up your throat till about a few inches above the lungs. i saw her for the first time on this gadget. thought to myself: why did we make this stuff? is this the technology that we need. i still see blood dripping down her mouth when she was totally unconcious. i stood there wiping off each and every drop. weeping like an orphan. helpless is all that i was. just a day before i had asked her if she felt like having grapes. her last words for me were "jo teri marzi, beta" (whatever you please, son). and that was it. the family and the doctors decided to take the support system out. i slept in the hospital on a bench that night. at 6am i asked the guard in the ICU to let me see her one last time. he simply refused. i did not argue. because from deep within i could not see her.

10am she was brought back home in an ambulance. everybody waited. my brother had also flown in by now. they put her on the bed. and then... the doctor declared her NO MORE.
it definitly sounds filmy, but my eyes are welled up even now.
there was mourning in the air. i saw very closely the thin line dividing life and death. washed, clothes changes, wrapped in a colored cloth, placed on a steel board a few men lifted her high. the load of a mother was too much to handle.
the cremation ground was another astonishing place for me. gathering the woods, setting them up and arranging for all other stuff was a very robotic job for most ofthe 60+ guys. they know their final beds well enough. she just had 4 daughters and 2 sons who were apparently killed on the train from pakistan during 1947. so that leaves her with 10 grandchildren from 4 daughters. we are 5 boys and i stand third from the top. due to family differences she wished that the eldest of her grandson should never touch her when she's not breathing. but then it was time to do IT.
i pleaded God to give me the courage to ask my cousin to hand me the fire. i told him softly what she had wished. and finally, the final rights were performed. i saw her fuse with the sand. i felt her touch. that was surely a love pyre.

i still see her besides me @ times. i can speak with her.
but...