(These are some of the emails I wrote to friends who I had not spoken to after
the sudden passing of my husband, Ramesh Venkataraman, in January 2009. He was 41. I was not ready
for the complex process of grieving, even though I was prepared for death and
separation.)
Delhi, 04 May 2009
Dear all
Its 3 months now. It is empty, and awfully quiet.
People say, he is resting finally, feeling no pain, no anxiety…he is ok. I
rarely feel that. I think he’s still keen on watching the films that he was
planning to…Slumdog, The Reader and Milk. I think he does want another trip to
his favourite kebab shop down the road. And he does want another long drive in
his car which he thinks is actually a ‘tank’, the stereo playing his fav songs
full volume, his fingers drumming away on the steering wheel, his head moving
to beats, as he tries hard to sing along and keep to tune, specially on the
higher notes. He still has much to do, much to enjoy, much to angst about, much
to feel, touch, smell and savour.
His medicines, glasses, crutches, books…they are by
the bed as always. His phone bills arrive regularly. But no phone calls. It’s
very quiet. I find his aftershave bottle very useful, I think it breathes. And
so I am okay. I go to work every morning, and return after 12 hours. I have
finally again started reading the newspaper, sitting on Ramesh’s fav chair; the
election news would have tickled Ramesh no end, and we’d have had discussions
on the vacuous politicians over tea and cigarettes. The aftershave lingers
around the newspaper and the cig smoke curls. And so I am okay... getting on
from one day to another...i will be better soon...i am better already..
I often/sometimes don't know any longer, what to do
with myself, my time, my thoughts, my fears...i am lost as though without a map
...Ramesh was my map to the world...crazy! Sometimes I even don't recognise
myself!
Gawd!
But all in all, I'm fine and functional. Newscast
over!
Delhi, NOV 9, 2009
Dear all
Its more than nine months - since Ramesh called out
to me, loud from the other end of the house, in that gorgeously irritatingly
beautiful authoritative voice of love and command and need and helplessness and
manhood; and I did my standard, almost bugglingly routine response “hang on a
sec, coming!"...the tone varying only sufficiently to let him know the
degree of my willingness to comply with his request. By the time I'd reach him,
he'd have modulated his request to suit what he thought was acceptable to me.
But that was on good days. On bad days it was 'look i know you will refuse, but
you please have to do this ...for me'. On good days i'd agree and supply
assisatnce/food/wake up call/hugs and such like/change of wound
dressing/medicines/crutches/coffee/whatever was requested for. On bad days, i
resorted to 'help yourself' and he resorted to 'oh nobody loves me' and on
really bad days we fought. And made up. Nothing grand, but everything that is
textured with a connection that is deeper than can be lablelled by simple
nomenclature of couplehood, romance or matrimony...i miss that connection.
It continues to bug me that the man who did nothing
without meticulous planning, excruciatingly painfully detailed research...just
decided one day, impulsively...on one saturday afternoon to chuckle at life and
with a last few brave huge gulps of tree kissed air, say bye. Just like that,
no warning, none of the otherwise 'reassure me, self doubt is clouding me'
pangs, just whoosh, never to be heard/seen/touched/felt/fought/kissed/hugged/bugged/argued
and laughed with again. I often feel angry. Less now.
Meanwhile, i'm okay. Have been smart (!!) enough to
start some anti depressants with help from Ramesh's doc - they keep me
focussed. Have started driving Ramesh's car, which still smells of him, which
is nice and which i resisted for much of this year. Work is good, friends and
family are super...the house is quiet, no one calls out to anyone.
I've shied away from talking to many of my friends,
have promised to call and never did, this note is most for them...i will
call/chat when i feel a bit braver. More later. cheers, m
Delhi, DEC10, 2009
dear all - I need a chat - so here goes.
Ramesh and i got married today- Dec 10, 2000. Some of
you were there. It was a morning wedding, Ramesh was giggly and bare chested in
true Dravidian tradition, me in a 9 yard blood red kanjivaram saree, ready to
please anyone remotely related to anything south of the vindhyas. Nuptial compulsions and their sweet pains and
pleasures dawn only later in their full glory...wedding ceremonies are usually
resplendant with undying hope and ours was no different. We had known each
other ( a euphemism whose meaning can have alarming proportions) since the
autumn of 1995, and willy nilly were prepared for the final outcome of such an
untamed relationship. So we did get married. We were thrilled; everyone else
who knew us was way more thrilled than us!
I am not sure whether i had any impact on Ramesh/his
life - coz we did not really talk about such stuff - but being with Ramesh
chnaged me fundamentally, in many ways. And i never had a chance to tell him
all this - or tell myself all this - till now.
There was a new impatience to do everything quickly,
fast, in overdrive. A large part of me became obsessed with problem solving -
every problem has a solution, and let's crack it! Anything can be achieved if
you THINK a bit harder, let's do it - was the motto - and it got Ramesh tired.I
became a person in a constant hurry, always doing more than one thing, ready to
shift to a higher gear, almost impatient with any distractions. And i learnt from Ramesh to work bloody
hard/crib away/but work at it/everything can be made better/everything can be
researched better/crib and complain but work hard/sweat it out till everything
is perefct!! With Ramesh, i could adapt to almost anything, live with just
about any chnage of any magnitude, agree to the weirdest compromises. Then
again, he brought out the sharpest part of my brain, every argumnet chiselled
to perfection - every discussion to be had with hundred percent gusto, and
either won or lost - no half measures and no fears of antagonism, as though it
was play, a mock fight with life always...a fullsome way of relating with the
world. I learnt from him that no matter how bad tonight is, grit away to a
better morning -- fight back odds, complain if necessary, but don't give up
;-)
I find a lot of the above has waned out of me in the
past months after Ramesh.
And then he was the one who taught me how to play the
buffoon and laugh at myself. He taught me how to say 'i am sorry' with complete
conviction, and say 'i need you' without any qualms, and demand freindship and
love of people he cherished.He taught me how to just speak my mind fearlessly,
never to flinch away in the face of censure, to stand by friends come what may,
to be unconditionally loyal, and brutally honest. He was often artless - i
thought- in how open he was, how trasnparent abt things that people are usually
'private' about. I learnt from him to hoard books and films and never return
such borrowed items to their owners.
wokie...thanks for reading all the blabber - and thx
much for being there, regards, mona
PS: i notice a lot of typing errors as i glance up at
the email, but i won't correct any ;-)
Delhi, 30 Jan 2010
Hi all, was preparing today to go to see a friend,
not even 40 yet, who is on life support in an intensive care unit. Docs aren’t
hopeful.
The time that Ramesh was in an ICU three years back,
he behaved like he knew more than the docs/the nurses/the machines/the meds/the
tubes and syringes/other patients/life/death/love/prayers/time. He did know
more mostly, I’d say with pride and hindsight- based partly on the fact that
the guy was sharp like crazy. Also because maybe he always did know more…and he
said that to me often, much to my well-couched disdain; ‘wait, wait, you’ll
know soon’ he’d say with a swagger to his voice, and a long drag of the cigarette
he held in his left hand between fingers that did magic and swung around in
defiance of life and destiny. The index finger of his right hand, meanwhile,
held up and shaken in the air with finality and a don’t-question-me-attitude,
only momentarily going to his specs for mythical adjustments to sight, his
broad and proud and sculpted forehead beaded with sweat of having lived a
struggle and won many times.
Today smells of life. Tomorrow won’t. It will be one
year to the day. 31 Jan 2009…2010…2020…2030
But today is Saturday like that day. Weekend.
Beginning Friday morning, Ramesh and I had a silly grin of anticipation. Now I quite loathe a weekend.
It’s only a weekend when you have someone who needs
to be woken up and cajoled out of bed over several hours long ritual of
tea/coffee/newspaper/short snooze/hot breakfast/morning meds/short snooze/just
10 minutes, wake me up, lots of work today/snooze/30 minutes later many pillows
get piled to drown out wake up calls/time for lunch/ok let’s watch a film/no
there’s grocery to be bought/look, let’s leave all this for
tomorrow/let’s…let’s…/tomorrow..tomorrow…/another Saturday.
Not sure what purpose memories serve. Not sure who
they are meant for, whose eyes, whose ears. Not sure whether we should
remember. Not sure whether the object of our memories has any free will in the
matter – to chose or deny remembrance. Not sure whether memories are real. Not
sure whether the object of our memories is us or the remembered.
I have not had
an update session with some of you ;-) so here goes- I am good, medicines work
well on my impressionable yet aging body and mind, ha ha, my doc anticipates
full recovery by end 2010! Truth be told, the surest sign of recovery is when I
start getting fool-hardy and its happening…I have started speaking my mind when
I’d rather stay shut-up, I’ve started getting concerned yet again about what is
right rather than expedient, I’ve started trusting again with a hope that
everything cannot go wrong, I’ve started taking silly risks, etc, daft me. Work
is good – have managed to step out of backlog. Parents, sister, cousins are
rocks of magical strength, hope and trust, and rare wisdom. Friends have kept
me afloat with some special kinds of attention, buffeted my self esteem with
timely flattery and have kept me
distracted/deluded/drunk/devoted/divided/dreamy and alive to possibilities.
Ramesh’s crutches stand by my bed.
Well…thus it is for now…
Stay in touch…m
Delhi, DEC 10 , 2010
Hi all...its been a while. So here's a quick chat.
Today is 10 years since Ramesh and I got married on
Dec 10, 2000. More than 15 years since we first met at Rukmini's tiny office in
Shahpur Jat where Ramesh had arrived on his rickety bajaj scooter looking for
actors for his film. September 1994. Oroon, the then art director, shuffled
around the room in his quintessential ruffled hair, wearing little else of
consequence. Satyajit was too tall for the tiny office, ready for anyone who
leant on him for help and support. Rukmini was the star attraction of the many
men in the room, behind her tiny desk. Not sure why i came in to her office
that day, for just a cup of chai i guess. I left that office that day, armed
with an unceremonious scribble of an 7 digit MTNL number, on the white strip on
the newspaper margin.
Those days there were no post-its -- meaning, it was
not easily accessible and was a much revered piece of florouscent stationery to
be saved for better occasions and use, than to give yr phone number on. Mostly
these post-its were stolen from offices of more wealthy and happening friends;
i never bought any ever. Those days we did not have mobile phones either. So
calling a landline number meant hazarding having the potential of an amorous
conversation start with an old grandmother answering the phone with a loud
cough and end with a bang before a 'ghar mein nahin hai' sort of layered and
nuanced reprimand. I transferred Ramesh's phone number from the scrap of paper
to a phone diary, for safe keeping. Of course, i did not own a phone those
days. So making a call to Ramesh, or to anyone, meant making the call (free)
from an edit studio or go to the public phone booth nestled in a shop selling
grain, toothpaste, sanitary napkins and namkeen from a 6 feet by 8 feet
enterprise of a prospective shining India.
Just the sheer effort of making contact with people
who mattered, was significant...nothing at your finger tip and nothing to
click, no buttons to press. Yet, all kinds of contact and more was done, the
deal was secured, the wooing perfected, the mating completed, the future dreamt
of and coloured to perfection. And then the calendar interferes. And then try as
i will, making contact with Ramesh is absolutely horrendously cruelly
impossible. I have every concievable gadget now, my fingers work with speedy
fury on all kinds of buttons and keys of different sizes, seen and unseen wires
whizz around and underneath, but making contact ain't happening ;-)
I almost feel like i am writing to you guys from that
temple on lodhi road where we got married sitting on the cold stone floor
amidst the sounds of nadaswaram, impatient for the ceremonies to get over. And
they did. The ceremonies always come to end.
cheers, mona
Delhi, Feb 12, 2011
Two years is not a long time at all. But when Ramesh
told me first that he had just two years to live, it seemed amiss that he was
making a fuss of it, coz that was a long time for us to spend with each other,
and make the best of what we had. It was the bravado of love and youth and
ideals and fundamental values that get imbued in us as children - so after some
standard quibble and long-sentenced/multi phrased/quasi philosophical and
marginally trying-to-be-practical fight, we gave in. We said, two years is
great, let's go ahead and do what we have to. Those days in the mid nineties,
there were no meds for HIV. There was no hope for meds either, though the
scientific world hasn't ever before or will ever again so rapidly achieve
success in finding medical solutions. Hope did finally come, meds came even
though they were too expensive to not be begged for, Ramesh did live much
longer than the two years he had given himself. Its two years today since he
passed.
Its no life, nor any death, if not lived on the edge,
with the daily struggle of survival. I will rise from the ashes, like the
phoenix i will rise, he often said with a look in his eyes that i often
resented, coz he used that same look to tell me off. But that dare kept him
going. Every morning he dared. I hardly remember a day when he did not wake up
in the morning to a call from some part of his body that was wracked with pain,
that spoke of a slow tearing away, that bore the scars of a virulent
misdemeanor of fate, that yet so dared to rise and refurbish the spirit with
the unreal strength to rise and work. Days, months, years of a daily dose of
uncertainty, and nothing to hold on to except the the netronome of 'i will
rise'. He often said to me, sometimes in loving forgiveness and sometimes in
rage - you will never understand. Maybe i didn't.
Two years ago that morning he dared - he knew his
liver was oozing blood surrepticiously. It had happened a month ago and he went
to the hospital for a few days and the tubes that pricked through his life
brought him back home. That morning he had a breakfast of hot idlis and rasam,
and coffee, and newspaper and cigarettes, and the morning winter sun and some
whining about not feeling good and needing a snooze. He dared then to have a
long conversation with a friend on phone and
tell how a certain organisation is failing in its mission! Hours later
in the afternoon he was smiling on his way over, daring for every breath to
stay with him, holding my hand in a blood filled clench, and waiting for mom to
be back. The sun then sank.
In some ways i feel weakened, and in others,
empowered to dare, because I stand very proud next to Ramesh's memory. Its been
two years of bafflement of finding myself again and I have some way to go
still. Its been a lot of trying to let go, i have a lot... some more to go. Its
also been a time stupored misjudgements, but no regrets. If you know of anyone
who has lost a roadmap and has had to create one out of nowhere and from
scratch, tell me please and i will seek discipleship.
To you who have provided advice, empathy, succor and
have filled empty spaces patiently, i feel fortunate to have had you there and
will remain always grateful. Thanks for letting me share, regards, mona
Delhi, DEC 4, 2011
Dear friends, scribblings/ramblings again.
Just a quick report to say that the old adage of 'it
gets better with time' has been put to test and the results are fifty-fifty.
Its almost three years now and its neither better nor worse - its more like
snakes and ladders. I said this to a friend who i was meeting after a long
time. She asked the inevitable question - 'how are things?'...a question that i
have found increasingly difficult to respond to without replying with
shrugfulls of perfunctory comments about my state of being.
Its likely though that i have a slightly better
understanding of the interplay between three inter-related spaces - memories,
the past and the present. Some memories become urgent and knock hard to be
heard. Others are reticent. And as i stumble through the days and nights, fresh
new memories of Ramesh in the right now conjure themselves up. Past and present
images, smells, touch, conversations, conflicts, decisions - they all, always,
combine. . There are memory-nests i have come to find around me and inside me,
where momories reproduce and grow and mutate and peep out of. Memories are here at the behest of the
present, are invited guests into a room full of memory-eggs. And the two kinds
of memories intercourse often. Maybe i am beginning to get used to loving the
difficulties of these two clashing and overlapping and competing and cohabiting
sets of memories. And maybe there lies the board game of snakes and ladders.
Not sure.
I am much the same. Yet that was not to be. Had Ramesh
been here, i was meant to grow and change and become. We'd both have challenged
each other into the next new thing. But now, i feel i am much the same and in
being so i find myself unwillingly complicit in not making it better nor worse.
Just like a baby looks into the mirror and thinks its another baby in there,
likewise i feel sometimes, not sure why the image isnt of the person who i was
supposed to become. Not sure.
That's all for now. Thanks for being there, and
regards, mona
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