Waiting for Godot

I was informed of my mother’s death on a cold winter dawn in Delhi. She had died in her sleep on 21st January 2006 late at night. I rushed out of my home into the dark, foggy and biting cold, tears streaming down my eyes, trying to hail a taxi/ auto rickshaw. I had an open ticket to Kochi- taken as a precaution; a premonition of impending bad news. The flight to Kochi had left. The Airline staff was kind enough to change it to Bangalore. I reached my home in Palghat by evening. For a son, a mother’s death marks an end of many things. As the saying goes, the richest guy is one whose mother is alive. (translated from a Pakistani saying… Duniya ke sab se bada Daulatwala woh hain, jiska Maa Zinda hai). I felt incredibly lost. I wished I could nurse her in her old age, talk about old times, and gain strength from her as she fades gently into the sunset.
I just lost my father too. Which explains the long absence from this blog. He had a fall resulting in a compression fracture in his vertebrae. He was in pain for two months: but was bed ridden for about 12 days. I was with him during the last six days of his life. He gave me the opportunities that my mother denied me. I experienced the vagaries and the sheer indignity of old age. Every time I felt reluctant to handle the unpleasant aspects of a bedridden old man, I tried to remember the times when he held me in his arms, when I was a small boy. I sensed self-loathing in his eyes. And those eyes never left me. Castigating me when I took him to the hospital, reproaching when I took him to various tests: He told me several times that he wanted to die. I whispered in his ear that he might have given up hope of living. But I can’t give up on him yet- Just as he wouldn’t give up on me during my worst times. He apologized many times for having inconvenienced me in the midst of my busy life. (Yeah, he thinks I am a big guy. I never tried to disabuse him of the notion. In Delhi’s bureaucratic caste system I fall somewhere between night soil carriers and gypsies. Some truths are better left unsaid; especially if they cause discomfort to a dying father). He told me that he was very proud of me when, as a child, I would read three books at a time and narrate the stories. I thought that was an overstatement. Yes I am in the habit of reading three books at once. I sort of reached my peak in reading at the age of 13. (It has been a downhill ride ever since). Nice to know that someone out there is proud of me: especially when I am low on self-esteem…
I sit in the sands on the banks of Nila river near my home - A beautiful river, denuded by the sand mafia. My three elder brothers who have come from abroad and my younger sister sit in wet clothes. The “Inangan” gets us going through the rituals of passage ( a strange Nair custom in which a member of the community carries out the rituals facilitating the departed soul’s ascension to the nether world.) It is daybreak. We had dipped ourselves several times in the river. My eldest brother who had come from England wore the white cloth that signifies the rights of the eldest son. We take water from a jar, splay it on the rice, coconut, weeds and other stuff. Prayers are chanted.
After 11 days, we got back to our respective lives, our parents only a memory. I have heard of Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” which is about two strangers waiting for Godot; neither knows how he looks or why are they waiting for him. They indulge in a long conversation. Critics have called it an allusion to life. A meaningless dialogue while waiting for death without really knowing what it signifies.
My father was a serious guy. He belonged to a family in Palghat, (Methil House, which produced many artistes, teachers, corporate honchos, stenographers and writers) which took pride in their aristocracy. Being anti-caste, I paid no heed to such origins. They were light-skinned, soft-spoken and had sharp features. Our old family friends swear that none of us, his sons, have inherited his good looks when he was young. As we rapidly lose hair on our pates, some have affirmed that we have started to look like him. As a chief clerk in a plantation company in Malaysia, he afforded us the lifestyle (by honest means), which we can’t afford to our children today. In spite of his international exposure, he was a deeply conservative man. He ate little, spoke little, had a couple of drinks every night and generally maintained good health. He lived a good life- With wonderfully solicitous neighbours/relatives and a reasonably good state of physical & financial health.
I held many things against him, Settling in a village and closing our opportunities, leaving my mother with five children to fend for herself for six long years… very important growing up years for me. For many years we maintained a superficial acquaintance. I made up for all that in 6 short days. On the 27th night, the doctors told me that his chances of recovery are bleak. He might survive for a day or even for a year. The other option is to let him undergo a high-risk surgery, which may be a more compassionate way of bringing things to an end. I consulted my siblings and my sister (who was with me and nursed him in a way that all the money in this world cannot buy) and decided to take him, ready for the long haul: waiting for Godot. I rang up the Missus and said I am leaving Delhi, going back to my Dept, take two months leave to nurse him. I planned to get a posting in South India and be near him. I hung on for a day just to say goodbye to the Doctor who saw him first. He breathed his last the same night. An ominous end to all the inconveniences he had imagined he would cause me.

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