in your horoscope,
Your senior years
Would be the happiest,
Other said,
Don't go to your inlaws' place
after retirement,
You wouldn't be at peace there.
Both were true.
You spent twenty two years
in my parents' spacious
heritage house.
So many ups and downs
We saw together.
My mother treated you
as her daughter
And would tell you
the family details
From her own marriage times
till our marriage day
and thereafter,
which, I had never known before.
You would tell them to me
bewildering me, amusing me
and surprising me.
My father, whom you loved
the most
treated you with kindness always.
Before him, you would
always stand,
And he would say
'Beta' (son), why don't you sit?
And all this you always
narrated to me.
In his nineties
You would feed him
with your own hands,
for a year,
like a child,
and the house attendant
would bathe him.
He fought old age valiantly
for two months , with gnawing
dementia,
till he was relieved at 92 years of age on October 12, 2003 of the perishable abode on earth.
Your mother,
you lovingly called Mamma,
stayed with her brother's family at Lucknow till 2012
When she had a heat stroke
And her elder brother, Nanda
who was very ill
Asked Mintoo to take
her Mamma with her.
For last 14 years Mamma came
for two to three months
to stay with her Mintoo.
In January 2004 you
caught severe chest infection
In the cold climate of Dehradun.
You insisted on going to
our nephew Ajay's wedding
at Jaipur
But fell severely ill with
unknown disease
Which later turned out,
On coming to our hometown at Dehradun
A serious irregular heart beat condition
Which could be controlled
With medicine only in June
2006.
Till then you bore improper
treatment by doctors
with willpower in your
frail frame.
Only from June 2006
Your heart
stopped giving trouble,
but the medicine
showed its effects
on your abdomen
now and then.
From 2006 onwards
You lived a peaceful life
till 2008,
When you got concerned
about our son's marriage
who was now
twenty eight years old,
but tarried getting married
till 2014,
as he was mostly abroad.
In 2014, my mother was
seriously ill, 92 years of age.
And after much match- making, and having called our son from abroad
we got him married
to a girl, we chose as our lovely daughter-in-law and daughter.
To support and care for us in our old age,
not knowing you would get
snared in a deadly, silently gnawing body devastating disease (can call it only C)
to suddenly fall prey to its
fangs on June 19, 2023
in my arms.....the day you were born on Feb 19 ,
seventy two years before.
In October 2014
my mother, Sarojini, a "lotus"
left us, after six months
fight against old age.
But had the satisfaction of
her grandson getting
married before her in March 2014.
My Mintoo's happiness knew
no bounds....
But, I could not fulfill many
of your wishes for my
double duty towards my mother.
From 2014 till 2021
You were happy with your Mamma, now growing old
yet doing all her duties,
religious and earthly.
Mamma regarded me as
her elder son.
In 2020, Mamma had
a sudden fracture
in her right femur bone.
For six months Mamma
lay in her bed.
Insisting to go to her Puja room
now and then.
And we together restraining her.
I never saw her so loquacious
before.
Her spirit was happy to be with her daughter and myself, and caring for her.
She went to her heavenly abode on April 6, 2021.
After that, it was one disease or another
for both of us....
Till our son took us to his place in Gurgaon in February 2023.
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