June 18, 2015

June 18, 2015 :: I was feeling a subtle happiness that I was going to spend some time with Baba the next day.. The next day, i.e. June 19th, Friday, was the day that had been fixed up to take Baba to Belle Vue for a checkup. Ma, Buro, and the nurse were to accompany Baba in the ambulance from South City Garden, and I were to reach Belle Vue straight from Kasba.. Just the fact that I would be able to spend some time with Baba without having to travel all the way to SCG was making me happy.. I never knew that it was the last time when I felt this way..

There would be Nothing called "Baba's car" in my life from today onward

Strange feelings of sadness and strange pains in the throat hit me whenever I open Baba's briefcase for searching anything.. A set of Duracell batteries whose expiry date is 2018.. He never knew that his life would end a few years before the batteries he was storing would expire.. A 10-rupee note that he might have felt lazy to keep in the purse on the night of April 29, 2014.. His life changed from the following morning.. and ours did too..
Whenever I open Baba's small cabinet in the computer room, my heart stops. A new shaving brush, a new bottle of after shave lotion, and a new shoehorn stare at me. The cash memo and guarantee card of the glucometer that was bought in 2010 after he was put on insulin stares at me.. the same glucometer that I have used to prick his finger day in and day out.. there were a very few occasions, when he would mumble "Ki jore laagiye dili".. :(

He had bought a car around two weeks before his accident. He was very excited about the car having a CD player, and while selecting CD-s that he would keep in the car, he asked my brother, "Would listening to these songs sitting beside Bablu (our driver then) be too much?" Eventually, he got to use the car for just 10 days or so.. and it was us who took long drives in the car to and from Apollo everyday, during his lengthy periods of hospitalization.. Bablu turned out to be an avid Rabindrasangeet listener and would listen to Shaan's "Khola Haawa" everyday.. he had all the songs memorized..

Baba remembered his new car.. I remember the afternoon of 15th August, 2014, when the physiotherapist took Baba down to the car parking of South City Garden, on the wheelchair.. He asked Baba, "Mr. Ray, which one is your car, here?" Baba pointed at the Liva and replied, "The blue one". Certain parts of his memory were so sharp, despite the disorders he was suffering from!

There came a period when we started thinking that the Liva was a very "Unlucky" car for all of us. Whenever we boarded the car, something bad would happen. Slowly, that phase passed, or we lost track and got used to the bad things.

Today, the Liva is being sold off. Although we do not have too many pleasant memories attached with the Liva, today I am feeling a strange ache that the last car purchased by Baba is being disposed off. There would not be anything called "Baba's car" in my life from today onward. It is a suffocating feeling.

As my brother cleared off the car a few days back, he found a CD that had been copied from the original CD "Khola Haawa" .. We guessed that it had been done by Bablu and it was the CD that he played on our journeys to and from Apollo..

We find old things at strange corners.. We come across pangs of sadness and grief.. We have heartaches letting go.. We, the emotional people..