In The End...

When Dadu got Cancer,

And he was being eaten alive from within,

He started to lose all his memories, one at a time,

He became aggressive, angry at life,

A writer who gave life to words,

Faced a certain death, every day losing a part of himself,

Emotionally, mentally, physically,

He was dying.

He started to forget us, our names,

Our faces, his days became a bleak picture of nothingness,

While we chased him around the neighborhood, so that he does not get lost again.

Sometimes, randomly he would start speaking of stories from his past,

Sometimes he would just sit in the garden and stare endlessly at the sky,

No words came to him then,

Perhaps the first thing that died within Dadu,

Was the writer.

But then what was left?

An empty shell of half-forgotten stories?

A body so weak and fragile,

Anger, grief, desperation?

One day I was walking with dadu,

He said no words to me,

He didn't remember me,

But then suddenly, he stopped, picked a hibiscus flower from a plant,

Handed it to me and said-

"Go give it to your Thamma, she will need it for Puja."

I remembered that every day,

For the 50 years that they stayed together,

Dadu always picked flowers for Thamma's Puja...

And in the end,

That was all there was left.

When Dadu left, I saw my Thamma standing in front of his picture frame,

Smiling she said-

"Sahab humko akele chodh ke chale Gaye?"

Near his picture frame was his pen, his watch, a hibiscus, and a cap that I gave to him one summer vacation.

That summer home was sold to builders. The mango tree from our childhood was cut into pieces.

But sometimes I still catch the sweet fragrance of Shuili flowers that takes me back to my Dadu's place.

In my memories, the place is still there, and Dadu is leaning on his favorite chair, smiling-Writing, his library behind him while Thamma is cooking in the kitchen.

And in the end,

That was all that was left.