An Ode To My Angel

Life is a hullabaloo of euphoria and melancholy. Fortunate are those who get to encounter incessant love and affection amidst this pandemonium. Being brought up by my grandmother, whom I lovingly call 'Thamma', I consider myself part of the same glorious league. I was gifted with some invaluable souls, when I was born, like most others. But my ailing mother was unable to chaperone me and so, Thamma came to the rescue. The perennial endearment that she has showered on me throughout her life, is declarative of her selfless devotion towards me.

 She would wake up every morning at 4 am sharp, to make my breakfast and lunch, which I would pack for school, then polish my shoes, keep a bucket of warm water ready for me to bathe and then wake me up at six to get me ready for the school bus that arrived sharp at seven. She would then get me dressed, do my hair make two ponies with ribbons that she always ensured were not creased, feed me and then, grabbing my hand with my school bag tucked on her back, run to the bus stop to be on time. She would wave at me until the bus had departed and she had lost my sight. Even she would wait for me to return from school so that we could have lunch together. Never had she ever eaten without me, except for days when she had been ill. This schedule ran for twelve years straight. Never had she complained of any inconveniences. In fact, when I look back, I realise she never thought about herself, she only wanted to be around me infallibly. She kept a close check on my academics, co-curriculum and also the relations with my folks at school. She would knit me warm clothes every winter and buy me toys or chocolates every time without needing me to ask her as if she knew me inside out as if my mind was implanted in her and our hearts were conjugated. Days passed and I graduated from high school but things were just the same. Thamma would arrange my books the previous night, on the study table beside our bed so that I lost no time in searching for them the next morning before practising my lessons.

Precisely, she was my world and I was her's. Meanwhile, I was growing up, I never could align myself to the fact that she was ageing. Her luscious smile, her relentless blabber, her wholehearted laughter, her passionate hugs and tender touches blindfolded me off reality. As I went to college to pursue engineering, I began getting exposed to a whole new spectrum of life, where things were not all rosy and transparent. I started hiding things from her, little by little. However she would know everything to my face, but never imposed on me her authoritarian nature and pushed me to disclose things to her. The mother in her dealt with my sly nature very maturely. She would caress me to sleep every night and often when I acted asleep, I could hear Thamma sniffing and talking to herself about how she missed my childhood and our times together. 

Since then, I embarked on a journey to never make her feel getting detached from me. We would quarrel over trifles but never could we stand each other's silence. Everyone would say we were Juno's Swans.

But life had to offer me a different platter that was clearly unpredictable.  

She was fit as a fiddle until the pandemic raged in. Since the onset of Covid-19, we were very cautious about how to keep ourselves safe, and most importantly how to safeguard her, as she was chronically asthmatic. We rigorously adopted all possible measures from dismissing our maid, strictly prohibiting going out or letting someone in if not too urgent, to sanitizing goods that we bought from the market, ourselves, clothes and whatnot. We left no stone unturned to keep ourselves safe until the devil came ringing his death knell.

After one year of not keeping a charwoman, when both Ma and Thamma were exhausted with the daily chores and needed help, we decided to hire one.

A few months later, suddenly Ma fell sick one fine day. We consulted a doctor and after a thorough medical examination, she was diagnosed with COVID. The rest of us too started developing similar symptoms within a day or two, thereafter. A week later, Thamma's oxygen level started falling. We made no delay and rushed her to one of the most renowned healthcare institutions in my city. 

The facade of delusive contentment that life had been yarning for so long ended too quickly.  

Mystically, I had always been

hallucinating her in my dreams since the day she left home, and somehow I became prescient of the inevitable, long before the doctors had given up. After eighteen chivalrous days of battling with all her might, she succumbed to the apocalypse. 

In the initial days, I was so into emotional trauma that I couldn't gather what was happening around me. Later when things started percolating my mind, the emptiness consumed me wholly, as if I would go mad staying at home. Unable to eat or sleep, my only companions were antidepressants. Days passed with me being plunged more into eternal darkness. Ma, Baba couldn't withstand this and Baba fell ill.

That brought me back to my senses.

Why am I being a selfish daughter, prioritising sorrows over responsibilities towards my bereaved parents?  

 

Who will back my parents up, if not me?

How will I face Thamma who always has selflessly cared for us without ever thinking for herself, when I see her again?

I couldn't let her lessons get tarnished and so dragged myself up from the depths of unfathomable distress, leading a more responsible life thereafter. 

Tracing back we learnt, our house help was inflicted with Covid, which she never disclosed and continued spreading to wherever she went. Shall this be called sorcery or murder? 

A sensible me would say 'Let bygones be bygones' but the infuriated soul wanted to punish her legally. However, I retracted because I remembered, 'forgiveness'. It was Her favourite lesson. 

In such ways, Thamma lives in me every day. She is, was and will always be my best friend and soul sister. I never lost her because part of me is always hers. Just waiting to meet her right at the end of this horizon soon. Until then, my life will be an ode to her remembrance.