bus paati

My lullaby to the 74 year old infant put her to sleep once for all. May be she was tired not with my voice but the world at large which she had fought all along. I sang, not once but all that I could know... My notes were off the place completely clouded by a heavy heart. She was listening to it all from her baby himself, who was always her pride more than her sons. Bus paati, my breath, was on her way to eternity as I witnessed the horrifying pain that tore her heart apart. A moment, that marked my re birth and her skin deep humane exit.

‘Why are you weeping, you’ve got to face life, come what may’ smiling words which the lady spoke minutes before the call from heaven. Death is inevitable and yes it did rip her flesh in an intense momentary agony. What stood out was her response, a spit on the non human gutless ‘demon’ that every living being fears the most. I held her hand and kept greedily listening to the voice which I best knew from my infancy. Sentences fragmented into words, got pulled apart into letters and syllables, on to frightening bizarre phonemes and finally decibels went down flat.

Tears rolled down my cheek, limbs were paralyzed, brain went dormant and heart completely hardened….”paati…paati….bus paati….” Never had I cried so loud, neither the doc nor the nurses stopped me, why the hell they did n’t dare to? My heart then would ve exploded violently into arteries and veins and I would have reduced to a few liters of blood remains. Rather I still existed...Kissing her, hugging her and lying beside her, for I knew she will be put in a peaceful cold environment for an overnight ‘exhibition’ then on.

Her life filled face was motionless. Peace written all over. I closed my eyes and felt her mortal presence one last time. Those toothless cheeks and the funny flat nose were right there bringing back 26 years of our ‘moments’ together. Movies, poetry, literature, music, geography, values, thoughts … ‘we’ lived our LIFE as two hearts that beat together. Her DEATH made us ONE.

I would have to wait until my flesh disintegrates to meet this soul again, and I will never be able to understand in the form I m in right now. I can be loved by most but not MORE than what my bus paati did.

‘LOVE YOU bokkai…..’