‘In Memoriam’
Personal Essay
She would have been 93 today, February 13th, were she alive. Her last couple of years were painful both for herself and for us, her care-givers. For her, because she knew something was wrong and it frightened and confused her, in her rapidly deteriorating number of lucid moments. For us, because of the pain of watching a strong, savvy, intelligent and amusing woman disintegrate in front of our eyes. I remember her quirks, her quips and some of the sweetest moments I had with her: and I am filled with gratitude we were part of the beautiful world she was part of.
I remember that I was standing in the kitchen, once, getting the ingredients of lunch ready. My mind was busy with the new changes in my academic timetable, and how to accommodate them. That was when my mother-in-law came into the kitchen, to get the ingredients of her morning pooja, preparatory to lighting the morning lamp.
We light a tiny lamp twice a day, once after we bathe in the morning, and once, immediately after sunset. It is a ritual that is meant more as a thanksgiving, than as an asking-for-favours. As the matriarch of the house, my mother in law was the one who did it. Once she lights the lamp, the rest of the family, and I, bow our heads, fold our hands and pray silently, for a minute or two. On that particular morning, she stood at the doorway, looking at me, and suddenly asked me, without any preamble, “Does your nose itch when you are in college?”
I was so startled that I jump and almost slice my finger, along with the potatoes.
It is a popular superstition that our nose itches if someone we love is thinking of us.
Thinking that it was a trick question, I cleverly ask her, “Why do you ask?” And she says, “When I am alone at home, after you leave for college, I remember the many ways in which you make my life comfortable, and I bless you, without even knowing it.”
And then she leaves, to light the lamp, and I turn back to my vegetables and pretend that the onions were making me weep…
I remember now, and I try hard, very hard, to swallow the lump in my throat, so that the man I live with will not see it, and disintegrate, himself.
Wherever she is, may she rest in peace.
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