And into the Light

Sometimes, I look into my mama’s (uncle) room, expecting to see him peer inquisitively into the rest of the house from his vantage point on his bed, and it breaks my heart a little to see him gone. Once I went in to ruffle his hair (which he used to love) and when I realized I’d never do it again it was like he had died all over again. My mama had been with us from as far back as I can remember; many of my earliest memories feature him.
Mom recently called Aaji (Grandmother), and in the natural flow of conversation asked, “Nagesh kasa aahe? (How is Nagesh?)”. Dad and I were scandalized but Aaji took it philosophically. He had been such a major part of our lives, influencing every decision, right from meal times to who took their vacations when, that it is sometimes difficult to remember that mama is no more. His handicap (he had Down’s syndrome) made him the centre of our familial universe very often, and none of us is certain that it was entirely unconscious.
The bedroom was his and Aaji’s, but he had strategically taken it over. He had won the conquest by switching off the fan in the scorching Ahmedabad summers and switching it on in the winters, pouring water on her bed, and doing everything short of pushing her bodily out of the room to claim it as his own. But claim it he did, and even now it remains Nagesh’s Room. The prize among his spoils was an old, worn out lipstick case.
From childhood onwards we were accustomed to him being around all the time. In fact, when mama and Aaji went to visit relatives the house would feel bereft. It was not an entirely unpleasant feeling, nor was it wholly pleasant. It was difficult to adjust to the freedom of his absence, even when it was temporary. Once, during a period of such absence, Mom, my brother and I were standing on the porch of our house, when a car, with a Nagesh look alike on the back seat, drew up to ask for directions and we very nearly called out to him, forgetting for the moment that he was in a city hundreds of kilometers away. Even now, when I see someone else unfortunate enough to be afflicted with Down’s syndrome, I have a nostalgic pang for my mama.
The passing of a loved one is never easy. In this case, since mama was always there, in the background but never quite content to stay there, it is a loss that we have to deal with constantly; even the simple freedom of being able to go out together without having to say “Nagesh, be a good boy”, is something that one has to get used to.

This obituary comes as a belated farewell and a posthumous ‘I love you’ to someone who would never have understood the words, but with whom every interaction was an embodiment of the sentiment.