Returning Home

Maa will cry reading this. I know she will. I wrote this AFTER she returned home. So we could cry in our homes and remember that we are complete even when we are apart.

“Why don’t you go to Kolkata Maa?” We suggested in the middle of the week.

“Oh! No no…I can’t. It would be expensive,” she replied instantly.

We knew she really wanted to. 2 days later, Maa took her first independent trip to Kolkata.

She wanted to meet her nephew (G), our cousin who was visiting from Bangalore. Her other nephew, our younger cousin (K) is getting married next year. The trip was meant to shop ahead of the wedding.

Who can resist the excitement of a wedding in the family?

Maa met her nephews 7 months ago. In Jamshedpur. The day Baba passed away. For two days, I had to tried convince them not to come.

“Don’t rush it,” I had said, offering to be the older in-control sister.

Silently, I knew they would come. On 12th, I told Baba that they want to come. He knew, they would.

They came.

Only too late. Or maybe, just in time to help us with the final rites. And help Maa lighten up in her darkest hour.

That evening, hours after we returned home, G filled the house with his wit, humour and spirit. That evening, our house reverberated with laughter. Maa laughed late into the night. Then she cried.

“I haven’t laughed like this in a long time,” she said through her tears, hugging her nephews.

This essay has changed form and shape twice over. This has been sitting in my drafts for a month. First in my notebook, during the week that Maa went to Kolkata. I waited for her to return so I could capture her transformation. And then I waited some more. I have waited for 6 months to turn to 7. I waited for Maa to ‘return home’ again. This time the one she shared with Baba.

Our story has moved another month.

Back to the Wednesday, when we were discussing G’s shopping trip to Kolkata, Maa and Bhai were with us in Noida. They had come to Delhi to spend the birthday month with us - me, Aniruddha, Vihaan and finally Maa. It was Aniruddha’s birthday on Wednesday. We tried to tell her that she had enough time till the next birthday.

“Go Maa, you can’t miss this!” We said to her.

“Do you think I can go alone?” She asked. She frowned, she shook her head. She giggled.

I could see she was thrilled and guilty, nervous and anxious - all at the same time. And yes, I saw a little girl full of joy at the whiff of an adventure.

Bhai booked the tickets. Instantly her mood changed. I hadn’t seen her as happy as this in a long long time.

Maa was going home.

After Baba.

Maa on her way to Kolkata

To the home that she came from before she married Baba. She was returning home. After the deaths of her own parents, her brother and almost everyone associated with 48 Middle Road.

Yet, she was happy.

I was happy she STILL had a home to return to. She had her sister, her nephews and her sister-in-law, people who made ‘home’ a place of safe return.

I don’t know about her, but I was immensely grateful to the universe for that. I saw this as a privilege, a gift and a blessing.

In the past 7 months, I have watched over Maa closely. We have spoken everyday since March, something we didn’t do all these years. Especially since Baba’s illness. He was our gateway to home. He called me everyday, relentlessly, tirelessly, unfailingly. He wanted every information about our lives, mostly his grandson’s, but even ours. During these family calls, Maa would pop in and say hello. She would potter off for something more urgent in the house.

Now when I call Baba’s phone, it goes unanswered. I haven’t fully recovered from that. Yet. I will keep calling him. Even if he will never answer it.

Maa, understood it. She learnt to operate Baba’s phone. She learnt to take the calls. And even call us everyday, just as Baba did. As I watched Maa own a share of her life without Baba, I realised he left so she could start hers. He left large shoes to fill. He left, so she could steer her life back to doing things that she always enjoyed.

In 6 months, Maa returned to reading, crocheting, stepping out for shopping, a movie, lunches and late night parties with friends! That her friends waited for 6 years for her to return to them was magic to watch. Everyday, she told me stories of someone who called, visited or picked up a conversation that could only be done with her. It felt like everyone was waiting for her to turn her attention to them. Now that she did, they poured her with attention.

Maa comes from a generation of women who surrendered their identities to their husbands during their lifetime. She never complained. Now she has a kind of freedom that was unimaginable even when Baba was around. He was NOT the kind to clip her wings. She willingly clipped her own, choosing to be the lesser, unknown and invisible half of my parents. Maybe it was something about her generation. There was a sense of dependency that literally took away the agency and freedom to travel alone. In all her life, she had travelled alone from Jamshedpur to Kolkata (or back) on Ispat Express, only a few times. Her driving skills were terrible, so when she gave up driving after her fire accident, she told herself, “I cannot drive.” Maa always needed someone to help her step out of home. Both literally and figuratively.

As a growing child, I often looked at my parents and wondered, if they loved each other. Obviously, I didn’t know what ‘love’ looked like, except I understood it as a sense of casual camaraderie with one’s spouse. My idea of matrimonial love was not from the movies, instead it was from the many couples I saw around me. Mostly, my parents’ friends and older relatives. In hindsight, I think I understood what it means to be young, growing and aging with a partner. I understood that couples in her generation lived and loved differently. As a child,I could only stitch half a narrative. That changed in the last few years. Over the past 6 years, I saw my parents fall in love with each other. Perhaps for the first time in their lives. The fact that their love blossomed during Baba’s illness was the bitter-sweet irony of their life. Someday, when I have the words to share their love story, I will.

Maa and I are very different. Our partners were / are very different from each other. The circumstances of our lives are very unique. Yet, I cannot help but notice that the men in our lives were / are fiercely independent & yet dependent on us. I saw a glimmer of my resilient and confident Baba when he decided to get to the heart of Maa’s mysterious nerve pain after her knee surgery. He couldn’t accept that all the doctors in the world couldn’t diagnose it! At most other times, he allowed Maa to potter and fuss over him. I watched a man, furiously independent, allow his wife take the lead in caregiving. He let her do that willingly. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t disregard it. She didn’t go unnoticed. Everyday during dialysis, he remembered to acknowledge her messages. Their chats are a series of ‘Kemon Achcho’ (How are you?) followed by Thumbs Up and a Flower. Last September, I taught them to share voice notes on WhatsApp. We made a hilarious ride of their rehearsals. They preferred their emoji show of love. That was their connection. Their love language. We couldn’t intervene. Maa had stepped away from a social life when she took up caregiving duties. I watched her surrender her entire life looking after Baba. She surrendered all her relationships (including ones with us) to focus on her husband. He reciprocated her love in his own way. He covered up his fatigue, his discomfort, his pain for her. Everyday, when Maa stood at the door waiting for him to return from dialysis, he stepped out of the lift and said, “Theek achi”, (I am fine) even before she asked him the question. That’s the best he could do.

There was one other thing he could do. Which he did. He knew he had to leave for her to get her life back.

Last month, Maa briefly returned to a life where none of us existed. We didn’t travel with her. This was her first out-of-city independent travel. She was not dependent on us. She didn’t need Bhai, Aniruddha or me to take her around. She was free to make her plans. She lived 5 days, without bothering about what her 37 year old unmarried son would eat! She didn’t even ask about him. She didn’t check on her grandson. Or us. During the course of the 5 days she was in Kolkata, she called us 4 nights, just a brief call to tell us what she did. That too because Mimi (her sister / our maasi) reminded her that its a good idea to speak to the children! The evening she didn’t call, we assumed she had not thought of us.

I had never seen this careless abandon in her. I was loving it! This was like seeing a new Maa.

Baba would have loved to see her. Who knows, maybe he was with her.

Before she returned, we joked that she would tell us broken stories again and again. Maa is the lesser storyteller in the family. Since she always listened, she had never invested in telling her stories. She had never been the keen observer, preserver and disseminator of tales. Not that she didn’t have stories to tell. She always wanted to get in and out of a story in the shortest time. When I went to pick her up at the airport, I told myself, “No matter what, listen to her stories.” Over and over again. No matter how long it takes to get one single story out! It was payback time. After all, she had endured my endlessly looped stories in my childhood!

When Maa returned, she came back with a song in her heart. We could see that she had laughed. She may have cried too. She came back rejuvenated. So when she told and retold her Kolkata stories in bricks and pieces, we teased her to tears!

“Give up Maa!!” we told her! “You didn’t learn to tell stories from Baba?!”

Maa laughed. Her laugh lines had beautifully deepened.

In the month that followed, Maa poured her attention on us, helping us navigate an important life decision. She effortlessly filled in for Baba, helping us take mini-decisions that would make the big one less daunting. She became the worrier briefly, however, she recovered soon and helped us steer conversations and priorities. Maa invested in us. She treated us to breakfasts and coffees so we could get away from the humdrum of life to discuss productively. She celebrated her grandson’s results. She competed with her son in law in daily indoor walks. She cooked us Thai Curry and Mutton Roast, happily, enthusiastically and stress-freely! She expanded her boundaries too. She indulged in sweets and good food without guilt or sickness. She decidedly took a smarter step towards owning and handling an iWatch and a brand new iPhone! She went to a bar to listen to her grandson play rock music she didn’t quite understand. She learnt to play Bridge boldly.

“Baba would have been so proud to see me play an intelligent card game,” she gushed.

Durga Pujo came. Durga Pujo went. We spent it together. Indoors surrounded by each other.

Last evening as she packed her bags to return home again, Maa hugged Aniruddha and wept, “No one has ever given me so much of attention.”

We called for a group hug. All of us. All 5 of us. We felt a warm 6th embrace in our hearts.

7 months today.

Maa and Bhai returned home.

“Forever together”

Aniruddha and I went to the car to see them off. Our bodies were swept by a deja-vu. Aniruddha and I felt it alike. Last autumn when they had left Baba was in the car. We hugged him. He was happy. He was healthy. He was happy to go back home rejuvenated and renewed after spending our birthday month.

Today, as Maa and Bhai returned home without him, we felt him again. He was with us. He was returning home with them.

Our guardian angel for life.

We are our ‘home’.