Mea Culpa

To pin down meaning to life is a piece of cake compared to actually being alive, not just breathing. I was born with an intense sense of being alive.

 To begin with, I always felt fringed by my narcissist relatives who had less than average intelligence. I had a stifling awareness of the silly-willy fringe stuff.

Their affection was meaningless and empty, as empty as their talk.

Mum and I still love one another. She is my motivation to fighting, which doesn't necessarily mean throwing punches; it might stir me up and inspire me to combat unusual diseases unknown to humankind and my strife is intense, grave, tireless where you don't have to worry only about healing because recovery is a tough process that takes time and patience leaving scars behind but you have to bother about financial demands to get a proper diagnosis and the desired treatment and surveillance.

Initially, I underwent a few surgeries but ultimately was diagnosed with a disease that is not terminal but will only get worse. Strange oddments of fate changed it into inevitable doom.

The unusual birth of the eye-catching child of fond parents after a miscarriage and foetus getting problems while in the womb, were lost in the thought that behind the outer shell there might lurk some sickness never known to humanity and the ill-fated, ill-starred child would have to endure the worst in all walks of life and face countless challenges my parents never thought of that.

From my early childhood, Mum became a vital and integral part of my life. She is the diamond of my life. I have a little mother, I call her Mum. She is the magic charm of my gloomy and solitary life. She had always made me feel so special.

Through all hardships and forfeitures of every kind--supported by the one thought in every facet of life. When life is sheer willpower hanging by two or three threads, she tells of the wondrous things in my rare and strange life and we together have journeys and magnificent adventures mostly making rounds of hospitals.

Although I am not writing this post for cathartic purposes, I would not shy away from saying that being his granddaughter for the treatment of my rare disease I have to seek help from people who are always uncertain, thus deferring the necessary treatment of my eccentric disease.

 My brain changed in chemical composition when I understood the frightfulness and the oddity of my nasty lingering illness and its larger economic implications.

 This all happened, and we are put in such situations because of my sly and foxy uncle and his tricky strategies.

 Grandpa was a well-informed person but sometimes he had to give in to those dark moldy souls who inhabited his house because he was invalided by his unknown, undiagnosed disease and was dependent on them. From the waist onwards, his torso had shriveled up and that portion was almost always covered by a white sheet. 

Perhaps if he was alive, he could see to it that I wouldn't be subjected to such injustice now with an unrequited, aching, and yearning for a simpler and happier time. 

Grandpa was a fount of wisdom and knowledge and I desire to be like him. I called him ‘dadu’. In fact, he was an embodiment of virtuosity and versatility. Many well-known individuals and businessmen like Modi visited him at his own house for his counsel and their generations are still alive. 

As I will until I unfold the story of my life at the right pace and precision so that you can judge yourself from each slice of life, I present to you.

To wonder too openly, or intensely, Grandpa could not get me established by leaving me something to better my life sounds like a peculiar, ill-fated, and unintentionally comedic pastime because of the ruthless scheming manipulator. You might laugh off but don't reject it outright, possibility can become fact...if he has left, but that shady uncle whom I consider to be a slayer and destroyer having marked disregard for others’ lives and feelings--- tempted by the easy way to become rich is manipulating it by his connivance. He is the youngest son of my grandparents. But I must say here that my father was a naive man of which fact I presume his siblings had taken advantage.

 He is always eager about money matters even after a decade of deceiving us when he is rolling in wealth, he doesn’t want to part with it, money is always a welcome addition to his bank account. But can he take all of it with him to the afterlife--- now that he has had recent bypass surgeries of the old ticker but how long will it keep ticking? Tick-tock, click- clock says the clock ineluctable slumber is hurrying.

What if, I wonder what if Grandpa had provided me with a house and money for my treatment expenses; probably we wouldn't have to ask for help or live in these shabby, lousy houses leading a nomadic life hounded by landlords to the effect that we would have nothing to worry about, no reason to panic about or be hysterical.

 But no such thing has happened, nothing was left for us or even if we were provided by grandpa it was taken by immoral and illegal means and I can't get it in my lifetime, my fate will remain riches to rags until my last breath. Mum and I didn't panic, nor did we go hysterical and we lived in lousy houses in the oddest of places hounded by landlords, the consequence of which is that we had to change our houses seven times. We managed to extricate ourselves to some extent, from the difficulties presented to us and took the bull by the horns. 

When I was little I used to play around the wheelchair of Grandpa while he sat with his thin shriveled legs in the verandah. He used to look at me affectionately and was concerned about my illness. Later when we watched television in his room, he used to ask my father.

Even after more than a decade of deceiving us when he is rolling in wealth, he doesn’t want to part with it, money is always a welcome addition to his bank account. But can he take all of it with him to the afterlife--- now that he has had recent surgery of the old ticker but how long will it keep ticking? He did a scam in India steamship and resigned overnight. He added more and more to his bank account in similar strategies. Ultimately became Bursar of the St.Thomas school and took payoffs by making rich students with terrible marks admission to good Christian schools.

When I was a little girl I used to play around the wheelchair of Grandpa while he sat with his thin shriveled legs in the verandah. He used to look at me affectionately and was concerned about my illness. Later when we watched television in his room, he used to ask my father

I heard from my father that just seven days before his death Grandpa suddenly stopped communicating with other people in the house and on the day before his death my mother's eldest brother came to visit us. That was the only time he spoke with anyone in a matter of seven days. He called my father while he was returning from his office and said that he felt extremely sad that he had not been able to do something worthwhile for him and amongst his children, he, the innocent and upright one would suffer after his death. My father hushed him down and said not to worry for him. He believed grandpa has already provided us with the wherewithal for survival and he never coveted the rich, luxurious lifestyle of his siblings or cousins. His only desire was that after his children get settled, he would lead the life of a hermit in Rishikesh beside the holy Ganges. 

The next day, early in the morning grandpa had a cardiac arrest. The two elder sons ran out of the house to see if the doctor they had called was coming or was held up somewhere. We were little kids back then and even our mother left us alone and was going to and from the verandah attached to Grandpa's room, pacing like a headless chicken with anxiety and apprehension. While waiting impatiently for the doctor and wondering about his delay, my mother saw the youngest son instead of going out with his brothers, the sinful one was rifling through Grandpa's locker and taking the papers out of it. Mum was amazed and disgusted at----- 

“How heartless and unconcerned a man can be! His father is gasping for his last breath just beside him on the bed and he is doing nothing just going through the papers and removing them from his locker with his back turned towards him! A splendid example of a son he certainly is!” 

Then she left her kids and ran out in apprehension.

But that's the way he was, and he still is. He had been too certain that Grandpa would die, and everybody would be too concerned about his memories while he would slip out with his last testament and cheat the others. My father devotedly loved all his siblings equally and only the day before his departure to the other world he confided in me.

 When everyone was grieving his death the fox was seen sorting through the papers in his elder brother, the freedom fighter's room.

As we are aware, I believe karma would get them in the end. It’s their deeds of action. You always pay for your deed. Karma simmers and surges around you but gets you in the end. When deception fills the air, the truth lies below the deceptive layers your payback runs after you and can devastate and destroy you. So, being good and kind and helping people will destroy the negative karma. You never know the consequences that little deeds can bring to yourself. Our actions always come back to us. 

Grandma was a brainless, mean-minded prejudiced woman who could easily be brainwashed. She had a big ego and an inflated sense of self and thought herself above everyone because her husband had money and means. She believed in racism and wouldn't let us call the servants ‘Mashi’ or ‘auntie’ or taunted people for their shortcomings like calling the neighbor barren because she didn't have any kids. She never praised anyone other than her daughter and youngest son. She was always partial towards her youngest son and thought him to be very clever. Clever he was but in a crafty way. It is because of those shrewd, wily, and cunning ways of his that I am going through all this agony, hoping that in my life story like in all fiction the good will end happily and the bad unhappily. 

I could never infer the whole nature of the sly lustful uncle's strangely oneupmanship from the parts I could see then but as I said life alerted us many times, but we never understood. My father’s obtuseness was not your fault. He realized it all when he was in his early sixties, just a few days before his departure from this world.

The  uncle was married after Grandpa's death to a woman puffed up with self-importance. She is a worthy better half of her conspiring husband, thinking her to be the undisputed queen of the elites of the society

Both were adept in the art or process of gaining the advantage in situations by means of crafty or ingenious ploys "Wherever you find a great man, you will find a great mother or a great wife standing behind him"--- in this case, was the wife.

Hearing his story when I was struggling with death, I had mental indigestion. When I was afflicted, I had a mutual understanding between my father, whom I called ’Baba’ that he would tell me the truth even if it was very disturbing. He said he had never got any affection from his own mother and called me ‘Ma’ and told me his life story which somewhat consoled him. We were walking in front of the India gate and he was confiding in me with tears in his eyes and it was a windy day. It seemed like the wind cried in accord. He said he never wanted more than what he deserved and that too when the situations were such that to save his own daughter's life, he needed money. He only asked for what his father had left for him. He was repeatedly sending his pleas to his mother, but it was all unheard by her who was influenced by his youngest brother's ploys. He, who had never asked for any assistance with his finances wandered like a lone cloud in a wistful blue sky from door to door explaining his situation and asking for help. Sometimes they talked the talk but didn't walk the walk which weighed on his soul. His soul couldn't take the weight of the chameleons thronging and souring the reality of his life and he left us within a day after telling me all these thoughts about his family and life. I wondered why, why didn't he do something? Why did he tolerate everything wrong with stoic dignity? It was his mother who was the epicenter of grimness in his life. His small step could have changed the course of life's events and who knows I might not need to face death time and again.

His blinded eyes refused to scan

The sorrow will cause lunacy of plan

Life became meaningless

Fate and a feeble will to survive

Remembered everything shimmeringly

Told his sad tale darting around the monument tearingly

An unfortunate combination of reduced finances

Under most dreadful circumstances 

And thus his further tidings told

Life was a building block of fantasy

The emptiness of dream, pain, and ecstasy

Beginning, middle end of the story

His trembling voice at last controlled,

Mea Culpa said he.

Calamity of horror beating wings of death

Next day he took his last breath