For my brain tumor, my father was under extreme mental pressure. He worried that if according to the doctors, I turn comatose, who will care for me after him...within a month of my brain surgery he had a massive heart attack. It happened when people were around him and they admitted him to the AMRI hospital in Kolkata. When I was informed about the incident, I visited the hospital with my mother, and my brother was informed about the shocking news. It was a very cold January day and my head was entirely shaven, thus I covered up my bald head, and dragging my feet I went to the hospital.
Rather I fondly remember the photographs of my father and mine in the same pose sitting in the same position in a potty taken around the same age, when we were seven months old and which when you place side by side looks like we are fraternal twins!
Before he was put into ventilation for 9 long days he told my brother "take care of Didi". He was so concerned about me then.
Thankfully Baba survived and after a month in the hospital and losing twenty kilos he returned to us. I was fiercely glad. It felt like Dorothy's world in ‘The Wizard of Oz’, my world went from black-and-white to color. But those few days ended so quickly.
It was a complete bolt from the blue within four months of my brain surgery and three months of my father’s massive cardiac arrest, a doctor suddenly declared that my liver had tumors in precarious positions, compressing and displacing the vital veins and I have only six weeks to live! I need an urgent liver transplant.
My father was retired and after all the health woes he was penniless by then. He had no means to get the transplant done. Back then, the term VHL was alien to most doctors. I can still recall the faces of the radiologists checking my tumor-studded liver with their probes and looking at my file with a weird term ‘VHL’ with deadpan faces, regarding me quizzically.
Baba turned to his mother for help, to give him his inheritance so that he could save his daughter's life. She turned her back, weeping crocodile tears and telling him that she would ask her youngest son about it. My father’s jaw dropped. He was the eldest and the most dutiful son and had blind obedience towards the family and now his mother was turning her back on him!
Whatever major changes take place, or are now taking place unbeknownst to us, transforming our lives with unadulterated ugliness.Cogito: ergo sum-I think, therefore, I am.
I must mention somebody, a supposed celebrity who came to live on the ground floor of our house as a tenant when I was just six years old. She is a South Indian singer with a manly voice and was popularly known as ‘Didi’ by all. She had seen me grow up in front of her very eyes.
I am not a true lover of music, but meaningful songs taught at school, that of Bob Dylan's 'Blowin` In The Wind', Carpenter's 'Top of the world', Judy Garland's 'Somewhere over the rainbow', John Lennon' 'Imagine there's no heaven' such powerful songs with great composition and skills appeal to me.
But Indian Rap, Indian pop, film jazz, and playback songs make me barf...basting music from a stereo floating in the air makes me feel so dizzy and a horrible excruciating, stabbing electric pain when listening to loud sound.
When my father asked for his inheritance, the sly uncle who was clever to attain his goals by deceitful means said that he had none because his portion was sold out to the South Indian singer who was our tenant.
It was known to us that her lease had expired and she didn't want to leave because she attained fame and notability after shifting to our house. But Baba's known person through his friend circle Tapas Chowdhury was supposed to purchase because the building needed repair and he was offering a good price and getting us well settled. The problem with the deal was that it was all smoke and mirrors. All this smoke and mirrors on planning to sell then delays is absurd like the five year plan of the government . We have to understand that what happened nothing was a smoke and mirrors trick.
Grandpa's testament and land deed was with Baba for some time to show to him and make a deal. But he was so naive that he didn't have a look at it, or make a copy.
It was sold to singer did by Grandma who had an urgent need for money. She had tons of jewelry in the bank locker and the keys of which was with my paternal aunt. My father was greatly astonished… how could that happen? He wanted to see Grandpa's will. It is impossible that his father has left him nothing and he knew Grandma was made executrix only to avoid disputes.
Squabble and bickerings often happened between my middle uncle and the foxy one because the middle uncle wanted to know the bank and jewelry details which the crafty one was not willing to reveal. It became so violent that both took the curtain rods and were quarreling and my father was a peace activist who always calmed them down.
They were having a conversation over the phone because the devious uncle refused to meet him and let him even enter his flat.
I was feeling blue and bluer by the minute that all this was happening over the issue of my life.
The booming voice of sly uncle could even be heard from the road! My father went up to see him and find out why he was being inhumane and pointless.
My elite aunt did not open the door and said from inside that the deceitful uncle himself will go down in the evening and show him the will. Evening came but there was no sign of him. Baba had a nasty skin infection from being in the hospital for his cardiac arrest. It was so bad that painful pustules had formed all over his back and they were breaking out oozing smelly pus and was forming again. It was very painful for him and the dermatologist couldn't figure out why he wasn't responding to the medicines. That day he was scheduled for a skin biopsy and he came home after the biopsy and was waiting with bated breath and in extreme pain.
They made a cunning plan to shove me out of the way so that without me the family doesn't insist upon that the inheritance belongs to the family because I was Achilles heel and without me, my parents won't survive and they could easily take over the family estate. Father didn't have sufficient money for liver transplant when they hatched the wretched plan.
Money’ and ‘Power’ are the root causes in every act of a felony, every crime, every treachery committed since time immemorial. Money, gold, holds allure because it gives power, a lavish lifestyle and many are ready to harm a life for its powerful charisma. Money tempts most people to wrongdoing. Crime is as old as humanity. Thus, it is since ancient times that brothers are slaughtering brothers for the power of the throne and the wealth it brings along. Slaughtering, poisoning, strangling, asphyxiating, backstabbing, but achieving money and power and destroying every life in the way. Such is the queer nature of the human race. A son instead of being dutiful towards his parents desires the end of the ailing, helpless parents and shoves them out of the way, a raving egomaniac parent drunk with the influence of wealth, affluence, power withholds what the offspring truly deserves, thus strangling the life out bit by bit.
‘Melting autumn winds!
Oppressive heat is stifling
Life simmers with blues’
The next day, early in the morning we got a letter from a lawyer where it was mentioned that Grandpa's will and Grandma's will were in the safe custody of the lawyer and it was signed by grandma.
Middle Uncle always used to guard Grandma because he suspected the couple was trying to make her sign a blank paper and he had explained to her no matter what she's never to sign anything before showing him. He suspected they were hatching dangerous plots because the nominee of his fixed deposit was me and my brother but he had high diabetes, indeed diabetes runs in the family and even cousins are affected by it and he lost his vision like his cousin. So he never noticed that the names have been altered to the elite aunt and their lady-like son. He learnt the skullduggery from the bank. He told me he'll reverse the strategy. Middle uncle was telling me while cleaning up my vomit as I was feeling sick and constantly puking up and everyone was at the hospital because of Father's heart attack. He was babysitting me and telling me lots of secrets.
Aunt spent a lot on the studies of her son and getting him established in the USA with a green card which he essentially obtained through marrying a wealthy USA citizen girl of Indian origin. But the son too was wily and ditched the first girl with whom marriage was fixed, reason was her father asked him to spend half of the expenses. The son in turn has abandoned his parents rather than looking after them, just getting them on a tour of the US and they remember how it felt like standing on top of the WTC before it was demolished by the attacks.
Coming to the curiosity of Grandma's will, it is sly, cunning, full of tricks. Grandma was an illiterate woman who could just sign her name and she never went out of the house, clinging to middle uncle and sleeping most of the time because of migraines and lethargy.
We were certain that no one had come to the house because our door was partially made of glass and the balcony looked out to the front door. Spending time in the big balcony was pleasure for Baba. We wondered how this could happen. My father regretted that his mother had probably signed papers at the direction of her beloved youngest son.
He regretted that when Grandpa was alive, he never took time out to ask him the details of his estate and since he was busy with office work and my illness and brother's child epilepsy took up his time and occupied his thoughts that serpentine uncle became privy to Grandpa's secrets.
He had never known the existence of the second will, the will by Grandma. Neither did my middle uncle, otherwise, he would surely have mentioned. He was confused by the happenings of the day.
One night I had severe pain and things started going in and out of focus and I felt faint. My father called the ambulance and took me to Apollo Hospital and it’s that view, when I looked up to the balcony above that has clung to my memory forever like flies in a fly paper. I saw the smiling faces of my grandmother, uncle and aunt looking down. I cannot forget the wretchedness of those wicked smiles of satisfaction when I was being taken to the hospital in an emergency. They are etched forever in my mind forever.
In the Bible it says “…whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap”, which describes karma simply, but perfectly. “Action and reaction are opposite and equal” stated Newton in his third law of motion, a definition commonly used to describe karma in Buddhism. In everyday conversation, people sometimes say “what goes around, comes around”, which is a loose but nevertheless truthful description of karma. Thus I think they won’t be spared by the whim of time.
You learn more when you challenge someone and make queries than when you just go along with what they say because you are afraid to disagree. My father made the serious mistake of doing that. He always went along with his siblings, especially the sly younger brother not comprehending his true self. If everyone doesn't agree it isn't the end of the world —it's the beginning of a great discussion. I must say that another thing is necessary for one's life… the ability to take the right decision at the right time.
When my father acknowledged that I have this ability to judge and take decisions he always asked me before doing anything. He was a man of determined action with an innate sense of integrity.
He resolved to visit the lawyer and politely ask him to show the will as it was a matter of life and death of his precious daughter. He thought if he could explain the urgency of the liver transplant and how a major cardiac arrest had blocked eighty percent of his heart and how the smallest exertion set him gasping the lawyer will be kind enough to show the will as he is also a party.
But it turned out that the lawyer was a part of their insalubrious activities. He identified Baba without him introducing himself to the lawyer. He remarked,
“Aren't you the elder brother of my client?”
My father was surprised that instead of taking my Grandma's name as the client he took his youngest brother's name. Baba nodded in acquiescence. He then told him about my predicament. The lawyer said
“Poor soul! Pray for her. Nothing can happen now.” and kicked my father out of his office.
We were all so worried that he's not returning home when at night around ten o'clock at night and he returned crying and short of breath. I was filled with horror and shock at the wrongness of the moment. For the first time in his life he had been insulted and that too in such a gross way! He couldn't take it but at least he came back because his work was undone, he had to pull me out of death’s grip and that's why he lived not much and after I survived the liver transplant, he left us, not being able to take any more of the injustice.
He departed to the other world without knowing the riddle of the second will, but I decided to fight the fire with fire and I am still doing it.
Neither I nor my parents knew if I would live but we tried, and the universe listened as we reached out to the outside world through the media and people, MPs helped us with the fundraising.
My unwillingness to blur out of existence provided my parents with the unusual zeal to take the difficult path. It was then for the first time that we discovered the money-driven medical world. We flew to Delhi to discover the actual cost of the liver transplant and to discuss with the doctors that we are in real need and if he will do the surgery for a lesser amount. The first doctor in a renowned hospital said that the disease is genetic, and it will happen again and the effort behind a liver transplant will go in vain. We approached the next hospital and my parents requested the doctors and the hospital authorities to kindly do the transplant because we had less money and even less time. It was downright comical how politely they denied doing the transplant without the exact sum of money, a whopping twenty-two lakhs!
I thought of my dismal fate and strange imbalance in the laws of karma. I haven't done anything wrong ever and neither have my parents so why is this happening to me? I am such a person who can't even kill a mosquito. I don't hate animals and I can never hurt any, but I am surely going to fight fire with fire and tramp on the nerve of the man who has such gall and marked disrespect for others’ life. At that time my existence was so uncertain that nobody knew if I would survive the comedy of life and my father did whatever I asked him and gave me whatever I desired. His mental status was such that he could even fetch the moon for me.
‘Thingamajig dryad gazed the distant moon
Inscrutable citizenry made her swoon
Oh! Well, behemoth coterie
With brio faced fakery
Dry-eyed unruffled with a tra-la-la tune!’
My father performed a bold act and everyone became concerned, heaving and gasping for air after a massive heart attack he approached everyone and everywhere. He was popular for his rare integrity and sterling qualities and his desire to help everyone.
"Can I help?" Everyone replied save any relatives for whom he had dedicated his life.
The renowned magician who got the Merlin award in magic, performed with his troupe to help a gloomy incident yet the ex-tenant singer who was nobody, when she came but rose to heights living in the house eventually by creating an ultimate illusion outwitting my father unworldly enough to trust salt for sugar engaged in a battle to acquire the flat which rightly belongs to us. Being desperately in need of money to fight malady that has hit out of the blue, where banknotes can only resuscitate we were knocking every door. She never thought of performing a show and living in the same house we were suddenly strangers.
Often terrible recurring nightmares where something seems to be chasing me, with no storyline, whatsoever that has to do with fear, just a terrible overwhelming feeling would almost certainly engulf me. We never grieve our situation of unremitting misery nor do I fear the coexistence of multiple rare diseases and pain.
The tragic incident of her father's death, made us face shocking poverty but I survived where, not only didn't have money for food the next day but also overcame MDR- TB, immunosuppressants, and its expensive treatment along with two sessions of radiation therapies (in the brain for leptomeningeal hemangioblastomas) which went on for six weeks, one cyberknife and not forgetting the kidney cancer. All the life-saving surgeries and treatments and diagnoses happened in the nick of time. I’ve had numerous surgeries, not dismissing from mind thyroidectomy which led to HypoPara (hypocalcemia due to low parathyroid hormone level).
But we know, In every field of life, you enjoy the results of your work or suffer the results and you cannot escape it. This is your karma. You suffer or enjoy the results of your activities from time immemorial, but you can change the results of your karma and this change depends on the way you react. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. What I am suffering is the karma of past lives, it depends on my reaction towards sufferings, how we cope, get along, manage.
It is said that what goes around, comes around which is a perfect description of Karma. No one can ever be spared by karma, that's the law of nature, there can never be an imbalance in the laws of karma and that's like the laws of physics.
The scriptures say
Do your duty, but do not concern yourself with the results.
The fruits of your actions are not for your enjoyment.
Even while working, give up the pride of doership.
Do not be attached to inaction.
Karma is defined as the sum of a person's actions in this and previous states of existence, viewed as deciding their fate in future existences. This relates to the judgment of God in scripture and the tenant of Christianity that we ultimately reap what we have sown.
Instant Karma's gonna get you
Gonna knock you right on the head
You better get yourself together
Pretty soon you're gonna be dead
What in the world you thinking of
Laughing in the face of love
What on earth you tryin' to do
It's up to you, yeah you ~ John Lennon
The Bible talks a lot about reaping and sowing. In each of these instances, as well as all the other references to reaping and sowing, the act of receiving the rewards of your actions takes place in this life. It is a present-day activity, and the references make it clear that the fruit you reap will be commensurate with the actions you have performed. In addition, the sowing you perform in this life will affect your reward or punishment in the afterlife.
You get one shot at life and live
it according to God’s plan, and that is it.
James 3:18
18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.
Job 4:8
8 As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.
Matthew 25:46
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Matthew 26:52
52 “Put your sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.
Galatians 6:7
7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.
You reap what you sow
You get what you grow
This is the law that the Lord has made.
Give to others and you’ll never lack
Plant some good and
Your good will come back
But even after all these they have broken into our flat and let it out. It's said that “birds of a feather flock together’, such as the story of my paternal aunt who attends court with the scheming uncle.
Her crocodile tears are an insincere hypocritical display of grief pretending to be upset.
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