Smoke and Mirrors

 

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.

Jiggery-pokery

 

My middle uncle was mamma's boy and a bundle of nerves. He was also a klepto born as much from curiosity as from insecurity.

When our paternal aunt used to visit Kolkata she brought along soaps, beverages, chips, chocolates, and the likes to distribute to her in-laws and for her personal use. 

Many soaps, creams and lotions, perfumes, coins, and such things went missing. They were eventually found behind an old radiogram kept as a showpiece of our drawing-room. 

He couldn't resist the urge to steal items for the sake of stealing, not because he needs or want the items.

Sometimes things of no value from pieces of jewelry, to knick-knacks, but he never used them. The funniest thing is that even cold drink bottle caps were found in his room! 

Megan Fox, Farah Fawcett, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Winona Ryder are among the celebrities who suffer from kleptomania.

People with kleptomania often have other mental disorders as well. The most common are depression, anxiety, eating disorders but his parents or siblings didn't understand and never took him to a doctor. The child is a responsibility. Thought and character are one, and as a character can only manifest and discover itself through environment and circumstance, the outer conditions of a person's life will always be found to be harmoniously related to his inner state. Shouting and punishing don't help, love, understanding, and support do.

He was a beefy man who had a bald crown. No one was very pleased with him because he loitered about, without any purpose in life and he clung to the lamest of reasons for doing nothing giving the sorriest of excuses to give a meaning or to justify his existence. 

He was fooled around with disreputable friends, talked high but never put his words to the effect. 

I heard that Grandpa sent him to various renowned schools in and around Kolkata, but he ran away or eloped classes by making shameless fabricated excuses like “sister had died”. 

Grandpa considered him the problem child, but I must say here that he was mistaken. Instead of understanding his diseased mind and treating him properly, everyone neglected him. 

The cliché that someone making up shameless false excuses is a bad person is very inaccurate. He was very kind to me and when I was little, I used to lie beside him in his room after lunch and he used to tell stories of 'Frog Prince’ and ‘Cinderella’, ’Rapunzel” and all until Mum called me. It was back then that I was introduced to the world of fantastic stories. He wasn't any Einstein or Nehru, but he had a simple mind and since he was a bachelor, he told his friends and almost every shopkeeper in the Gariahat market that if he ever had children, they would be like me and my brother. 

He had kidney disease. His youngest brother, the foxy one of the family, after the death of Grandpa, took him to a filthy nursing home in a very poor locality and got a radical nephrectomy done. His entire kidney was taken out but he withstood it. 

The stratagem was foiled because fate stood by my middle uncle to squelch out the carefully planned method to shove him out of his way. 

When multiple tumors were detected which compressed and displaced vital vessels and I needed a liver transplant, as the news of my catastrophic illness reached him, he hammered on our door and asked seriously with wrinkled brows,

“Mou has been struck with a serious illness and doctors have given her only six weeks! Her treatment involves a lot of money is it true?” Mou is my pet name. My mother nodded in acquiescence. He stormed out saying in his loud voice “When her grandpa has left so much why should she suffer? I'll be talking to her grandma right now.”

We felt a little relieved, although a feeling of trepidation hung in the air. We still couldn't feel the laugh and have a cheery mood because of the malaise hanging in the air. Yet some amount of confidence the half-baked impact of his words had certainly given. 

The next day, early in the morning we had an interview with NDTV for a bit of fundraising and awareness of the rare disease. In those days I was perhaps the first case of such a peculiar disease diagnosed in India. When we were setting out for the place where the interview was supposed to be held with Dr. Shibajyoti Ghosh the doorbell rang violently. It was my paternal aunt who came and informed us that my middle uncle had a stroke last night and to admit him to a nursing home they asked for some money from my father. Tears came to my father's eyes, he did not have money to save his daughter's life and they were asking money from him to save his brother! His siblings always occupied a fond spot in his heart, and he gave them the money. 

We viscerally felt something was wrong, something nasty and unpleasant was going on. I squirmed uneasily. After we returned from the interview my father took the address of the nursing home and went to see how his brother was doing. 

He was aghast at the spectacle of his brother gasping with two pipes of oxygen thrust inside his nostrils in a maternity nursing home.No other action was taken to revive him. He didn't survive this time. He was blinked out of existence and even now, several years hence it is unsettling to think about the way he was thrust into eternal annihilation. I must say here that my middle uncle got his obsequies from a jar of ten-rupee coins which he had collected over the years. It was found in his room when my paternal aunt started looking for stuff he had gathered over the years but in my father’s case, even the simplest obsequies were not planned by fate. 

A few neighbors had to defray the burning and sprinkling of his ashes in the Yamuna river.

 Perhaps if my middle uncle was alive, I wouldn't have to see these days of unremitting misery. Sometimes I am susceptible to thinking about possibilities and sometimes I think like mulling over what-ifs and could-have-beens.

Later from the maids who worked with them, we got to know that my middle uncle had a stroke at around ten o'clock at night and he was kept thus until the next day when his bladder and bowels gave way. My father mused 

“And then he was put in a maternity nursing home and they are not equipped to deal with a cardiac patient!” 

Why didn't they tell him? His office had tie-ups with few good hospitals in Kolkata; he could have saved him or at least tried to do so. After he passed away the dead body wasn't brought to the house but was taken straight to the crematorium. My father wondered, 

 “Was it a cunning plan to shove him out of the way? But why? So that he doesn't insist that the inheritance is given to my daughter for her treatment?”

So calm, so happy was my time

There is no pardon for his heedless sin

Where is miraculous extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!

With belief, ambition, and attempt, I shall win!

He admired the sweetness, how full of joy till the doom!!!

Death blasted all. Death suddenly overthrew

His heedless vice knew no bounds

Present, Past, and future he knew

His calmness after he slew still astounds

He thought he was being crafty as a fox in the way he had been skimming money from what dadu left, but Karma caught up with him eventually.

Foxes and openly criminals of a prestigious family gain wealth by activities like every manner of swindling, forgery, larceny, robbery, thievery, trickery, jiggery-pokery, hanky-panky, plundering, looting, sacking, misappropriation, spoliation and embezzlement.

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

Spring Goddess

 

Winter had died peacefully in its sleep

Again spring came  with cheery heat

Returning made the year complete

As nature spring to life

I start my endless strife.

From mind wisdom and judgment spring

Healing specialist ready for holy service to see my life improving 

To ward off the swimming bubbles

To put me out of troubles 

Those with a heart help and save

Help all beings strong and brave

With power, passion, allure, charm

I dedicate my suffering to Goddess in my emotional prayer

To aid the war, suffering, more than all!!!

It has been a very very long haul

Goddess spake, " I am with you always there 

To protect against any beast,

With dignity, with care in one form or other,

I protect thou my child for seasons, nights,

Days, year's, months, and hours

I stand with you in every fight

 I tend to your utterances with loving care,

But your thou glorious one, protect thy mother from neglect

She deserves a lot of respect

Obedience, love, and honor shall pay

Her antique hair has turned grey

Yet virtue, magnanimity, heroism she portray

For thine aged mother feel thy bliss, joy, and pain

She weeps floods of tears not just because Father was slain

Her pain sorrow and woes

Will not just go with the demolition of demon foes

She basks in your glory bright

That's her might in your blight

When you like a warrior grasp your bow

Her bosom with warmth, and affection glow

 

Her tears turned into a jewel

Will pierce your head to kill the swimming bubbles so cruel

Sting them and traveling and gaining the power to make them vamoose 

Clinging against the lumps into a point deep into the head try, deduce

Your grief and pain will be dead

Into the ground will they spread

The demon fiend in his guise

To discern the evil-bred's advice

He was not skilled

Your Father with the counsel he gave

Who lent his gracious ear and in joy he sway and got killed

Autumn as a soft-spoken executrix was locking life up safely

Spring came to claim it gamely

It's time his spirits to rise

To rule the castle under the skies

From naive fear and age and sickness freed,

Through the three worlds with wings he shall speed.

He has developed warlike skill

He will claim that demon to pay

And he has attention to thy illness with sweet words still

His high thoughts and message I bear

Lend me your ear

His cares of worldly cares he still recalls

His deepest soul still enthralls

By The adventures of Mum and Princess

From the world he is expelled

Better than any soul, yet not really dead

He is in a realm where he has will to take away your distress

With these words Spring Goddess does slowly fade away and ceased.

I got up from my sleep and saw a blue streak slowly decreased.