14- Father

14- FATHER- my father

Babuji was born in a small village in Haryana called Pehowa in March, 1919. His father died when he was about 10, from Tuberculosis as did his other siblings, which was ‘the Scourge’ those years. Dadi brought him up in a corner of a room shared with Taiji.
He would take tuitions and go to School when a little older. He went to do law and Commerce in Lahore which was the Mecca of education in the North at that time. All his cousins were younger and he began to be their guide and senior.

He married my mother of 16, at Ludhiana when he was 23. Then, earning about 100 Rs. per month at Ambala, he retired as Commissioner Income tax at Delhi after a full life at 58.

We went abroad and I toiled with my marriage, children, home, post graduation in Pathology, then Psychiatry and work from hospital to hospital and city to city. Father presumed I was happy, I presumed I was OK, but gradually was not OK.

Back there I kept getting sketchy information about his odd ‘withdrawn’ behaviors and the rounds of visits to the physicians/ psychiatrists. On one of my visits home, with some hesitation, a struggling teardrop rolling down his eye and shaky voice, he expressed his suicidal thoughts to me. I met Dr. Mohan at AIIMS and we agreed that Babuji had a bipolar mood disorder with Depressions. He was started on Lithium along with other things and
I encouraged Jhai Ji to be more tolerant of his moods and more supportive when he had side effects from medication that were irritating and difficult for her to handle.

When I finally returned with Karan, he lived in a ‘Kothi’ at Sundar Nagar with Jhai and Vikram. Youngest sister Sunita had been married some years ago to Sudhir.
The Cook Bahadur who could never clean to Karan’s standards, Driver Ishrat who drove the old Rickety Fiat too fast for safety and Sharmaji the Typist sitting on an antique noisy typewriter, mostly yawning in the verandah were around, as domestic help. The ‘Grand living’ for a govt. retired officer was according to him, to fetch a worthy bride for my kid brother, his and my mother’s pride and joy.
Although technically retired he still continued to address himself as ’Commissioner Income tax’ and refused to give up on paltry and not so paltry gains accorded to one in such a position.

Maji, my dadi who was no more, used to tell us of the days when they survived only on ‘Chana’. His friends and relations at one time called him ‘Badshah of Delhi’ when he actually was at the peak professionally. He was no more that now.
My mother said, as the years went, his prolonged ‘depressions’ and occasional ‘highs’ became more and more disruptive. After Calcutta he spent his last working years at Bhopal and Jabalpur which were not at all to his liking or preference.

He had a stroke of good luck with Bara Khamba Rd. house where he lived for some years. This area was declared ‘Greater Cannaught place’ in later years and to vacate, he got financial compensation in the form of a flat on Firoze Shah Rd. a prime locale, where my mother now lives.

My return as it was, was painful for him but it also gave him a new leash for life. I shared this exactly the same way. ‘I’ became his new goal to help me out of my crisis and ‘he’ for me to mend the broken-ness of the inner sufferings of his mind.

Returning home after prolonged difficult times, I felt childlike, vulnerable and looked to him for all the strength, emotional and physical. He gave all. He began to ‘anchor’ me to the new, New Delhi. Karan started DPS at Mathura Rd. and I was appointed department in charge of Psychiatry at Batra hospital.

Very soon I began to recognize that father was fragile now, although feigning ‘self made man’ strength. I could no more be the needy child. There followed a subtle role reversal and I tried to do ‘my little’ for the man who was responsible for ‘me, who or what, the me in me’.

When necessary, I began to rely more on my kid brother Vikram who I sensed was no more a kid. In fact he was multifarious, a kid in the overall family equation to tell stories to, an equal to joke and have fun with, an elder to guide and advise, and overall wise, mature, responsible and dependable to take over my care (struggling to settle as a single woman, parent and professional), for the remaining years and become the strong net that holds me in visible and invisible ways.

To Babuji’s dismay, I had rented a small flat separately but I continued to spend all available time with him including the early morning bed tea when I would drop in by surprise after taking Karan to School, this having become his habit to miss the regular bus to hitch a ride with mummy in the Volkswagen Jetta that came from the US.
The door was always open, he would be absorbed in the editorial of Hindustan Times, I would say, “Babuji ?” and he would look up, throw the paper away, smile and ask me to sit near. He would be happy but he would be worried, so was I, happy to be at Sundar Nagar and worried. Tea was ordered and Jhai would wake up with the Hulla-gulla. Soon it was time for me to drive back, sadly he would walk out, to the car, hand on my shoulder, the same gentle pat again that he had given me when he left me at the Hostel gate at Patiala over 20 years ago.

He was maintained on fairly high dose of medications for Depression and Hypertension. He was never too bad but also never OK, OK. He tended to oscillate between passive blank inactive periods to Agitated, thoughtless activities bordering on overspending and disappearing from the house at odd times much to the chagrin of my mother. Lithium ‘shook’ his hands and in spite of reassurances he couldn’t stop fearing being in the same state as Pandit G.B.Pant who had Parkinsonism.

As a family, for Jhai, for all of us sisters and Vikram, for all his cousins who had shared their lives with this very dynamic and domineering man it was difficult to see him full of fears and go downhill thus, but nevertheless he maintained his sense of command and influence on all, as long as he could.

Sharmaji was kept at his task mostly for Babuji’s serious project of sorting out advertisements, letters, photographs and other sundry details of ‘prospectives’ for Vikram only to be filed away and piled up on the antique wooden desk in antique wooden trays while Vikram maintained a solidly WOODEN stance towards the whole deal till Mita came on the scene dressed in a Sky Blue skirt to entice him.

I had become the go-between and frankly quite enjoyed the ‘diversion from my real life’. By now Vikram also had a healthy respect for my opinions and finally agreed to be married.
Parents, Vikram and Mita moved from Sundar Nagar to Firozeshah Road flat.

It was now that his heart started to play up.

His mother had suffered serious Asthma and we kids had witnessed Doctors’ comings and goings frequently. Although the medical fraternity was familiar to him, when it came to his ‘heart’ he was gripped in fears and once again I took over and got him treated by the Cardiac team at Batra Hospital.

Jan.’87-
It was 7PM. I was visiting my parents. Babuji said he had pain in the chest. It had waxed and waned since the afternoon. He had been discharged from Batra 2 days ago.
In spite of the ‘blocks’ it had been decided to go conservative in view of his co-existing chronic recurrent ‘depressive condition’.
He put his hand on my shoulder and said “Does any thing need to be done?”
“Perhaps an ECG?” I said.
“OK yes it is a little late” --In his usual authoritarian style he said, ’Diwan Chand’ should be open !’
‘Diwan Chand’ it was who kept the place especially open for him till late. He put his hand on my shoulder and said to him, I was ‘his’ daughter.
I helped his shaky hands un-buttoning his shirt and getting the ECG done.
The doctor re-assured him. We drove back. He took the lift to go up, his one hand on my shoulder and ‘me’ feeling shaky within.

My father died 2 days later before I could even reach him on way to Willington hospital in the Ambulance while Vikram tried to pump his heart----

My father was ‘inside’ a pile of logs at Lodhi Crematorium. The son Vikram lit the pyre. I couldn’t let him go just like that. I was ‘his’ too.
So I also lit the pyre.

Many nights I would wake up ‘lighting’ Father’s body. Many days I hallucinated, seeing and hearing and feeling him.

The grief can never be over, though less painful now.

A pencil sketch of him that Divya made is on my study wall.
He sketched my life. He filled my life.
He is me now and I, ‘remains’ of him.

Veena