25 February 2012
Now as I read books on this terrible disease I realize what those helpless eyes of my father conveyed, how he seems to be running after thoughts day in and day out. Ideas and sentences melt like snowflakes. Some years back he was so normal and so sharp but now his drifting mind is out of control, he can’t remember simple things like his job, his age and even me.
Just yesterday he was asking Mamma, ‘Where will we stay in Shimla?’
Mamma said, ‘At Rohit’s place.’
‘Will we find Rewa there?’ he asked innocently.
Mamma said, ‘Of course, she will be there.’
‘How is Rewa related to Rohit?’ he asked gravely.
I can understand now that there is all chaos and dizziness in his mind. It is an immense challenge all day to chase words and thoughts. He is at the edge of both failure and hope and these contrasting emotions make him stressed to a breaking point.
For decades I have seen him grow plants, herbs, vegetables and this hobby of his gave him an opportunity to have a close look at life and death, it provided him with an insight into the life and death of human beings too. Today he said, ‘Plants even while living or dying don’t make a noise they just disappear from this world but humans create too much chaos, they scream and they rant both when they are born and when they die.’
Then he murmured, ‘I wish I were a plant.’
We watch in despair as his present, past and future, all get jumbled up and memories of long ago – of his childhood, of his village, of his unknown friends, of some prank that he played in the school – come out from the depths of his mind.
A couple of days back Dadoo was in one of his lucid states when I had called him on the phone.
‘How are you, Dadoo?’
‘I am not fine, everything is wrong.’
‘Yes, yes, I know it is your memory.’
‘No, it is not only my memory, everything is going wrong, I am seriously unwell. You must show me to a doctor.’
‘Definitely, Dadoo.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Don’t make it too late,’ he says scaring me, ‘if there is an alternative, if I can get one or two year of sanity, why not take the opportunity.’ He begs.
‘Yes, Dadoo, tomorrow.’
‘Why not today? Can’t you send someone to pick me up?’
‘Okay, Daddo, I will talk to Rohit, but what do you feel is wrong?’ I asked.
‘Everything.There is nothing inside me, I go to a room and I don’t know where I am. I try to find the bathroom but I go to the drawing room. I want to say something but I forget the very next moment what I want to say.’
‘Oh!’
‘My body and mind both are no help to me. Sometimes many hours later my mind flashes a message but my body is too dull to respond. I go to the kitchen when I am thirsty but then I forget that I am thirsty, I come back.’
In a sadistic way I am delighted he remembers, he remembers so many things and I say, ‘Dadoo, you remember so many things.’
‘What?’ he mumbles.
‘All the things that you told me.’
‘What have I told you?’ he says confused, ‘Help me, take me to a doctor.’ I placate him and put the phone down, confused just like him whether I should be happy or sad.
When I was a child I often used to think that I don’t want to go through life – get up in the morning, go to school, eat lunch, meet your soulmate and produce children. I would fantasize that if I closed my eyes for some time and open them again, decades would have passed. I had done what I was supposed to do during this time and I am living a normal life where there is no change, where there is no struggle, a life where I have to take no decisions as if in that blink of a moment everything had happened. Now too, I just want to close my eyes and when I open them I want everything in place: Either my father has forgotten every single detail or he is no more carrying this burden of a useless life. However in reality this will not happen and like him we will all have to go through it. Buddha says life is suffering. So be it!