29 December 2017

This could be injurious to his brain!!

I was half expecting this.

My dad, trying to fight back his brains getting scrambled after the stroke, had a hard jolt trying to understand what happened to Natasha’s hair. Tasha, had dyed her hair blonde some time back. Over the last few months as the hair has grown, her strands are natural dark (from the root side) and then after about half length starts becoming blonde.

My dad’s relatively low exposure of dyeing hair entirely comprises of making the hair look dark again (from grey) but never from dark to any thing else.

As you see in the picture, he held her hair in his fingers for quite some time trying to investigate what was going on. He asked quite a few questions – much to Tasha’s merriment – and then gave up trying to understand it!!

Category: Family in India, Vacations | 16 Comments on This could be injurious to his brain!!
28 December 2017

The great uniter!

Usually, at least in our house, the iPhone is a constant source of irritation when it comes to interpersonal interactions. “Get your nose off the screen”, “Keep your phone down while eating”, “Stop posting those unflattering pictures of mine” 🙂 are part of the day to day vernacular when the four of us are around.

That same mighty piece of electronics has been a hero, bar none, to my parents, the last couple of days.

Natasha has kept up with her word to be with the grandparents. Every day, in Kalyani, she has been quietly sitting around my dad or mom. When everybody else is around, she has been watching all the interactions and when others leave, she has been trying to interact with my parents.

The big challenge is of course, language. As was famously said before, her grandparents and she has been separated by a common language. They speak their own versions of English. If my parents speak at a struggled pace, Natasha’s speeds thru sentences like there is not going to be a tomorrow.

But I have to say, I was superbly impressed how she and the grandparents persisted thru their communication challenges. The lowest common denominator has been the iPhone. My dad has always been a biggest fan of Natasha’s written English. He makes me bring her newspaper publications every time. But he has never understood what an online newspaper is. Once, he came dangerously close to concluding that the newspaper man delivers a computer to every home each morning in America!

Unknowingly though, he experienced it yesterday. Trying to figure out how to keep him engaged, Natasha had an idea! She took her iPhone out, weaved thru the slow speed data connections in Kalyani and made him read some of her online publications. Then she held the phone up for him patiently, as he read each line!

At that point, to give them some time, I left the room. When I came back, Natasha was holding court with her grandmom. My mother is not into written articles. From what I could overhear, Natasha was taking her thru all the pictures in her phone and introducing all her friends!

“This is Avery”, she was explaining.
“O Eta aay-bh-aari”, my mom acknowledged butchering the name’s pronunciation.
“Yes”, Natasha accepted.

I left the room again! The girl has truly grown up!!

The iPhone, unwittingly, was the great uniter yesterday!

Category: Family in India, Vacations | 10 Comments on The great uniter!
27 December 2017

He has been preparing for this visit from his grandkids

The big surprise we got when we walked into my dad’s house is how much he has improved. If you recollect from my pictures from end of October, he was in a pretty bad shape. He could not stay up in his bed without being surrounded by supporting pillows and two attendants. It used to take two of us just to get him off his bed into his wheelchair.

In under sixty days, he has willed himself into almost the impossible. During my daily calls with mom, she did not accurately convey how much he has improved. Apparently, he has been preparing for this day when he was going to be surrounded by all five of his grandkids!

A few weeks back, he could not even realize that his paralyzed right arm had gotten entangled under his body. Today, he tried playing ball with his grandkids. It took all his might to get the arm up (notice the grimace on his face) but lift it he did and even did a fair job of throwing it out of spitting distance.

The greatest surprise was he getting up from the bed while holding on to the walker (needed a little help here) and then taking baby steps all by himself. He labored for about ten minutes but did eventually make it to the other room and sat down there.

That green cap on his head? There are always risks of trying out something new. A few days back, he was so impatient with his progress that he tried to get up and walk by himself without any help (mom and attendant were both sleeping). Promptly fell down and banged his head. Very very thankfully, he got away with a few stitches only. It could have been far worse.

As a last point, during my previous trip, I had written about the pains the caretaker (in this case my mom) has to take when a family member becomes incapacitated . Notice in the picture where he is taking baby steps how she is half a step behind him with a chair in hand absolutely ready in case he falls down again!!!

Category: Family in India, Vacations | 28 Comments on He has been preparing for this visit from his grandkids
25 December 2017

This happened on Christmas Day a couple of years back. It is still very funny!!

Excerpt from 2015 Dec 25th blog entry:
—
Awww!! It broke her heart to learn that Santa Claus is not real 🙁

I am not talking about my daughters. I am not talking of any of my nieces either. This is my seventy year old mom in India. During our early morning ritual – a phone call – today, she started arguing with me about Santa Claus. Much as I tried to explain to her that he is an imaginary character that parents tell their kids to deflect who got all the gifts, she steadfastly stood her ground that I had no idea what I was talking about. She felt I was getting confused because I forgot his real name – Nicholas!

“Ami bortoman-e porechhi onar asol naam Nikolas”. Apparently, a local Bengali newspaper is a lot more reliable source of information than her son of fifty summers. Not to mention half the stuff those local newspapers publish clearly have been picked from books found in the local library section visibly marked “Fiction”.

What absolutely took the cake – I mean literally – is when I had to tell her that cakes are not that big a thing during Christmas here. As an aside, anybody who has grown up around the parts of the country I did in India, exchanging Christmas cards and eating cake were the big highlights of any Christmas day. I come from a state where 30% of the population are Muslims and most of the rest Hindus. I grew up in a Christian school till tenth grade. Unlike the deep division in thoughts that I get exposed to today along the religious lines, life then, was all about celebrating all the religious festivals – regardless of which religion. Visiting the festively lit up parts of the neighborhood where Christians lived, buying Christmas cards and sending them to everybody and eating a whole lot of Christmas cakes was what Christmas always meant to us. Sometimes we would visit the well decorated local churches too.

But eating cake was a must. Against that backdrop, you can imagine the jaw dropping revelation that my mom was trying to process when I told her that cake is not that big a deal here. That was sacrilege to her. She finally but slowly gave her verdict which was basically suggesting that Christmas is really a British thing. Americans have not learnt about authentic Christmas yet 🙂

But for the mute button on the phone, I could have been in big trouble today. 🙂

She did agree on one thing before we parted – “Oi debdarur moto gachhta – ki jeno?” (referring to an indigenous coniferous looking tree). “Christmas tree”, I replied.

“Yes, Yes, Christmas tree… Christmas tree… I forgot”, she mused.
Score one for her fifty year old son!!! Take that “Bortoman”

Category: Family in India, Humor | 4 Comments on This happened on Christmas Day a couple of years back. It is still very funny!!
31 October 2017

The defining image of this trip…

Undoubtedly, this trip was all about my dad. Watching him go thru the transitions and helping him phase into a new stage of life is what I was there for. What I had not counted on is the level of transition this meant for my mom.

In an earlier post, I had written about the challenges of being a caregiver of a elderly patient with limited ability to move or make himself understood. I had further mentioned that on top of that, being a mother is totally incomprehensible to me in terms about effort and sacrifice.

As the days went by, I realized another thing. My mom is realizing that, in addition to all those, she is now going to be the head of the household. She brought out a couple of big files from the almirah and asked my brother and I if we could explain to her the house finances. (Dad has no ability to explain anything). We sifted thru a lot of papers and bank passbooks and armed with some prior knowledge we had, we helped her understand her monthly expenses, sources of income and current assets in bank.

In fact, my brother and I went to a couple of banks a few times (I went to an Indian bank after about 25 years!!) to set up a few things for her.

In my previous visits, mom would either be cooking or sitting with us or be sleeping (remember, she is a psychiatric patients and those medicines have a strong sedative effect). This time, for the first time, I saw her often sitting by herself and in very pensive mood. She seemed to get very deep in her thoughts.

I always wondered whether to interrupt her thoughts. One time, I managed to take a picture of her and then I did break down and asked her what was going thru her mind.

“Eka songshar ki korey chaalabo tai bhaabchi”.

She was thinking thru how she was going to manage all the family affairs by herself.

That is when I realized that on top of her normal role and the added role of being the primary caregiver, she now has to be the head of the household too. Forget her. I myself became too confused how was one person going to deal with all of these.

I have mentioned this before – For all the things my dad and mom are going thru, we have one of the best support systems you could think of. My sister lives next door to my parents. My brother lives couple of hours away and regularly visits them to get my dad’s medicines (those are available only in Kolkata). And I get to see them every three months. Between the three siblings, till date, we have been fortunate enough to financially support them on any care or services they might need. I know none of these are constants and things can change on any front dramatically quickly but that said, till date, we have been incredibly lucky in our support system for parents.

Even then, watching my mom, the thought came across my mind – may be I should just go and stay with them for the last few years of their lives.

That pensive picture of my mom has been permanently seared in my mind now…

Category: Family in India, Vacations | 15 Comments on The defining image of this trip…
31 October 2017

Some new… some not so new…

Sometimes journeys are memorable due to the newness of things – new places seen, new people met, new experiences undergone. And sometimes journeys are memorable due to the constancy of a few things. It is like those are the things you actually look forward to for every such trip.

My trips to India have a few similar things that repeat that I absolutely wait for. In fact, they often define what my trips are all about… being with parents, sitting out with my dad in the morning, having drinks and “namkeens” with the siblings late evening, “golgappas” with the nephews and niece in the late afternoon, taking my inlaws out for a lunch or dinner one day …

Not to forget hitting the road with my brother. Every trip entails meeting some new people after a few decades. And that means driving to new cities and towns and testing the limits of Google maps in the Indian context (it does amazingly well, by the way). My brother insists on driving always and we spend quite some time together on the roads. We have some incredible experiences on the road.

Which brings me to one more of those “constant things” – having tea with him at various tea stalls along all the highways and village roads. We usually choose those tea stalls that do not have a lot of customers – which allows us to make friends with the tea stall owner and find out more about the neighborhood.

This particular one was taken somewhere on Durgapur Expressway near Saktigarh (for the ones familiar with the area – this is NOT one of those thousands of places selling “langchas”).

Category: Family in India, Vacations | 2 Comments on Some new… some not so new…
30 October 2017

These goodbyes are not getting any easier….

Every three months for the last five years, we have gone thru the same routine. He would have sadness writ all over his face but mom would still brave a smile as they waved me good bye from the gate downstairs and I headed out to the airport to my family in Atlanta. As routine as it was, it never ceased to give me a lump in my throat. My brother (always the chauffeur) would keep quiet for 10 minutes and give me the space to get used to the moment.

Then my dad lost ability to move much. But he would come downstairs and sit in a chair way ahead of time and wait for me so as to not lose a chance to wave me goodbye. I would again choke up.

Next, he stopped coming down. (The last trip was that way to) He would simply lie in his bed and nod his head. Holding back tears was incredibly tough. I knew he wanted to come down but physically he could not. I used to squeeze his hand just to let him know that I understood.

Now, we are in the phase, where he has no idea that I already left. He got up for ten minutes in the morning, spoke to me incoherently and then went back to sleep. I took a lot of pictures of him. All of them look exactly the same. At the back of my mind, I am aware that this might well be the last time and I wanted to capture ever micro second if I could. Even if they are repeats.

First time ever, my mom is not smiling as she bade adieu all by herself.

A new era is dawning upon us…

Category: Family in India, Vacations | 57 Comments on These goodbyes are not getting any easier….