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”).

This restaurant had a strict policy of kids sit on side of the table and adults on the other 🙂

Can you spot the two brothers moonlighting as body guards in the lower picture? 🙂

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…

Technically, he is my mother-in-law’s sister’s grandson. Or so I think. I get very confused on my wife’s side of the family…

Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk

One paints the beginning
of a certain end.

The other, the end of a
sure beginning.

-Maya Angelou

As I mentioned in the last post, yesterday was a good day. He had asked for the first time to be taken out in his wheelchair. Normally, I have to coax him to agree to it.

We spent about an hour thru the streets of Kalyani in the evening hours. Because he was more alert, he and I spent a long time talking about small things and me trying to ask him questions about the past and see if his neurons, dendrons and synapses can start re-firing (or whatever it is that they do for a normal person). Surprisingly, he could recollect the addresses of all the residences we had lived in (each took about a couple of minutes and you could almost sense his brain cells churning thru). But he still cannot remember my brother’s house in Kolkata.

Numerous times, we had people go past us (mostly in bicycles) and then on second thoughts, they would stop. Invariably, it was somebody who realized it was my dad as they went past us and got down from their bikes to come back and talk to us. Many of them were not aware of what dad has gone thru. My dad explained “Porey gechhilam” (“I had fallen down”).

That gave me a chance during my one on one time to explain to him that he had a brain stroke. We found five different spots. And that is why he fell down. And why he is not being able to remember things.

He seemed to be very surprised at this revelation.
“I had a brain stroke?”
“Yes”.

A couple of minutes of silence later…
“Which hospital was I in?”
“2 nights in Kalyani nursing home and then 2 weeks in Peerless Hospital in Kolkata”
“I was in Kolkata?”
“Yes”
“How did I get there?”
“Pinku brought an ambulance from Kolkata” (Pinku is my younger brother)

A few minutes of silence again.
“Eto shoto hoye gechhey aami jaantam na” (I did not realize so much has happened)
“I know”

A minute later, I realized he was trying to raise his neck and look back towards me. Sensing he wanted to ask me something, I lowered my head as I kept pushing him along. Fully expecting the next question “Kobey bhalo hobo baba?” (When will I get better?)

Instead he said “Tor onek poisa khoroch korey fellam na?” Not sure whether I was more irritated or found it to be too funny or something else that at this juncture, he first reaction would be to be apologetic that his illness cost his son a lot of money. But I knew that was the clear marker, the “old” him was trying to come thru and that was a great thing.

I lied thru my teeth. “Insurance is giving all the money back”.

For half a minute he shook his head very satisfactorily.

The evening, much like the wheelchair, rolled on…

Dad continues to have some good days and some bad days. Last night was just terrible for him. He kept both mom and me awake with his discomfort. The trick, we have realized, is how much sleep he is able to get. We have not been able to narrow down yet how to get him to sleep (including prescribed medicines).

But before last night, the whole day was a great day. In fact, the best day, in my trip so far. When he woke up at 1PM after a marathon 14 hour sleep, his brain was very active. Surprisingly, he could remember things he had forgotten and could speak coherently more words than normal before petering off into a drawl.

You know how we knew he was in good spirits? The three tell-tale signs were:

(*) He has started worrying about costs!! “How much money did we have to spend?”, “How much insurance will give back?”, you know the typical questions that used to consume him during normal times 🙂

(*) He started cracking jokes!! Somehow, thru this illness, he is obsessed with my shaved head – “Why do you shave your head?”, “Do you do it yourself?” and all that. Yesterday he kept telling the attendants “Matha aachhey chool thaakbey na?” and then followed up with a humorous analogy “Pa aachey aangul thaakbey na?”. (His point being if you have a head, you will have to have hair just like if you have a leg, you are going to have toes!) Go figure!!

(*) He wanted to go our for a stroll in the evening in his wheelchair!! Last few times, I had to coax and cojole him to get out of home. Yesterday, he asked for it!!

We will take as many of these days as we can possibly grab…