Every night before we go to bed, Jay Jay engages me in a veritable battle of wits. I try to get him to sleep in his own bed (on the floor right next to our bed) and he makes mincemeat of all my coaxing and cajoling and jumps on to our bed and settles in comfortably.
After a couple of rounds of to and fro this night, we finally settled for a compromise!
Last night as I was going to bed, I got this picture from Kallol Nandi who further added that he felt very proud of her. My instinctive reaction was that he meant to send it to somebody else. On second thoughts, I looked closely at the picture.
I was still not sure why I was looking at a magazine. Then I saw the boats in the cover picture. I realized that this might be Sharmila’s painting. The boats looked familiar in style. She paints a lot of boats which always gives me a sinking feeling because she would invariably ask me for suggestions for names. Apparently, “Boat – 1”, “Boat – 2” … is not very artistic.
I forwarded that picture to her asking if it was her painting. She is roaming around in London and Paris with Nikita. I am told that is what self-respecting artists do. (roam in London and Paris – not necessarily with Nikita).
Anyways, this morning I woke up to a confirmation from her. I am glad she did not berate me for missing her signature completely!
Thank you Kallol for pointing me to this.
Does anybody know how can I get a physical copy? (Atlanta Journal Constitution is still showing the Fall copy)
In fact, Andrea was one of the people who originally convinced me to move from Dallas to Atlanta (for job). After she left Atlanta, I had not seen her for nearly 15 years. We fixed that problem today!
It was great to see her today, learn about her life journeys and the lessons from life she has drawn so far!
Two years back, on this day, around this time, I had called my brother. Like I had done every morrning for many, many years. Instead of the usual pleasantries, his immediate question was “Khobor peyechhis?” (“Did you get the news?”)
In a flash, I knew what must have happened. Dad was in his last legs shuttling between nursing home and home almost weekly. He had lost his will to live for over five years. Mom dying a few weeks back had added unthinkable amount of psychological pain to him over and top of the physical ones he was enduring.
“Andaaj kortey paarchi”, (“I can guess”) I said after a brief pause. Somewhat relieved that dad might have finally been released from all his anguish and granted his wish to die.
“Thik aachey, tora bero. Sabdhaaney jaas.”, (“Ok. You guys go ahead. Stay safe.”) I told my brother. They were getting ready to go to my dad’s place to take care of all the last rites and formalities.
The one regret was that my visa to India had not arrived yet. In spite of getting my second vaccination a week before, I was not able to make it to India to see him one last time since my special visa had not processed yet.
Which was a bit of an anti-climactic end to the once-a-quarter trip I used to make to see him. Honestly though, if the actual suffering he was going thru was even a fraction of what I could see in our video calls, I did not want him to drag one for even one more minute waiting for me to get my visa. I was content to live with the memories of those near 50 visits to see him before the pandemic.
That said, “Ekbaar aay. Ma maara jaabaar por dekha hoyni”, (“Please come once. I have not seen you after losing your mother”) – those words from the previous night over the video call rankle my mind till this day and I wake up at nights with cold sweat.
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The first ever picture I have with dad (circa 1966) and the last ever picture I have (a few weeks before the world shut down in 2020)
Seems to tolerate all my bad jokes better than other family members. Tuey is very friendly and full of gratitude. You can see his rather pronounced level of thankfulness when I offered him a treat Sharmila had sent from Atlanta.
This brings to mind an old Mark Twain quote: “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.”
