… of the days that are to come 🙂

Seriously though, for all the challenges my parents have – my mom is a severe psychiatric patient and my dad barely can get out of his bed, we have been very very lucky to have an excellent support system. We have been fortunate enough to have my sister live in an apartment (flat) downstairs from my parents – giving them full attention and yet enough independence for both. My brother lives a couple hours away and co-ordinates most of the medical stuff – including ferrying his weekly injections in a ice box every month from Kolkata. And of course, I get to do the easy part of visiting them once a quarter. In short, we have been blessed with a support system that very few have been lucky enough to provide their parents.

At the most basic level though, it is my mom who takes care of all my dad’s needs, whims and idiosyncrasies. After coming back from an evening walk, I saw my dad have enough energy to get up in his bed, but no more. Mom – who has just undergone a surgery was patiently feeding him.

Not knowing anything better to do, I just sat down in the nearest chair and started talking to them. And took a picture of them to remind Sharmila what my minimum expectations would be of her when I grow old 🙂 Ha ha 🙂

I was trying to relax in the afternoon and grab my forty winks – or maybe forty thousand of them to counter my jet lag when I heard my dad calling out my name from where he was sleeping. I put my glasses on and went to his room and asked “Ki holo?” (What happened?).

Well. “ki holo” is this: He had woken up and gotten himself to sit up to register a severe complaint to me about my mom. First he asked me if I had checked out the new cushions mom had gotten made for two of the outside chairs. I replied in the negative. Upon his encouragement, I went to the outside patio (which is where I spend endless hours in the morning and evening) and found that the two standard chairs had two spanking new cushions. Not sure where this was leading to, I took a picture of the chairs and came back to his room.

“Did you see the cushions?”, he asked.
“I did. What is the big deal?”

Well here apparently was the big deal:
A couple of weeks back, Mom got the cushions made. The following day, my dad had ostensibly dragged himself out of the bed and at a slow pace, eventually made it to the outside patio (about ten feet away) and plonked himself down in one of the chairs. Only to be rudely awakened by Mom who had run from the kitchen, yelling at him to get off from the chair. My dad, thoroughly confused, struggled to get up using his walking stick and asked “Ki holo” (no more translations required).

Apparently, mom took the cushions away and asked him to sit down.

“Cushion gulo to bosbar jonno-i baaniyechho”, he told mom. (I thought you made the cushions for people to sit down on).
“Tomar jonno noi. Bachchu esey bosbey”. Looks like mom summarily dismissed him mentioning that she got the cushions made specifically for me to sit down when I come home.

My dad’s expression says it all – “What did I do wrong”???

Ah! Once a mom, always a mom, I say!

After about an hour and half, he finally woke up. “Esey gechhis?” (You have reached already?) he exclaimed and then slowly got up. He did not move from his spot in the bed but carried on with a lively conversation. In fact, he even managed to smile multiple times.

I was pretty surprised that he very quickly noticed the Fitbit my brother was wearing – I got for him this time. (see inset). Of course, he thought it to be simple watch – he has no idea of what a Fitbit is.

“Ghori ta notun kinli”? (You bought a new watch?)
“Dada enechhey” (My brother mentioned that I got it for him)

Next few minutes there was enough confusion in the room as my brother tried to explain to him that it could measure his heart beat, number of steps, miles run and so on. Thoroughly impressed, my father soon had a practical question – “But how will you tell the time?” That is when my brother explained that the device also gave time.

Dad then took a closer look and then had the next practical question – “Kichhu dekha jachche na. Somoy dekhbi ki korey? Side-er switch tiptey hobey naaki?”. Looking at the blank screen, he was wondering how was by brother going to tell the time. And then he guessed that the push switch was probably put in for that.

Now any one of you who use Fitbit surely know this – in reality, all you do is raise your wrist and turn it a little – like you would do when you check the time on your watch. The device detects that and switches itself on.

My dad was totally impressed by this. He tried in every which way to guess how the device was figuring it out. That he was feeling better came thru in glimpses of his old humor… First he asked my brother to close his eyes and do the same wrist movement to see if we can trick the device into thinking that we wanted to check time.

But the final one was the best … after contemplating for a little more, he said “Bhalo hoyechhe. Raast-ay aar lokjon jaalabey na – Kota baajchhe dada, kota baajchhe dada korey :-)” Translated, he appreciated the design even more since he felt nobody will disturb my brother on the roads asking him for the time. (Implication being they will notice that the watch does not work).

[Disclaimer: To appreciate the joke, you have to go back a few decades in India when watches were not always that ubiquitous. In fact, often in buses, trains, streets, we found out time by simply asking the next person. Assuming he/she was not wearing a watch with a blank screen 🙂 ]

And with that, he was tired enough again to lay down on the bed.