Authors: Minakshi Chaudhry
One of the topics that he used to talk about was his papers and files. All his life being meticulous, organized and planned, he had kept every paper: income tax; his retirement papers; his property details, even those which were sold some twenty years back; his children’s PAN numbers; PPF accounts; FDs; bills; house taxes; and court cases. But then this beast attacked and he started getting insecure that either his papers had got lost or somebody had misplaced them. He would sit for hours with his files writing things in his diary – duplicating financial stuff – but I just concluded that it was boredom and stress that made him do this. Recently I came across three or four such diaries, in which he had written account numbers, date of maturity and the PPF account details and so many other details of numbers and folios; but now they lay abandoned as there is no one to look at them.
The second thing he concentrated on was
Reader’s Digest
subscription. He kept on writing to them regularly, buying books because one day he thought Vikram would win a prize. For nearly two years, it became an obsession with him and sometimes a matter of life and death if we did not read the letter from
Reader’s Digest
immediately. He must have spent more than forty thousand rupees on these books, and everyone in the family felt that they were cheating him and making him buy books so that he could move to the next stage of the lottery and the next and the next. Thankfully a year back Dadoo lost all interest and forgot all about it.
The third thing that he paid attention to was property. From his initial days Dadoo had a knack of buying and selling land. This is how he made money, he was a financial wizard. Whatever little money he saved in Nigeria some thirty years ago was wisely invested into property. He would sell the property at the right time and buy more in return and this game of buying and selling would go on. Presently, he has become fanatic about these lands, their cost price, their market value, money invested by selling them, prospective buyers, their safety with regards to documentation, demarcation and subsequently fencing, barbing and caretaking.
We had ignored these signals. In fact we had started getting irritated with him and counselled him to have a more positive outlook and lead a stress-free life. Several times he said that he forgets names, and people but we pooh-poohed him, insisting that we too would sometimes forget things. He would throw tantrums quite often and slowly I started noticing that he would call up and repeat things; but this too I ignored.
For months he was paranoid about his throat. He went to numerous doctors for diagnosis. He took an avid interest in all the medicines related to throat and cough – on TV, in newspapers and on billboards. It was a chronic problem for Dadoo with no cure. We did not know then that having imaginary ailments is a symptom of dementia.
Some four years back I had called up both my brothers and told them that there was something seriously wrong with Dadoo and that we had to take him to the doctor. He had told me that he had forgotten the name of sweets and vegetables like onions, ginger and potatoes. He said that when he went to shops his mind became blank and he could not remember the names of the things he wanted to buy, so he ended up pointing towards the things he could recognize.
Both of them said that he was just depressed and had become an old cynical person, but of course that was not the case. And when I did take it seriously I could do nothing about it, because I had fallen ill and it took me two years to get cured.
However, Vikram seriously contemplated quitting his job and coming back to take care of him since his condition was deteriorating. Whenever this was discussed before Dadoo, his reasonability would return with full force and he would say, ‘You don’t have to come, I will come and stay with you. This is not the right decision. You have a job to do.’ But whenever he did go to stay with Vikram for a month or so, it became torturous for Mamma since Dadoo could not go out because he wasn’t familiar with the ways in Chandigarh; and inside the house he would do nothing – no TV, no books, and after a few days he would start pestering Mamma to return. Thankfully Vikram got a sabbatical for two years to compile a coffee table book on culinary traditions in the Himalayas and came to stay with them in Solan.
I vividly remember during this time his overwhelmingly affectionate greetings whenever any of us visited him. He would be so excited just like a child hugging and kissing us when we arrived; and would become extremely depressed and sad when we left. It burdened us with remorse. He had started getting obsessed with his children, their phone calls, their visits, their jobs. No one else mattered to him.
I feel miserable when I recall that I failed to empathize with him. When he went into his spells of depression, instead of understanding him, I got angry and snapped at him. I asked him to stop being irrational and illogical and when I could not succeed I simply escaped. I just did not have the patience and energy.
And then slowly he started saying, ‘Do not believe in me, I may be wrong, do not take me seriously.’ There was so much suffering when he said this. My Dadoo whom I loved the most had started withdrawing himself. He was always there for me but when he needed me to guide him in this chaos, I was not there mostly.
He badly wanted to call up his lost friends. The more he called and talked about old times and invited them over, the more irritated Mamma got. She would say, ‘They have never called us, so why do you?’ The disease was urging him to link with his past. Perhaps he wanted to remind them that he was still alive. He wanted to connect, to get some assurance that he still knew some people who knew who he was. It was so important for him but we thought it was one of his idiosyncrasies.
Will Dadoo become like Dadi, the cutie pie that she was but also the angry lady she would turn into on rare occasions. Chachi-ji took care of her day in and day out but she hated her the most. Of course, everyone knew that she was a helpless woman nevertheless I used to think many times why her hatred was focused only on chachi-ji. Now I have come to know that it was also the doing of this dreadful disease.
Yes, Dadoo too is changing, his suspicious mind has started weaving stories against all of us. When he is pally with Vikram he talks against us, ‘Rohit and Rewa are very clever; they have left us. They will not do any of our work. We will have to do it ourselves, so let us forget them. You and I will join hands to finish the work.’ When I got to know this, I was disturbed but then I told myself that he was not well and his suspicions would increase many fold in the future.
You don’t know how to react when he says, ‘Because I don’t remember now, you can make a fool of me. I am an old helpless man.
Mera mazak udao, kuch bhi bolo, main kya kar sakta hoon
[make fun of me or be mean to me, I can’t do anything]. Now I am no more the head of the family, so you can take decisions between yourselves. There is no need to ask me anything.’
Sometimes I wonder how Dadoo and Mamma think about each other.
Mamma says that he always considered her semi-literate and did not share many things with her. He was always willing to talk to his sons and daughters but not with her because he felt she would not understand.
Wisdom is not related to educational degrees, she might not be educated but she has run the household. And she has seen the plight of educated people in all these years, their follies, vanities, their false pride and their frailties.
She ‘learnt’ all her life, she learnt to live in a village; to live with educated people, who always talk about degrees and studies; to take care of the elders and how to raise the kids – what has all this been if not learning. She even picked up English in all these years, she understands most of the things when her children spoke in English and she too can converse with them in English. She never considered herself inferior, in any way whatsoever, to any educated person. But I am sure she always felt hurt when her husband made fun of her education.
Mamma always said that Dadoo’s desire to acquire land, to invest wisely, bank accounts, fix deposits, shares and securities was a passion. This he has been doing since he was young. He could discuss these things for hours, this is what interested him; he talked about property, land, money and investments. May be this is connected to their marriage. He came from a village family and she belonged to an extremely rich family in Burma. Her father was one of the richest industrialists there, they had mines and he dealt in rubies, pearls and emeralds, they had ships and cars, and huge farms and orchards. He traded in southeast Asian sea. Theirs was a palatial house with servants and maids. They had gardeners, caretakers, guards, watchmen, drivers, milkmen and other workers all around. The house was always buzzing with activity. Probably all this affected Dadoo and made him feel inferior. Did his hunger for money come because of this?
Since he was not into business, he started to invest in land and shares, which he did wisely. This was his way to equal the lifestyle of his wife’s family. He wanted a better life and he wanted to prove to her that he was not less than anyone. She always understood that. Moreover, this trait of investment had also come to him from his father who was a farmer and a moneylender.
Dadoo probably thought that Mamma would not understand investments and other things, so he looked up to his children to fill this space. When we were in our teens he would discuss with us everything – household budget, money matters, current affairs and politics. He talked about our education, careers, marriages and what we wanted from life on one to one basis. He would bring us books from library – the classics and the popular fiction both – and would encourage us to read.
But when we grew up, went out for education, got married and started our own families he was left alone. Suddenly he had no one to talk to, and with Mamma there was a block. For many years he talked to us on phone and had long conversations but then gradually he lost interest in phone conversations and wanted us to be near him.
He was obsessed with his children, when two of his children were with him he wanted the other two to be there too. Those who were present to hug him, love him and kiss him made him happy, but only for some time, as his mind would drift to the one who was not there and he would be sad.
I also think that Dadoo always felt that Mamma was very beautiful, a headturner, whereas he was not good looking at all. So many times he mentioned this, especially the part when Nana-ji first came to see him, and rejected him ‘because of his looks’, because his ‘one eye was damaged’ since childhood when a thorn had pierced it and his vision was very low in that eye. It was only when they did not find any other suitable match did they agree for the marriage. According to him, it was his education that brought them back.
He never gave much importance to looks. While Mamma came from a family where dressing up and looking good was an essential part of life and going out in the evenings and eating out was a culture. Since she was younger to him by ten years, he started to feel that she was still young and beautiful and full of life, while he was getting old. He started going to the market alone to bring vegetables and groceries and would tell her not to go out needlessly. At times he said that she did not go with him to the market as she thought that he was old.
‘Mamma was beautiful indeed,’ said Mala didi, ‘Whenever she went to the market the shopkeepers would stop weighing things on their scales and were mesmerised by her beauty, the customers would also not mind as they too would be looking at her.’
Many months ago, Dadoo was in one of his philosophical moods, he said, ‘Being old is not natural. It is unnatural.’ I was intrigued and I delightfully goaded him to explain.
He said, ‘When people did not live for a long time their bodies and minds remained strong and healthy. There were not many diseases. Moreover, there was less stress in life. It was like living for a limited time and then gradually fading away. Now we drag on. When we are in our sixties we wish to live for five more years and then five more and it goes on. We have become greedy.’
He further added, ‘When humans were evolving, life was very short. Average life span was twenty or thirty years. All the diseases that hit you with age like blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems and cancer were absent. You reproduced and the drama of life was over. That is what Nature wants you to do. Now, with the help of medical science people tend to add years to their life. This is a problem.’
‘But Dadoo death is inevitable and there is nothing wrong to have better quality of life in the old age with medicines and treatment,’ I try to reason with him.
He shrugs, ‘I don’t know.’
Later, I was astonished to read that recent research also suggests that perhaps life wants us to reproduce and once we do that we are no longer important. The hormones that strengthen reproduction when we are young lead to diseases and degenerative conditions when we age.
10 January 2011
I am losing my father.
Two days back we had got a call from Vikram, ‘Daddy is not well.’ I talked to him on the phone and he was sounding very low. I can still hear his feeble voice on the phone just saying, ‘
Aa jaao bacchon, aur apni mummy ka dhyan rakhna
[come my children and take care of your mother].’
‘Dadoo, you are there to do that,’ I tried to sound strong. He replied, ‘It is no more me now, things have gone beyond me.’ I uttered some reassurances and kept the phone down. The next day Rohit and I left for Solan.
I rushed into his room anxiety ridden. He was lying down. I was shocked to see him. In just ten days he had changed so much, the complexion of his skin had darkened and he looked so feeble and lost underneath the thick quilt.
I kissed him mumbling ‘Dadoo’. He opened his eyes, looked at me and started sobbing softly. It was a very different kind of crying, no tears, but as if he was sobbing his misery out. He put his hands on my face and kissed me fervently ‘
Mera bachhoo aa gaya
[oh, my child has come],’ and he wept inconsolably.