Saturday, June 12, 2010

Knowing grief

Dadu at his favourite spot in Indian Gymkhana
My uncle, Prabhakar Kamath, passed away on June 4. His death was not unexpected; in fact, it was very much staring him in the face for months now. Having lost my father to a rheumatic heart when I was just two months, I was brought up by him and nurtured with love, discipline, and a warm sense of security. I never lacked anything--not love, not the regular little things that are necessary to live and the special ones that make living life worthwhile. He spoke little. Very little, in fact. People in my house were careful around him. No, he wasn't an ogre but he liked his space. He spoke in monosyllables and from a very early age, I learned to read his approval or disapproval from the tone of those grunts. He introduced me to books very early in life. You could find a Chaucer nestling really close to a Shakespeare or Pickwick Papers or The Autobiography of a Yogi on our bookshelves. He read voraciously, when he wasn't at work at the Bank of India where he worked in a managerial capacity, or when he wasn't playing cricket. Yes, he was a Ranji Player, an opening batsman and all-rounder and went on to become the first Indian cricket coach to  pass formally out of a coaching college, the first one to be invited outside India for coaching (he coached Sri Lanka) and perhaps the only one to not earn a single penny out of the game. He was an honorary coach. Acknowledged by the cricket fraternity for grooming Wadekar, for contributing to Gavaskar's skills, he was also the coach of the Ranji cricket team, when Vengsarkar captained it and Sachin made his debut.
You could find us both eating our meals with either a book or a newspaper in our left hands, a habit I was told by many, was obnoxious, but which added spice to my meals. I still read when I have my lunch at work. It's a very special time for me. Disciplined to a fault about his exercise regimen, in the last few months, he was confined to his bed, having given up on life. The man who walked from Matunga to Kurla every day for years could not move at all. It was as devastating for him to accept his immobility as it was for me to watch him waste away. He stopped reading the newspaper, recognised me now and then, and sometimes his face broke into a smile when I visited him. His eyes would often fill up; I'm not sure it was because of the pain in his legs (he'd developed athlete's veins); I think it was the pain of being dependent and incontinent. It was because of the loss of freedom, the inability to call the shots, the incapacitation, the fear of turning into a vegetable. Diabetes, a surgery to repair a fractured pelvic bone, and a pacemaker--his body accepted it all, at first with reluctance, then resignation and then with indignation.  Somewhere along the way, I guess he decided that he wanted no more of this life.
I knew he would go; I knew he was in pain, yet I didn't want him to die. I wanted him to recover. When he breathed his last, I was away, at my own home. I rushed to his house, hugged him and wept but there was just no response. He was very very still and his face was surprisingly calm and serene, Buddhalike, as if he was glad to be rid of his pain. If that was so, I'm happy for him. But, what do I do about the pain in my heart? I feel orphaned. Without warning my eyes mist over and I long to see him once again. It feels like yesterday that he took me for a pony ride to Five Gardens and bought me a packet of peanuts or a large slab of chocolate. I won't be helping him scrape and grease his bats and put them against the wall to dry any more or watch him make an egg omelette for himself or share a piece of cheese with him. He held my hand and taught me to walk, he encouraged me to write as I sat by him when he wrote his sports column under the byline Hooker for Free Press Journal. He displayed my prizes and trophies in the living room very proudly. It made me want to top the class always. Today, if I try to be regular with my morning walks, it's because I've seen him do it religiously for years and know how important fitness is. If I write, it's because I've imbibed the pleasure of doing so early in my life from him. If I'm disciplined,he takes all the credit for it. Cricketers called him Joe. I called him Dadu. I was Archu to him. He's gone. I remain. And the memories too, beautiful and permanent to be relived. Don't mind my tears. They will flow, like my love for him. Rest in peace Dadu. Farewell!

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