I shouldn't go bare ears!
Encountered death at a close quarter very recently and made me think a bit and no made me ponder. Is it all worth it, when I saw one of our dear ones lying as a log, myriad emotions went through. The man I am talking about had been the most fun-loving person I know of, a caring, exceptional engineer with a very weird name for a Malayali, Premsingh.
He was the man who when I was fighting with my parents against me marrying my partner, advised me to take a break from him and decide after a year. It straight came out of a Hindi romedy — Ek duje ke liye. So that was his sage advice with good intentions to ease the tension between me and my parents which was raging for almost 3 years. I can be stubborn, but at that time something in me told me that's not the advice I would take. If this good man slips off, can't take that chance. Didn't regret too.
This uncle would rattle out the funniest husband jokes at all social gatherings and added charm to that is that his wife my aunt, laughs at it. So that was their chemistry I guess. He seems to have been charmed by my aunt at a very young age when they were playing hide and seek. They used to hide together and he used to extend his hiding with her, just to be with her. Aunt claims that she never took any interest in this bloke who was always at her arm's length. At that point she felt I guess, he was yet another admirer of hers and could ignore. But he worked hard to win her and bring her to Bangalore, which was unknown at that time to shift somewhere new to start a life. Glad that they shifted here, we had the most amazing summer holidays, enjoying the weather here, and most importantly enjoying my uncle's cooking and his jokes and some English songs, which I never understood.
He was bedridden for a long, after a prolonged illness and I was told by my aunt that he was begging to let go, and he often was bitter in his last years, which is very opposite to what he was all through his life. For us, Bangalore meant him more than our aunt, as he was the most welcoming and introduced us to precision cutting in the kitchen and timed cooking, while my aunt indulged in rewashing all the clothes over and over. I am told, he used to hide his pajamas behind photo frames in the pooja room, to save them from my aunt from washing them. So you can understand what kind of fun that house would be with them have a discussion on such topics as to how many times cleaning a used plastic cover is enough to why we even have to wash anything. So that was the melange of opposites which made that home a circus all the time, we all sat on the rink and learned a lot. Those being how to manage time in the kitchen, Not to overspend time in activities which are just life serving, how to enjoy at the end of the day with good music on and a drink, the true army ways, how to indulge in words, he used to read a lot and always had stories to tell from that, how to give space to your partner, how to manage weirdness around you and still have a creative mind and more important not to give a fuck to the world and live it in your terms.
Yesterday when we were paying adieus to him, we all made sure he was given a befitting goodbye with Puja getting done, he loved his pujas and his wishes to donate his eyes being honored. When he was being tugged from bed to ice boxes to floor, I was just wondering, would we want all that? Shouldn't we pack and sent it to our source, the earth asap, instead of all this drama? I would add my wish is to have my best big silver earring on if I go in sleep I may not have them, so please put them on, otherwise I always have them on!
