Vidya — cousin, friend, companion, and my co-conspirator in the craziest of escapades — passed away exactly 10 years ago. What can you say about someone who has shared your earliest experiences, your sharpest memories … where do you begin? As children we’d giggled, we’d played, we’d painted smiley faces on our big toes and exchanged I-know-what-you’re-thinking looks. For hours we’d huddled together in the tickly prickly grass in our grandfather’s garden, under the spreading trees that sprayed us with shadows and gathered up our whispered secrets.
We lived four houses apart and had been inseparable, so much so that people mistook us for sisters, and commented on how close we were although we had never so much as shared a hug. She was spunky, supportive, stubborn, headstrong … and she laughed a lot, quite often at herself. She loved marathon telephone conversations, crossword puzzles, old Hindi film songs, papayas, crisp hot dosas from nocturnal street shops, and, of course, Kanjeevaram silk saris and the hullabaloo of weddings where she would bond with family and friends and even relatives so far removed they could well have been from Mars. She loved being with people and, unlike me, remembered their names and faces, never ever mixed up their spouses, or resurrected their long-departed loved ones and asked why they hadn’t come. With genuine interest she reached out to everyone, enquiring about their kids’ arangetram , or abacus classes, or whatever, and we would be surrounded by dozens of animated faces by the time we adjourned to the dining area for the wedding feast.
Vidya didn’t reach out only to family and friends. The neighbourhood tinker, tailor, delivery boy and ironwallah were all taken under her wing, and they would often spend a few minutes draped over her gate, unburdening their tales of woe as she lent them a sympathetic ear and doled out whatever help she could, along with generous dollops of advice. She wasn’t just a people person — every stray dog, calf or donkey in the vicinity was befriended and fed by her.
She had not lost her composure even when she discovered that she was living on borrowed time, and the months began to unravel under the weight of words like surgery, third stage, chemo, remission, fourth stage … all blurry and smudged at first like smoke rising off the hot tarred roads of our childhood, and then lunging harshly into focus. If there was fear or resentment or despair beneath her matter-of-fact recognition of what her body was doing to her, she never let on. Calmly she went about her tasks: picking the picture she wanted for her obituary in the paper, giving away some of her things, committing to donate her eyes… and to run her home when she was gone. After she left, I wondered why her death evoked such a strange mix of emotions — sadness, an unbelievable sense of loss, relief that her suffering had ended … and anger. Yes, I was furious with her. It was disturbing and didn’t make any sense, but there it was! Vidya and I were born in the same year, studied together in the same college, started working around the same time, got married within months of each other, and our children were born four days apart. We had done everything together. How could she … it just wasn’t fair!
But then, life isn’t ever fair, is it? Wherever you are, I hope it’s filled with light and laughter and peace, with family and friends, with cats and dogs, and oh … a cavalcade of lame ducks for you to advise, reform, console, and straighten out with a firm, no-nonsense talking-to.
veena.seshadri@gmail.com
